What were we thinking? Heading to Taiwan in June/July? The hottest season of the year? Well, vacation days been approved, tickets been paid...everything's set...now we've got to fly!!! Wahahahaha!
With only a few direct choices, we opted for EVA Air 長榮航空. I couldn't help but snapped a few shots of this young girl...she spent about an hour removing her makeup at the start of the flight, then she spent over an hour putting on makeup just before we landed...girl, just wait until you get to my age...your skin will look like you're in your 50's...yes, I am mean...
I just love the convenience where MomM lives...a well-known street market surrounded by nearby supermarkets and convenience stores, plus a popular food street...yes, we're spoiled!
Sorry about the poor picture quality, Buddha Boy's not familiar with my little camera. The first thing that Buddha Boy wanted was his ATF Breakfast Club Shao-Bing 燒餅夾總匯 from his favorite breakfast joint located right around the corner from MomM's place. This was simply a club sandwich (egg, ham, sausage patty, tomato, cucumber, onions, mayo) but used shao-bing 燒餅 instead of four slices of toasts. Yes, my husband had this almost every morning...
Right after breakfast, MomM, Octopus and Buddha Boy accompanied me to get my R.O.C. driver's license (the cheap Buddha Girl insisted that this must be done in order to get the cheaper car rental rates). We then came home and scouted locally for food. We opted to pick up whatever and wherever and brought home all our findings...wahahahaha! First was the Cold Noodles 涼麵 from my ATF place located, again, just around the corner from MomM's place. Apparently, from what the locals (including my mom) have told me, many people would drive more than an hour just to pick up the cold noodles from here...insane huh?
In the past, we'd have to walk approximately ten minutes to Buddha Boy's favorite joint for Pot Stickers 鍋貼, but this time, MomM told us there's an outlet right around the corner...YAY!!! As you can see...we went nuts...ten regular, ten chives, ten curry and ten kimchi.. Yup, forty dumplings amongst the four of us...PLUS other food...gee, no wonder we're fat!!!
Located on the popular food street (Kangning Street 康寧街) was the Hakka Mei-Nong Ban-Tiao 客家美濃粄條. I asked for assorted soup which came with pork nuggets
肉羹, squid nuggets 魷魚羹, cuttlefish nuggets 花枝羹 and crispy fish 魚酥. Ban-Tiao 粄條 is simply He-Fen 河粉 (commonly known as flat rice noodles), and honestly, I'm never really a fan of it. However, I absolutely loved the Mei-Nong rice noodles. The noodles were thicker than usual with extremely springy texture...yes, the noodles were very Q!!! Octopus and I were addicted to it...wahahahaha! FYI, this popular street-side stall has been featured on numerous food shows in Taiwan!
From the same stall, we also picked up a couple orders of Lu-Rou-Fan 魯肉飯 (pork sauce on rice) and a couple orders of Pork Hanging Tender 豬肝連 (also known as pork hanger steak or pork bistro steak).
In Taiwan, the term "buffet 自助餐" doesn't necessarily equal "all-you-can-eat 吃到飽". Classically, and traditionally in Taiwan, "buffet 自助餐" simply means that the cost of your food (plate or to-go box) is calculated by weight and/or the number of items you choose (mix and match) from a large selection of dishes. From a street-side buffet stall with over 80+ selections, MomM picked four veggies to bring home. Yup, vegetables only, no meat...grrr...
While Buddha Boy opted for tea (and it's his favorite bottled-tea), Octopus and I went with our ATF, Super Supau 舒跑!!! Wahahahaha!
After a big lunch and an afternoon nap, my brother, BigPole, came by and drove us to do some spiritual stuff...I regarded as...visiting the "underworld"...hahahahaha!
One of MomM's prentice, #4Kao, met up with us at the spiritual centre...with more food!!! Gotta love her!!! She spoils us with lots of yummy food. This time was some kind of deep-fried pastry...not sure what it was but it was good!!!
After the visiting the "underworld", BigPole drove us back to MomM's place to meet up with his boyfriend, LittleSam.
LittleSam brought us some yummy sweets!!! These were soooooooo good!!! He told me these were from Elite Deli at the Taipei Railway Station.
After bumming around at home chatting and making fun of each other, BigPole drove Octopus, Buddha Boy and myself to the nearby 737 Night-Maket in Neihu 內湖 before he headed back to Yilan 宜蘭 with LittleSam.
Before our trip, we've read so much about 737 and we were really looking forward to the visit...unfortunately, the hype overrated this night-market. We were here on a Friday night and it was very slow. We ended up trying only a few things. First was the Chicken Sausages 雞肉卷. Be careful when you bite into these...very hot and very juicy!!!
Now serving #150? Right outside Watsons, there's this small Pork Blood Cake 豬血糕 stall with non-stop flow of patrons. While waiting in line, I saw the husband & wife team grounding fresh peanut powder approximately every fifth or sixth customer. The cake was firm yet very Q and chewy. The peanut powder was amazing, mainly because it's freshly grounded. The sauce was a bit salty and I would've prefer a bit more cilantro.
We've found a lot of jewels during our trip to Taiwan this year and the first was the Gua-Bao 刈包 from this little stall located right outside 7-Eleven at 737 Night-Market. Honestly, at first, we wanted to try it simply because of the thought, "we must try one in Taiwan"...but what intrigued me was that the customer in front of me had eight orders to-go...that's telling me something right?!? Thank goodness we stopped by this little stall and gave it a try...this was the best tiger-bite-pig 虎咬豬 ever. Starting with the bun, it looks thick huh? Let me tell you, it's so fluffy and light that Buddha Boy was going "Wow! Wow! Wow!" The meat was marinated perfectly...perfect texture, perfect flavor, perfect saltiness. The sour vegetables were extremely fragrant and had very minimal sweetness to it. The use of both peanut powder and candied peanut powder balanced the sweetness of the candied peanuts. The overall package made all of us going "WOW!!!"
