Taipei: Snacking around [Oct 2013]

Taiwanese breakfast Taiwanese breakfast Taiwanese breakfast.  That's all I could think about when I landed.  However, it was late at night, so I got to my aunt's, changed, and somehow fell asleep while thinking about that fantuan.

Surprisingly not much jetlag so when I woke up, it was close to 10am already, and there still was a line when I got to Yung Ho for breakfast.

Masters at work, making the sesame bread and the youtiao!

My egg wrapped fan tuan.  There's probably 10+ pictures of this same thing here already, but who cares, I love it.  

Decided to splurge a little and got the turnip cake.  Perfect with a bit of soy sauce.

Hmmm perfection.

After breakfast, I was just about to head out to explore, then I saw an old man selling some zhuabing (hand-grabbed green onion cake), so I had to get it.  With egg of course.

清玉, which is a "new" chain known for their lemon drinks.  They are not that new, but new to me :P  Oolong milk tea just to check it out.  A little bit sweet, even at half sugar.

Needed to get some work done so went to Cafe Trouve near 師大.  Recommended by Cyeh and Diana Cheng haha.  I guess there's lots of these homey, hipster cafes popping up in Taipei now!

Iced latte.

Why not some beef noodle soup?  Decided to try 龍泉街牛肉麵.  Pretty packed when I went.  There's also some awards displayed that they won from the Beef Noodle Festival.

How does it compare?  Not too bad!  The soup's lighter even though it looks quite oily.  Beef brisket is pretty cooked.  I liked the tendon a lot more though.  The preserved greens were whatevers.


Hot spring egg.  Ordered it on the side.  Definitely Japanese influenced.  Essentially a poached egg with a light soy sauce.  I just added it to the beef noodle soup haha.


So while I was walking back from 師大 to 科技大樓, I saw a frying stand, so had to stop by and get some late night snack.  Picked up an oolong milk tea too haha.


Popcorn chicken and pig's blood!  The cool thing about this spot is that they add garlic.  Lots of it!  Pretty generous with the basil too.


Garlic goodness :]

Coming up: my day trip to Yilan, Taiwan!

Taipei: Flying EVA Air [Oct 2013]

Some pics from my trip to Taipei and HK back in October.  I was suppose to head into China too but my visa hit a snafu so I went haha.  Been awhile since the last time I went back either Taipei or HK, so my goal was to eat as much as possible during any downtime, especially in HK, since my schedule there was pretty hectic.

Also, for the first time in over 10 years, I flew EVA Air!  My family's always flew China Airline but the SkyTeam Alliance isn't really for me, and now that EVA's with Star Alliance (United), I decided to earn some mileage and check EVA out.

In-flight menu.  I flew Premium Economy so the seats were like the old old business class products.  Just a little wider and more leg room than regular Economy. 

Pork chop with minced pork rice.  I gotta say, not too shabby!  Wine was pretty good, and I'm a sucker for Milano cookies haha.  Especially dark chocolate!

Pork chop.  Flavor's pretty good.

Braised pork shank.

For dessert, kept the Milan cookies, and went for the Haagen-Dazs Vanilla.

Breakfast on the other hand... was pretty horrible.  I hate porridge.  The chicken was so bland too.

Added some fish sung (shredded dry fish) to make it better.

This lady also ruined my appetite for breakfast.  She didn't eat but kept rubbing her foot with the lotion the airline provided.  Literally she rubbed it for 15+ minutes during service.

When I landed, it was drizzling, warm, and the air so thick you can almost chew it.  Felt good to be back after so long haha.