Showing posts with label taipei. Show all posts
Showing posts with label taipei. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

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!

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

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

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Hmmm perfection.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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Iced latte.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

dinner menu EVA Air dinner menu
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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. 

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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!

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Pork chop.  Flavor's pretty good.

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Braised pork shank.

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

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

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

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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.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

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

sanji
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!

combo
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!

pork rice bowl
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

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

deluxe ramen
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.

soft boiled egg
Great soft-boiled egg. Perfectly cooked.

chasu
Chasu. Good mix of fatty and lean parts.

ramen
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.

food
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.

da an fry stand
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!

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

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

egg cake
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.

inside
Fluffy and doughy.

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

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

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

glutinous rice
The glutinous rice 粽子 was my favorite out of all.

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

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

bread
Very bland looking garlic bread. What happened???

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

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

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

mango bread
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.

award winning
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!