To transfer from Sun Moon Lake to Taipei, we took a SML shuttle bus which departed at 12.50 pm from SML Bus Station. We reached HSR Taichung Station after an hour later. Scurried to the HSR ticket counter to buy 1 way ticket from Taichung to Taipei at TWD 700 per head. Departure time was at 2.15 pm, so we didn't have much time to hang around. Quickly got to the platform, waiting for our train which would arrive soon. As you can see, we had reserved seat tickets. Just look out for the cabin number stated as car number on your ticket, and queue at the correct waiting line which normally can be found written on the platform floor. Yup, we were going North bound, with only 4 stops from Taichung to Taipei. Reached Taipei at 3.05 pm, which only took 50 minutes.
When we reached Taipei main station, we walked into an underground mall, and stepped out of Exit 7 to get to City Inn Hotel III. The room was neat and tidy with comfortable beds, but was quite space constraint compared to our previous stay, outside Taipei city. But City Inn is strategically located in the middle of the hustle and bustle city where it is 5-10 minutes walking distance to NingXia Night Market, with lots of eateries around, and the centre of main public transportation.
Walking towards Taipei Railway Station had never been easier as it took us only 5-10 minutes walk from our hotel to the station. So getting around within Taipei was a lot more convenient.
Hui Ya had arranged to meet up with a friend at 7 pm. She was a local, and her intention for meeting up was to bring us to Keelung. Heard there was a very old bakery shop which makes delicious authentic pineapple cakes. She planned to bring us to Miao Kou Night Market which is just a walking distance away from the famous bakery shop. Keelung is the second busiest port city, after Kaoshiung, which is located at the North of Taiwan.
We took a local train from Taipei main station to Keelung which is the last station on the Western Line.
We ate all the time, all the way, during our short stay in Taipei, literally. We pigged out like there was no tomorrow and nobody's business. Interested to find out what local snacks and delights we had? Let's read ON!....
The first place which we dropped by was a bakery shop famous for its yam ball. It is a dessert freshly made from pure yam paste, lightly sweetened, and tasted very yummy. Honestly, I am not a sweet tooth kind of person, but dessert sold in Taiwan is really to my liking.
Pure yam paste balls
Next, we hopped to Miao Kou Night Market. It was drizzling that evening, and temperature was a bit low, as Keelung is located to a port, facing the open sea. However, the night market was teeming with people, who wandered around looking for local delights.
We were very famished and cold, time was 8 p.m. I craved for something hot and soupy, and was happy to found a shop selling dian bian hu. For those who do not know, just a brief introduction...dian bian hu is a unique FooChow delight, a dish made of rice starch, which is painstakingly ground manually. The rice starch is scooped and spread thinly on the side of a heated wok, and scrap once it is almost done, into boiling stock in the wok. The soup or stock is prepared using different ingredients, such as seafood, making the whole dish very refreshing. Just talking about the process had made me drool. I once saw my paternal aunt prepared this dish for us. By the way, I am a FooChow.
Though I felt very fortunate to have dian bian hu in Taipei, but I was a bit skeptical. Nobody knows this dish best other than a Siburian like myself. The best available dian bian hu one can get is none other than in Sibu...:D. My verdicts: The one that I had in Taipei: the rice starch was too tough and springy. The real rice starch should be soft, smooth and still firm in texture, which is not overcooked until the starch becomes gluey. But it is still worth to try the dish out coz the soup was really yummy.
Ding Bien Chuo....soupy rice starch with seafood
Then we had fried salad sandwich. We joined in the beeline, got our Q number to get served later. Basically the bread was deep fried, stuffed with some chopped cucumber, tomato, sausages, stewed boiled eggs and drizzled with mayo. Nice and very filling. It was one of the must-eat snacks in Miao Kou Night Market.
Fried Salad Sandwich
Popiah, very similar to the one we have in Singapore, but the ingredients slightly varied. Instead of using boiled egg, they used stir fried egg. They also added in julienned carrot for extra crunch and sweetness, and also some char siu.
Healthy popiah
Shaved ice dessert
Porkie sausage
We sat down for some steamy starchy meat balls (ba wang). This stall served ba wan with minced pork and crunchy shrimp filling.
Ba wang or starchy pork ball
Our local friend also insisted that we tried the deep fried potato balls. It reminds me of the potato balls which I had in Cameron Highlands, only that it tasted a lot better. The one in Taipei was too spongy, maybe because baking powder and more flour were added into it. Hence, the texture which I expected to have like the one in Malaysia, was not met. Still prefer the one in Cameron Highlands!
Potato balls
Many Taiwan local delights are starchy. They love to add in cornstarch solution to thicken up their dishes, especially the soupy type. So as these 2 dishes, to the left was the shredded cuttlefish soup, and the right was the eel soup. I prefer the cuttlefish soup, eaten with plenty of vinegar. The eel had too much fine bones, and one must be extra careful while having this dish if you do not want to get choke with the bone down under your throat.
Thick soupy delights: Cuttlefish and eel thick soup
Not forgetting our main mission was to buy boxes of pineapple cakes before leaving Keelung. The big box consists of 30 pieces of ready packed pineapple cakes. I had 3 boxes of pineapple cakes, and I tell you what...do not judge by the box appearance, with the cakes inside, they were super heavy. Luckily I only bought 3 boxes, not more! But this very old bakery shop is said to sell the best authentic pineapple cakes, the filling is not too sweet, with tiny bit of sourish aftertaste (we love that)... proving that they use purely pineapple paste for their filling. My family loves those pineapple cakes.
Famous authentic pineapple cakes from an old bakery shop in Keelung.
After getting the pineapple cakes, it was time for us to head back to Taipei.
The next morning, Elaine and I planned to shop and splurge in Wu Fen Pu, a wholesale garment market, while Hui Ya went to National Taiwan Museum. Before 2 of us set off, we had some crispy fried dough, rice roll and soya bean milk. We bought our breakfast from a shop nearby our hotel, and found a park to finish up the simple yet delicious morning meal.
Simple brekkie: soya bean milk with fried dough, and savoury rice roll. The rice roll was very compact with meat floss and crispy fried LARD as filling...SHIOK!
Then, we headed to XiMenDing just for its famous bowls of oyster mee sua. That time, 11a.m. was too early for any shopping activities. Most shops were still closed. We had a small bowl each. There was a small table nearby, with many condiments and sauces prepared. Patrons can add them into their mee sua based on individual's preference. I like my mee sua with lots of minced garlic, vinegar, and chilli paste for that extra kick. The verdict: Beware! Their oyster mee sua was very addicting...but you would definitely find yourself gulping down tons of water, the entire day. I suspect they added in a lot of MSG (monosodium glutamate) into their dish. No wonder their mee sua tastes so freaking GOOD!
Ah Chung oyster mee sua in XiMenDing
To look for Ah Chung Oyster Mee Sua, alight at XiMen station, take Exit 6 at XiMen Pedestrian area. Walk towards the main entrance, until you see a KFC restaurant. The famous Ah Chung mee sua is located at the right hand side of the stretch of shops opposite of this KFC. The actual address is No. 8-1 Emei Street.
Next, it was shopping time! We took a train to HouShanPi station. Exit 1 to Wufenpu Commercial zone. The 1-way MRT ticket, which looked like tokens.
Once exit from the station, walked towards the Wufenpu, following the signages like below.
You will come to a park with a playground, with a Chinese temple next to it. The Wufenpu is just next to this temple.
After the MSG-laden bowl of mee sua, I could not help it but to stop for some fresh manually squeezed orange juice.
I have a crazy fetish on caps, hats, beanies or any head gears. Usually I won't step out of any shops selling hats, empty-handed....hahahaaa. I do have a collection of them! See, I got myself a striking red one with Totoro's ears...LOL
Posed at Wufenpu....with a big shopping bag, so that I could stuffed all my loots later on!
After hours of rummaging through the sale items, my tummy started to rumble. It was around 4-ish afternoon. Hui Ya joined us for late lunch in Wufenpu. There were food stalls near to this temple. Finding food in Wufenpu is easy and convenient.
We had a plate of braised sliced pork, with fried tofu for sharing; Elaine had beef tripe and noodle soup....
While, I had a bowl of al-dente beef noodle soup with braised beef. I just adore Taiwan beef noodle so so much that I could possibly eat it everyday!
Back to our hotel, wore our beanies and took a memorabilia shot. :)
These were my buys of the day from Wufenpu! I super love the black pair of rain boots with cute bows at the back and with heels, OMG!! I love heels!....bought at SGD30. A steal right?? Coz I swear I saw a similar pair in Tokyo which costs a lot more! Though it is not a trend in Singapore, where people will wear rain boots on rainy days, but in Japan, most of them, I mean girls do..hahahaaa
In the late evening, we walked to nearby Ning Xia Night Market, which was only 5 minutes or so from the hotel.
The first stall that we stopped over was the braised delicacies, comprising of almost everything. We picked the stuffs which we wanted, passed to an auntie who tend the stall, got a number while waiting for our food to be reheated by deep frying. After the food was deep fried, chopped into bite-sized pieces, the auntie sprinkled some flavouring powder which I believed was some pepper and salt onto the food.
We chose assorted pig's intestines, gizzards, and duck's tongue. The picture below on the right, is how a duck's tongue will look like. Though the tongue was not meaty as I expected initially, but I reckoned these braised food were delicious and yummy, and was best if washed down with a big mug of beer....ahhhhhh...cool beer!
Just next to Ning Xia Night Market, there were a lot more eateries available. The smell of stinky toufu never failed to lure us to the right spot. We ordered deep fried stinky toufu and oyster mee sua for sharing. This shop must be quite popular, as we could see many patrons 'chopped up' the tables and seats. We stood at one side, munching on delectable stinky tofu and mee sua.
The non-fried stinky toufu version. Never have the guts to try this, as I personally think non-fried version would be super duper smelly!
Deep fried stinky toufu served with some preserved cabbage, and oyster mee sua
It was Chap Goh Meh on the last night of our Taiwan trip. Chap Goh Meh denotes the end of Chinese New Year celebration, where many Chinese will eat glutinous rice ball for unity. See the picture below, many had thronged stalls which sell 'tang yuan', desperately wanted to have a bowl for the sake of celebration. So did we, but we definitely refused to join in the long Q! Moving on, we wished that there would be other stalls selling 'tang yuan' also.
I started to feel a bit full with all sorts of food which we had earlier. This thing caught my attention, a fried pastry with fillings of quail eggs, chunky fresh looking prawns and oysters. Judged from the look, I was sure it would taste so good. But gotta to reserve some space for 'tang yuan' later. :(
But who could resist grilled fresh oysters? I could hear those oysters yelling my name "Eat me, eat me!!"
Grilled fresh oysters
Had a plate of oysters omelette...very yummy. This shop was next to the 'tang yuan' stall where we had our glutinous rice balls.
Oyster omelette
This eatery attracted my attention too, if only my tummy still allowed me to fill up ...sob sob
Finally, we got to eat our 'tang yuan' with a twist...Why did I say so?
Their 'tang yuan' was prepared and served in a very unique way where peanut coated tang yuan were served on top of shaved ice. I love the new way of eating this tang yuan.
And we also had a bowl of hot glutinous rice balls with red bean soup.
Happy Chap Goh Meh....greetings from Taipei..
Initially, we wanted to try the X-large chicken chop, but we were all stuffed to the brim. But Elaine did not want to miss out trying this local delight, only that the one she tried was chicken roll, not the typical chicken chop. heheeee
We strolled for quite a bit before heading back to hotel. Saw people trying their luck to catch prawns, which also known as prawning, in Singapore.
The next morning we had a leisure morning before our flight back to Singapore. Our flight was at 15.45 p.m. We booked a taxi a day in advance to pick us up from our hotel to the Taoyuan International Airport for TWD1000.
We walked to a nearby eatery for breakfast.
Had this yummy pan fried onion pancake wrap, with choice of fillings. I had ham pancake, Elaine had pork chop pancake, while Hui Ya had pork floss?... sorry babe, can't actually recall what Hui Ya had :( Had our pancake rolls with cold soya bean milk.
Onion pancake roll with ham
We were left with few hours before leaving for airport. Thus, we hoped to eat more local food as much as we could afford. Dropped by the same shop which we had our breakfast the day before. The breakfast menu.
Some multi-grains soup.
Salty soya bean milk with deep fried dough....it was more like eating savoury porridge, with crispy chopped fried dough with scallion and deep fried onion. The taste was acceptable. My first time trying salty version of soya bean milk.
Some xiao long boa, steamed pork dumpling... with compact fillings wrapped within thin dumpling skin, lovely!
Staffs busy wrapping xiao long bao...
Before walking back to the hotel, we dropped by at a drugstore to get boxes of facial masks. Our taxi came and fetched us on time at 12.30 p.m. It took roughly 1 hour for us to get to Taoyuan Airport.
Checked in at Terminal 2, and found the cute Hello Kitty electronic check in on Eva Air.
Beyond the departure hall in terminal 2, we could see a lot more Hello Kitty themed stuffs....like public telephone booths, nursing room....and
.......Hello Kitty Gift shop
With that, ends our Taiwan trip....
Some of the items which I bought from a drugstore in Taipei, mainly facial masks, and also cosmetic items and hand creams from duty free shop in Changi Airport...
"To transfer from Sun Moon Lake to Taipei, we took a SML shuttle bus which departed at 12.50 pm from SML Bus Station. We reached HSR Taichung Station after an hour later."
ReplyDeleteWhat shuttle bus is it? And is SML Bus Station near shueishe visitor center?
Thanks (: