Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Taipei: AYCE Thai! - Sat 3/19

Unfortunately on the 2nd day of my stay in Taipei, I didn't get to go out of the convention hall as much. After all, I did come here for work, which meant I was there approximately 8 hours talking, networking, meeting with suppliers. Heck... I even skipped lunch due to meetings and all that... "fun" stuff haha.

However, I did get to meet up with a few friends, Hubert and Tina, for dinner, and to catch up with the two after not seeing them for almost 2 years. Crazy how fast time goes by.


breakfast
Gotta have a good breakfast to start the day off right! Decided to go to Brother Hotel's bakery 兄弟飯店 麵包房, which is across the street from Nan Jing East Rd MRT station. Also went to 7-11, for some tea egg and the milk coffee. 7-11 in Taiwan really is the most convenient thing ever.

tuna ham pork sung bread
Decided to get a bread that is stuffed with pork sung, tuna, and ham. Crazy combination right?? It's even shaped to look like the scales of a fish! I love Taiwanese people and the magic they perform on bread.

inside of bread
Who knew the combination of pork sung, tuna, and ham would taste so damn good. There's a little bit of clear sweet mayo to help moisten the inside but the bread itself is fluffy, yet firm to the bite.

tea egg (7-11)
Tea egg from 7-11! Glad to say it still taste great, but sad now it is $8NT. I remember when it was only $5NT!

IMG_0257.JPG
Proof that I was actually working XD

salad bar
After another day at the convention center, met up with Hubert & Tina at Sun Yat Sen Memorial MRT station and decided to have some AYCE Thai at Tai Fu Hao 泰富豪 (7:30pm). For $480NTD, roughly around $16USD, you can order anything off the menu, as many times as you want! It has a salad bar as well.

thai milk tea
Unlimited iced Thai milk tea.

red curry chicken
Having curry at a Thai restaurant is almost a must, so we got the Chicken with Red Curry. Didn't get the bamboo shoots in red curry but it's tasty with the tender pieces of chicken.

taiwan beer
Saw they had big bottles of Taiwan Beer Gold Medal for only $100 NTD (~$3). We had to do it.

spicy chicken
辣子雞 fried chicken in spicy sauce. Even though it's suppose to be spicy, it has a lot of citrus flavor that complements the spiciness. Lots of garlic and other aromatics. This is absolutely one of my favorite dish when eating Thai food in Taiwan, so it's a must every time.

shrimp paste on-choy
蝦醬空心菜 on-choy with shrimp paste. Don't know what shrimp paste is? Well, I don't know what the ingredients are but there's shrimp, it's briny, and it's good :P And really, I'm just a sucker for on-choy, aka water spinach (what a lame name).

fried tofu
炸豆腐 fried tofu. With the same sauce as the fried chicken.

shrimp cake
蝦餅 shrimp cake. Fried shrimp cake is a staple for all Thai meals in Taiwan.

lemon fish
檸檬魚 steamed fish in lemon dressing. Every Thai restaurant will make it with a different kind of fish, but it really doesn't matter as long as it is fresh and from the ocean so it doesn't have the freshwater fish taste. It's best when it is the whole fish like that too! The star is definitely the sauce/dressing. Lemony, tart, refreshing, and addicting. You just can't stop eating it. I love pouring the dressing over my rice!

tom yum
Tom Yum soup. Same as everywhere except with a little seafood! Got a little kick.

curry beef
Beef in curry sauce. Probably my least favorite. The beef tasted a bit weird. Probably pounded the hell out of it too much and added too much baking soda to try to make it tender.

yogurt cup
After dinner (9:30pm), walked over to Hubert's store Yogurt Art to sample his new flavors!

yogurt
Original tart and GRAPEFRUIT tart. Oh man that grapefruit tart is... tart! The tartness from the first taste actually surprised me. Hubert said that customers have been wanting a really tart flavor so he developed the grapefruit flavor. Can't say enough about how awesome it is, since I love tart yogurt. Check it out, they have 3 Yogurt Art locations in/around Taipei now!


To be honest, I quite like the idea of an AYCE Thai place, that's not a buffet. Yes, the dishes are small, and it does take a long time sometimes for them to make a certain dish but it is just better to get food cooked to order, rather than it sitting under a heat lamp or a water buffet heater!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

unlimited mt...
man.
luckies.

S.O.F.A.T. (Stories of Food and Travel) Blog said...

AYCE Thai... crazy! It's really cool that it the dishes don't look like you've been walking through a cafeteria line. And imagine if you subbed the tuna for bacon to make pork sung + bacon + ham bread... pork trifecta overload. Mmmm...