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: Ramen Before My Flight - Day 4

Day 4 meant that it was the last day in Taipei for me on this work trip. Diana, Cyeh, Sophia, and I planned to have lunch around the City Hall area since I was gonna be in that general area for work.

We really didn't know where to go for lunch so we ended up walking around a bit and somehow ended up at at ATT Center once again. Like all shopping centers and department stores in Taiwan, there's a restaurant area on the top floors. We got up there and instantly I was drawn to Sanji 三士 because there was a line forming outside! Sanji turned out to be a ramen shop and I've been craving good ramen for awhile so we decided to wait out the 20 minutes in line!

Sanji 三士

ATT 4 Fun Xinyi Store 5F

12, Songshou Rd, Taipei

ATT信義店5F

台北市信義區松壽路12號

Outside it says that it is Kagoshima-style ramen. Don't really know if Sanji came from Japan or just a ramen shop with Kagoshima-style ramen. Never had Kagoshima-style ramen so I was very excited to try!

You can add $65NT to make your ramen into a combo, so I figured why not. Picked the chasu bowl with Calpico as my drink and they came first!

Chasu Rice. Very big bowl of rice... much bigger than the ones I'm accustomed in the States. Nice flavor on the pork but there should be more :P

I've drank so much Calpico on this trip... yet still not sick of it!

I ordered the Deluxe Ramen 華麗三士拉麵, which was #1 on the menu. Comes with 4 slices of chasu, soft-boiled egg, and a bunch of toppings. Kagoshima-style ramen has a tonkotsu/seafood-based broth with thicker noodles than normal ramen. Soup is very nice although it is a bit salty. I can see why the thicken curvy ramen would be popular since it gives it "Q" and gives it a nice bite!

I think Santouka is still up there for me, especially the one I've had in Japan, but this is definitely one of the better ramen I've had in Taiwan! Over the past 2 years, I've noticed more and more of these specialty ramen shops opening up. Gotta make an effort to visit a few more the next time I am in Taipei.

Great soft-boiled egg. Perfectly cooked.

Chasu. Good mix of fatty and lean parts.

Others' Longma Ramen 龍馬拉麵, which is essentially a simpler version of mine. Less toppings with two slices of chasu and only half an egg.

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Afterwards, said bye to all and went back to work. Of course I stopped by Ten Ren again since it was at ATT but didn't take a picture of it this time. Let's just say... I've had over 10 milk tea in 4 days in Taipei :P

After work, decided to head to this street near the Da An MRT Station and the post office since there's a bunch of food vendors there! Michael Lin's favorite beef noodle soup stand is there as well.

The street with all the food vendors. It's sorta like... a nightmarket except during the daytime! This picture sums up the trip pretty well too. Rained the whole time. I didn't see the sun once the whole time in Taipei haha.

Somehow I always end up at this fry stand, 老K雞排. They also have steamed items here but I always get chicken here. The boss lady is crazy! She can speak English VERY WELL. I ordered in Chinese but when a Philipino lady came up, she was speaking English fluently!

Fried Chicken Steak. Dark meat flattened a little, breaded, they sprinkled with chili powder and white pepper seasoning!

After I finished that, saw an egg cake 雞蛋糕 stand so decided to get that!

Ahhh I miss egg cakes so much. Glad to get it this time around. I actually got a machine so maybe I'll try to make some one day.

Fluffy and doughy.

Before I left for the airport, decided to grab an Assam Milk Tea from 7-11 for the road.

Once again, beef noodle soup from the China Airlines VIP Lounge. Still the best lounge food ever.

Dim sum items: dumplings, glutinous rice balls, xiao long bao, glutinous rice 粽子 (Chinese tamales), and shaomai.

The glutinous rice 粽子 was my favorite out of all.

First time I sat in the China Airlines's new business class! Bigger screen!

Generally food is better on the leg from TPE to LAX... but it was whatevers... food came all at once rather than one course at a time like the LAX - TPE leg.

Thai Curry Fish. Again... didn't care for it.

Very bland looking garlic bread. What happened???

Went with the Chinese-style breakfast cause they had some weird omelette on the menu again.

Side items were better than on this leg! Bean curd & egg pancake.

Pickled cucumber and pork sung. The pork sung in Taiwan is sooooo good. It's the pork or something... so much better.

So this was a loaf of bread that I sneaked back from Taiwan: mango bread from the famous Pasadena Bakery 帕莎蒂娜烘焙坊 in Kaoshiung! The bread was ridiculously good. Sweet Taiwanese mango chunk baked into an artisan loaf of bread. The texture and the aroma when I heated in the oven was amazing.

This is the bread that made the bakery famous: dried logan wine loaf 酒釀桂圓大麵包. A loaf of bread with dried logan and nuts that's made without any eggs and oil. The dough is infused with wine. Amazing aroma with notes of barley! The head baker actually placed in several international events, including first in the Asian competition then 2rd in the world competition!

So I got back on a Wednesday and as soon as I unpacked, I began to pack for New York since I was leaving the next night!

As I'm On the Way Back

The Hunan restaurant marked the end of my trip as I prepared myself for the trip back home the night before. Just getting back is an adventure all by itself. First, since Huizhou is fairly deep in Guangdong Province, we had to ride for about 2 hours just to get to Shenzheng. From there, cross the border through "buses." The buses are essentially small vans for about 4-6 people and you sit in the van while you get checked by customs, both Chinese and HK. It's pretty convenient since by foot it'll probably take forever. Not exactly cheap though at 300rmb. After you cross, the van takes you directly to HK Airport so it's a convenient way of traveling in and out of mainland through HK. It took about 4-5 hours after lunch for the whole process.

Of course, from HK, had to fly to Taipei, and then back to LAX. Never really have much time to really sit and eat since you're always on the move, but luckily I was able to join others in the VIP lounge (they flew business while I flew economy back :P).

Before I found out I got food poisoning from the night before, decided to go to KFC for breakfast. KFC is everywhere in China, and most are open 24/7!

No breakfast burrito or sausage & biscuit here. Instead you can get, breakfast chicken sandwich!

So what makes it a breakfast chicken patty? I guess they add veggies to it haha.

You can even get 油條 Chinese donut at KFC!

In HK Airport they got this cool model of an old school plane.

Was lucky enough to be able to go into the 1st VIP lounge for China Airline so took advantage of it. I actually still had food posioning... but once in a lifetime chance to eat in the 1st class lounge! Ordered me some fried rice! It's made fresh for you in the back.

茶葉蛋 Tea eggs! I heart tea eggs.

Good dark colors on the egg.

Even dark colors on the yolk means that the flavors have been fully absorbed :]

糯米雞 Sticky rice chicken. It's actually really really legit and delicious here!

Wanted something sweet so got an almond croissant, jelly donut, and oranges.

It's actually pear preserves inside the donut!

In-flight meal provided from HK to Taipei. I didn't eat much... since my stomach was starting to hurt again. Boo.

Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport has come a loooong way compared to a few years ago.

1st Class VIP lounge in Taiwan. HK's had the exact same decor.

Of course had to get more beef noodle soup. My stomach was hurting for the whole flight after I ate this but it was worth it.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to take a picture of what China Airline served on the flight back to LAX. It's actually really good too since now China Airline works with 鬍鬚張 Beard Chang to incorporate 魯肉飯 minced pork rice into their menu now.

In the end, this trip to the Far East, I definitely got to try a lot more newer things. Just sucks that I had food poisoning towards the end. Hopefully more trips to come in the future that I can take advantage of. There's more to be eaten out there!