Here are some quick snacks we picked up at Shi Lin Night Market.
I am not a big fan of chinese sausages actually. But this was really pretty good. Crispy thin coat with a hint of sweetness and spurts of juices on the inside. Although this was twice the price of one in our local pasar malams, it's twice the flavour!
Authentic crispy XXL chicken! I thought it tasted really like the one in Singapore, just that it's BIGGER (like from your head to your neck, that big!) and un-cut. And it's cheap too! $2.50 for one piece. A little tad difficult to eat though, with my braces in the way. :(
At one of the many eateries. They sell many various food, such as oyster egg, squid seafood soup, spicy plain beehoon and etc.
Oyster egg, eeeeeek. This was not something that I liked and expected it to be. I like the ones in Singapore better. This one was super starchy with lots of cabbage stuffings in it. I felt so cheated! Okay, maybe that's the taiwan version. Or so I think.
This is from a famous shop with lots of pictures of celebrities taken with them. This was really really good! The secret in this winning dessert lies in the ice. They added milk into it which made great texture and delicious shaven ice. Topped with fresh cold and sweet assorted fruits and drizzled with generous amount of mango syrup and condensed milk!
JAPANESE RESTAURANT AT ZHONG SHAN BEI LU
Prawn cutlet at one of the japanese restaurants found in taiwan. I thought it was an innovative dish! It's my sister's lunch actually. Crispy batter with succulant crunchy bits of prawns! It went really well with a squeeze of the lemon.
Oooooh, this was mine. Fried pork cutlet (not halal) with curry gravy provided. It's the restaurant's signature dish! The main course was accompanied by appetizers and a piping hot bowl of miso soup (which tasted really rich). I loooveee the curry gravy, which was the japanese kind of curry. Very thick and rich, with a slight tinge of spiceyness in it. It was so good, I dunked every piece of pork cutlet into it. My sister had to steal some of it from me for her prawn cutlet.
Look at that! I thought it was really well fried, golden-brown in colour :D
Restaurant's famous puddding! I got the mango flavoured one, and it was genius. The pudding was so soft, it crumbled and melted in my mouth instantly. It definitely didn't taste like some artificially flavoured pudding sold in supermarkets.
XI MEN DING
Taiwan's egg crepe! My dad got it off at a roadside hawker. It was kind of disappointing for me. The egg wasn't fully cooked, it tasted really really raw. Some might like it, but it didn't work out for me. It tasted exactly like roti prata with egg. I always do my eggs at least half cooked in my roti prata as it wouldn't taste very raw or too cooked.
We soon stopped by at a popular dumpling noodle shop. These are prawn dumplings. For a set of 10, it was only priced at $2! Succulent biggg juicy prawns are wrapped in each dumping, with meaty pork fillings as well. The prawns give the extra crunchiness in the dumplings and they have tasty broth spilling out in your mouth when you bite into them. They were served piping hot, I like! I am not sure if you guys are like me but I love my dumplings with lots of vinegar and ginger shreddings!
The inside of the prawn dumpling
Shu Cai (vegetables) dumplings. I kind of liked these too! They were really generous with the vege fillings, reaaallly crunchy and juicy. But I ate the prawn ones more. Hehe.
Another favourite, guo tie (pan-fried dumplings) They were freshly pan-fried which I really liked, unlike some of the roadside stalls where they re-grilled the dumplings whenever there were customers. Have you noticed the strange rectangular shapes of the dumplings? It's really different from the ones we have here in Singapore. And yeah, all of the guo tie in taiwan are all rectangular shaped. But heck the shape, I love these with extra vinegar and ginger shreddings too! :D
We ordered la mian (noodles) to go with the dumplings. Mine was original flavoured and had this sour spicy taste in it. It seemed like a small bowl of noodles in the picture but it was huuggee serving of noodles. Damn, we all should have shared 2 bowls instead of getting 4 bowls. I felt the noodles were too good to be wasted. :( I liked how beansprouts were added in the noodles because beansprouts never seem fail me. :D I am a big fan of beansprouts!
My dad ordered a big bowl of prawn dumpling soup. I couldn't really tell the difference between this one and the previous one besides the colour of the dumpling skin. Both had the same taste, prawn with meaty fillings...Okay, maybe this one was bigger. Oh, and the soup was really good, it was light and just perfect to wash down your throat after a scrumptious and fulfilling meal.
Heh heh, the inside of the dumping.
After dinner, it would be always be good to save some space in your stomach for dessert. We stopped by a popular dessert shop (there are alot of shops in taiwan which are really popular!) for.. dessert! :D
Some chinchow+green beans+ I-am-dunno-what + barley+shaven ice+syrup. I know it doesn't look that good in the picture but it was a good thirst quencher! Something very different from our ice kachangs and chendol.
That was cold dessert. Now this is hot dessert. Shucks, I didn't take a good photo of this because all of the stuff sank to the bottom of the bowl. I dont know why, but I liked this better than the cold one. Maybe because I like green bean soup. It tasted like green bean soup.
TAM SHUI JIE
At a cozy tako yaki shop. 6 pieces for $2! We got 18 pieces for $4.50!
Whoaaa, even jacky WU came to their shop! And some other celebrities which I didn't take.
Oh yes! More Mayo dressing please.
Tada! Tako Yaki, with wasabi and mayo and tako yaki sauce, topped with the shop's famous bonito flakes. They were very generous with the bonito flakes and the shop owners were really nice and sweet! And we had complementary sour plum juice which had a really special taste but too sweet for my liking. The shop owners then explained that the sweetness of the drink was the orginial taste (no sugar added!) and they did not want to further dilute it to destroy the authenticity of the drink. How honest of them!
They also recommended their prawn roe sausages too. Do you see those little white spots? They are tiny little prawn roes in the sausages! I didn't really taste anything that significant with the prawn roes in it, they tasted like sausages and I only noticed the prawn roes when the shop owners told us about them. Oh well, but still it was good. Like the Shi Lin Market one.
Who's up for some TALL ice-cream?
I was! :D We had a chocolate flavoured one. We had a small one because we were too full from all the tako yaki. It didn't taste as nice as it looks like here. :( It was some diluted chocolate ice which I didn't much fancy.
SOME NIGHT MARKET NEARBY, I FORGOT THE NAME
Fried squid! Like those at Old Chang Kee. Taiwanese seem to like squid alot, they have alot of squid delicacies here. The batter of this fried squid taste very much alike the XXL chicken batter. The hawker also added some spices in it and shook it in a tin can before transferring them up into the paper bowl. It was alright for me actually, nothing much special about it. We tried the cuttlefish balls too. But I did not take a photo of it because my mom finished it up beofore I could. What I didn't like about it was.. that it was.. RE FRIED. I was shocked that he threw the piece of cuttlefish back into oil to heat it up. No thanks, I DO NOT NEED RE-HEATING of my food by throwing it back into the oil. Omg, the horror of horrors.
A very popular roadside stall selling rou bao (meat buns)! What's so special about their baos is that they cook it under charcoal so it is healthier as it wouldnt be as oily unlike those grilled oily buns at other roadside stalls (in a way or so). So this is a great midnight snack without worrying about getting fat!
:D
Dessert at another roadside stall. Not as good as the one I had in Shi Lin! Fruits in taiwan are really sweet, as it is fruit season now!
AT SOMEWHERE, I FORGOT THE NAME TOO!
This was a popular food shop too! A taxi driver recommended us this place. Xiao Long Bao sooo goood, you can literally forget about Din Tai Feng or Crystal Jade, seriously. I love the explosion of the broth in the mouth. The skin was thin, not so thin to the extent that the broth would spill out. It was just right. Topped it up with vinegar and ginger shreddings (here I go again) it makes a perfect combo!
Guo Tie with sweet sauce provided. This was better than the previous one we had at Xi Men Ding.
Siew Mai (prawn dumplings) This was really good as well. I don't have to say anymore. The picture says it all. Everything was so good, my dad ordered a 2nd serving for all 3 dishes.
AT YET ANOTHER JAPANESE RESTAURANT
Shucks, sorry, this photo is a complete mess. I had some marinated pork with rice set meal. It didnt look as good as it was in the menu. Hahah. Before I started regretting my choice, I took a mouthful of it. The pork was marinated well and it was given in generous amount as well. My mom then gave me a part of her unagi, it was great too! The meal was very light, not too oily. All set meals include a main course, a bowl of chawanmushi (I LOVE CHAWANMUSHI!), some jellyfish appetizer and a bowl of miso soup. Dinner was definitely very satisfying.
BACK AT SHI LIN STREET AGAIN
This was kind of attention grabbing. We were back at Shi Lin Street again on the last night and we spotted this guy flipping supposedly taiwan crepes (this really reminded me of roti prata) and he placed the dough on a hot rounded metal thing to heat the dough which eventually... became a roti-prata like crispy crepe.
Look, this was no ordinary taiwan egg crepe okay.. it was...
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CHICKEN CREPE! Okay, that wasn't really surprising. The grilled chicken aroma warfting through the air was something VERY irresistable. So yeah, we got one even though we were really full from dinner.
Chicken with crisp lettuce and onions. No sauce for this one. It tasted pretty bland and dry without any sauce. I was really expecting sauce! : /
Alright, that pretty much summed up my whole food story in Taiwan. Keep reading kim chi noodless for more updates! :D
