Taiwan: 鼎泰豐 [Din Tai Fung]

Of course, you can't complete a trip to Taiwan without going to the original 鼎泰豐 Din Tai Fung!

Vinegar + ginger = must have for all the buns they have.

Din Tai Fung's 泡菜 kimchi... not as good as I thought haha. But I think it's the only thing that's so-so here :P

The first item, 翡翠餃 vegetable dumpling! I loved the outside of the dumpling. It's thicker and much more "Q" than other places.

And of course you dip it into the vinegar.

The star of Din Tai Fung, 小龍包 xiao long bao!! Still the best ever.

Close up of the beauty :]

If you didn't know, Din Tai Fung is also known for the 酸辣湯 hot & sour soup.

炒空心菜 Stir-fry on-choy. Just on-choy, or water spinach as some people call it, with garlic.

They are also known for their 炸排骨 fried porkchop. It's seasoned fried porkchop and you add some vinegar to it. It's actually a very Shanghai way of eating porkchops.

Ok, fine they are known for a lot of things, like this 蝦仁炒飯 shrimp fried rice. I can eat 4 plates of these... EASILY. I love fried rice hahaha. Japanese people always order this.

A special item at Din Tai Fung, 蟹黃小龍包 crab roe xiao long bao. It's twice as much as normal xiao long bao but the flavor is totally worth it.

炸醬麵 zha jiang mian. It's interesting cause they add edamame and little pieces of tomato to make it sweeter and balance it with the saltiness. Very good. My mom is starting to make it this way now too haha.

發糕, which is a Cantonese-style dessert. It's essentially mashed sticky rice with sugar then steamed.

豆沙包 red bean bun. My favorite dessert here!

Close up of the delicious beauty. Notice how thin the outside layer is. Din Tai Fung's known for that.

I just love Din Tai Fung, and it's even better when my aunt's treating hahaha.

Taiwan: 老董牛肉麵 [Dong's Beef Noodle Soup]

If you didn't know, 牛肉麵 beef noodle soup is absolutely one of my favorite of all time, but it's really hard to find a place with good noodle soup here in the States. Whenever I go back to Taiwan, I eat it as much as I can and this time I decided to try the beef noodle soup from 老董, which won first place at the Beef Noodle Festival that Taipei holds every year.

Got their 半筋半肉牛肉麵 [tendon and meat beef noodle soup]. The soup was really light and you can really taste the flavor from the beef. They use a much more fatty part of the cow so the the beef was tender but a little bit too much fat for my liking. The beef tendon was amazing though. You can tell how long they've been braising and cooking it just from taking one bite since it's so soft. Usually tendons are really hard to cook through.

Their 酸菜 that you add to the noodle soup, which is actually pretty light compared to a lot of places. Nothing special really.

Traditional green onion cake. It's a little different in that they coil it into the shape seen above. My favorite item from 老董.

Their 牛肉捲餅 beef wraps, that's covered with sesame. The inside's marinated beef along with cucumber, green onion, and sauce. It's the first time I've seen a beef wrap that's coated with sesame. Gives it a different texture and flavor!

I went to this place with too much hype and expectations. I do love that it's not oily like some places but don't think it deserves the #1 title. It is an old school place since they've been there for so long. It's a good place to go for really old school beef noodle soup that's light on the palate.

Taiwan: 宜蘭 [Yi'Lan]

So, Yi'Lan is my mom's hometown. It's about an hour and a half away by train and 40 minutes by bus from Taipei. It's known for hot springs, and pretty much really good food. A lot of people from Taipei go to Yi'Lan for the weekend to relax and enjoy the nightmarkets there. The 羅東 nightmarket is really well known since it has a lot of specialities that other nightmarkets just doesn't have. I go to Yi'Lan almost everytime I go back to Taiwan, just to see my grandma and my aunts, and of course, eat :]

Taiwanese-style green onion cake with egg. It's from this one stand that has people waiting in line since 8am in the morning. Crazay. He fries the dough with green onions on a hot skillet then adds an egg on top so it fuses together. After, he adds a soy sauce based sauce to it and that's pretty much it. Absolutely gdamn delcious.

Yessir :]

打磕麵 "snoring noodles." It's called snoring noodles because the line is so long that it's said people start falling asleep waiting for it HAHA. Awesome. It's a little bit of pork fat mixed with celery, vinegar, hot chili sauce, and black pepper. You stir it and it's ready to eat. So simple, yet so good.

Their 餛飩湯 wonton soup, which is famous also.

It only looks slightly empty cause we went at 11. By the time we finished, the wait was about 40-50 minutes!

After the noodles, we saw a stand that sold 仆鴨, which is fried duck meat, but instead of it being salty, the mixture they dip into into before they fry it is sweet. Pretty interesting.

羅東nightmarket during the day, which is pretty... dead haha. Afterall, it is a nightmarket but still plenty of vendors selling food :D

龍鳳腿, which they wrap cabbage, ground pork, and mayo with pig skin membrane, then fried. I know it sounds nasty, but it's surprisingly good hahah. Mom said she used to eat this as a kid in Yi'Lan.

The famous 龍鳳腿.

Giganitc 碳烤炸雞排. They fried these big pieces of chicken steak, then they grill it with coals, coating it with the sauce or flavoring that you chose. I had it with teriyaki suace cause the lady recommended it haha. Can't really go wrong with fried chicken! :]

AND when night comes, my aunt went out and bought these delicious goodies :D

Of course, popcorn chicken, done the RIGHT way (fried with basil)

Fried tempura, pig blood, and yams from the same stand. Glorious.

Then she also got an assortment of braised and marinated items. Duck wings, pork intestines, pig blood, cabbage, and... some stuff I have no idea what it is, but it's delicious haha.

Next day, my aunt took us to a place where they've gone and ate Taiwanese food since they were a kid. It's owned by the neighbors so they always give discounts to my grandma and aunts whenever they go. Had to get 魯肉飯 (minced meat rice) of course hahaha.

Dish #1: marinated clams. Just soy sauce, rice wine, ginger, chili peppers. So simple. Best I've had in Taiwan too.

魷魚羹 squid soup? I don't know how to translate it, but it's damn good haha. This restaurant is known for it, as well as...

... this! It's 鯊魚煙 smoked shark, and you dip it in this sauce made from soy sauce paste and minced garlic. So damn good.

腮棒肉 pork cheek. It's just boiled pork cheek meat and you dip it in the same sauce as the shark meat, with a little bit of ginger.

燙A菜 boiled vegetables (potato leaves). They just boil the vegetable then they add minced meat over it with soy sauce paste.

溫泉蛋 hot spring eggs. Since 宜蘭 has a lot of hot springs, a lot of their dishes are named after it. They boil the eggs so it's half done, then they add soy sauce and other flavoring to season it. Heavenly.

After we ate, my aunt took us to the last place we'd visit before my sister and I went back to Taipei, to this place called 橘之鄉, which sells all sorts of preserved fruits and meat jerky, but mostly snacks made from 金柑 (kumquats).

This is preserved kumquat using salt. Interesting taste compared to what you usually think of citrus fruits.

Same kumquat, preserved with sugar. A lot more familiar tasting than the salted one.

Sour preserved kumquat. They just let these dry and let the natural flavors take over.

Made from a different fruit... totally forgot what it was but it's good hahaha.

I love Yi'Lan :]

Taiwan: 欣葉 [Shin Yeh]

Second day in Taipei, wentto 欣葉 Shin Yeh, which is a Japanese buffet restaurant, for the "afternoon tea" buffet. I pretty much eat here at least once everytime I head back haha.

The sashimi station, which serves tuna, salmon, and swordfish I think. The hotfood buffet has several grilled fish items, tempura, and some stir-fried stuff.

None of the tiny tempura shrimp, only the big ones here! Also, grilled fish collar which is my favorite haha.

Handrolls! They make it as you order. Awesomeness :D

Salmon sashimi. I think I ate about 5 plates' worth hahaha.

Some of the dessert items they have there: black sesame dorayaki, Korean sesame mochi bread, and double chocolate cake. The mochi bread was really interesting since the inside has a mochi texure while the exterior has a crunch to it.

Of course, this being afternoon tea, they have over 20 kinds of hot and cold beverages. Tried the black sesame yogurt, 薰衣草奶茶 (lavender milktea), and cappucino.

Everytime I head back to the States I always crave it just cause it's an awesome place to go for authentic Japanese food at a reasonable price. They need something like that here haha.