Taipei - you touched my heart! - food!

After I went to Taipei, I finally understand how nice Chinese food can be!  The food here was not salty, was not oily and did not have MSG! As I mentioned in my Singapore food post, advanced foodies relentlessly debate whether Singapore or Taipei has better food.  Here is my take: Singapore has more variety, they offer Chinese, Malay, Indian and western food at a fairly high level.  But as far as Chinese food goes, Taipei definitely is the BEST! The soup dumpling restaurant Din Tai Fung is a Michelin star Chinese restaurant.

After I read all kinds of websites and travel books, I reached a conclusion, I need to try Taipei's night market food, this is where local people go!

Let me give you a food tour!


Freshly roasted potato stall

The owner is making a Chinese dessert. It usually contains chewy tapioca balls, super boiled red bean or green mung bean, and some corn syrup and shaved ice. It is light and tasty. 

Menu - 1 US Dollar equals to about 28 New Taiwan Dollar

Traditional Taiwanese food - Oyster Omelet 

My eyes were widely open - keep in mind, this was after 20 hours travel time, and it was past midnight local time

Traditional Chinese breakfast - congee  We had that in China too, but I found in Taipei, they usually offer more "add-ons", for example, shredded pork, grilled fish and seaweed is instead of just pickled vegetable. And also the "add-ons" are usually much fresher in Taiwan than those in China.  I ate this pretty much every morning when I was there, it was so delicious.

This is what they sell in 7-Eleven, various kinds of Oden .  I guess you know why Asian people are thin now, they eat oden instead of hot dogs .

Guess what Steve is waiting?

an order of wrap with special sauce marinated thin sliced beef.  This was one of his favorites from his English teacher days of twenty years ago.  It was worth cheating on the vegetarian diet for the delicious trip down memory lane!!

Here is the name of the restaurant - if you ever want to go, I can give you the address. 

24 hour restaurant - Yonghe Soy Milk King.  As super jet lagged as we were during the first couple days in Taipei, this place became a prefect choice.

We had - freshly made cold soy milk, warm soy milk, turnip cake, youtiao and shaobing.

"Chicken fried steak" - we did not eat there, but we found it funny.  In Texas, we have chicken fried steak too (but it's something very different!).  I ate what I guess we would call in Texas "chicken fried chicken" once in Taipei.  The chicken was marinated very well, a bit spicy, and a bit black peppery. 

Legendary Din Tai Fung - it was part of our midnight Taipei jet lag tour, we found its original location, not far from where Steve used to live.

Teppanyaki! It cost two of us about 250 NT$ including drinks, rice and soup, less than USD 10, we ate like queen and king there.

The asparagus is ours!

Cod fish

The real deal!

Taiwanese dessert place

You may think I am weird.  (Some of my friends who have seen me in action definitely do!)  I found this kind of Chinese dessert super delicious. It is called Yu Yuan Xian Cao Bing (ice).  Xian Cao means grass jelly -  which contains a clean, lightly sweet flavor, with just a hint of herbal aroma. Grass jelly is cooling and slippery, and gently dissolves in your mouth.  Yu Yuan are soft cubes of stewed taro.  The combination is mixed with shaved ice. It is light, sweet and tasty.

In KFC, we had egg tart.  It is also a kind of Portuguese dessert.

I am having pan fried big dumpling stuffed with garlic chives
 

Steve is having his last piece of shaobing youtiao
 

Penang Malaysia - food!

I love food!

Yeng Keng Hotel's location is awesome.  There are many places to eat in the nearby area.  Before we left for Penang, many of our friends told us hawker food there is very nice.

Heh,heh, let me show you what we had:

Fried fish head noodle soup

Fujian noodle

Purple juice - freshly squeezed dragon fruit juice

She is making Chao Ke Tiao for me!

The best Hainan Chicken Rice I've ever had!! The chicken is juicy, tender yet not oily.  The sauce is spicy yet does not burn.  The rice boasts flavor of coconut and chicken.  The boss also added a couple pieces of roasted chicken for me to try. The roasted chicken was just as delicious as the Hainan chicken!  

Tek Sen Restaurant makes decent food too. We had Sambal Veggies, fish with celery, eggplant with red sauce (酱烧茄子), and Fish with red sauce (红烧鱼）

Grass juice: Steve did not like it.  I think it was fine.  Just as its name, it has fresh and grassy taste.

I watched a bunch of travel food shows, and many of them mentioned this curry fish head and I always wanted to try.  However, my stomach could not take any more. 

Indian food：Kapitan Restaurant : Fish and Vegetable Biryani

Indian dessert.  I guess it is super sweet.  I did not have room to taste it.  - well I guess I don't regret not having it.