Thursday, June 04, 2009

Taipei Holiday '09 (Taiwanese Food Post!).....台北假期'09之台湾小吃与美食篇.......台北の帰り旅’09(二)

Above: My health-conscious Taiwanese family have totally reverted to eating healthy husked unprocessed rice at home...something which i initially needed getting used to but which i grew to like..its much healthier than white rice..i'm sure most non-Taiwanese didn't even know there was such a thing given that white rice has been the only kind of rice we knew in China, HK, Malaysia, Singapore,Thailand,etc for generations who grew up after the 60s but actually before the 60s when Asian nations were still poor, non-white rice was the norm not white rice (which needs processing but which is actually not as healthy as unprocessed husked rice!).

Below: Chinese New Year Eve's Dinner....have my fav. Mi Tzu Huo Tui somemore leh!



This post shall be a post on the famous n CHEAP n DELICIOUS Taiwanese streetside cuisine which i ate whilst back in Taipei as well as other gourmet food eg. japanese, shabu-shabu, omurice,etc which i ate back there....It can be a guide serving foreign tourists or even local taiwanese and/or overseas taiwanese when in taipei on where to eat, just some of my personal gastronomy adventures and recommendations,heheh,...tons of pix below:-) Dun salivate too much yar...hehe..

Above: A delicious meal of Taiwanese-style noodles and my all-time favourite of any kind of Taiwanese soup, this time being Shimu Yu Tang.


Firstly, anyone whom has ever been to Taiwan or planned to go should know already about its famous 'nightmarkets' which serve all types of Taiwanese foodie goodies, n cheap too...so one should definitely go to them, i went to the ones below or just randomly passed by car or had a quick walk thru whilst my dad dropped me at one end and picked me up at the other end 15 mins later just to get a feel of it, so in total, including the ones whereby i actually spent some time there eating the food, i went to MANY nightmarkets on this trip back including the ones below:

1) ShiLin Nightmarket 士林夜市

2) Tonghua Nightmarket (通化夜市)

3) Shida Nightmarket (师大夜市)

4) Raohe Nightmarket(饶河夜市)

5) Ningxia (宁夏夜市)

6) Jingmei Nightmarket(景美夜市)

7) Huaxi Nightmarket(华西夜市)

8)Keelung Miaokou Nightmarket(基隆庙口夜市)

I may have gone to more but i can't rem, some i simply drove past by....

Any visitor should visit the above and order some of the taiwanese favs snacks such as:

Or Ar Meesuah,大肠包小肠 (this is a really inventive taiwanese creation, being sausages with glutinous rice together wrapped up like a bigger sausage covering a smaller sausage), and others such as this list which i copied off the net of the Top 10 Local Snacks
Oyster Omelet 蚵仔煎 Uh Ah Jian
Bubble Tea 珍珠奶茶 Zhen Zhu Nai Cha
Salt Pepper Chicken 鹹酥雞 Xian Su Ji
Soup Dumplings 小籠湯包 Xiao Long Tang Bao
Taiwanese Meatball 肉圓 Ba Wan
Braised Pork Rice 滷肉飯 Lu Rou Fan
Taiwanese Tempura 甜不辣 Tian Bu La
Pan-fried Dumplings 煎餃 Jian Jiao
Grilled Taiwanese Sausages 香腸 Xiang Chang
Stinky Dofu 臭豆腐 Chou Dou Fu

Well, anyways, i'll let the pictures do the talking and take readers on a visual feast (quite, literally!!) off just SOME of the food i managed to gobble down during my 2 plus weeks in Taipei city and surrounds:


Above and Below: The wetmarket at Dunhua-Renai area opp. Far Eastern Plaza Shangri-La..


Above: My supper again...love the steaming soups of Taiwan...haha..

Above: The famous taiwanese beef-noodle soup at Lao Zhang's...which was polled as THE BEST niu rou mian place in Taipei by hungryintaipei's blog...yeah, i got to eat the best...haha..but i recommend Yongkang Niurou Mian Shop beef noodle soup as well...both are located within Yongkang Food Precinct...
Above: Japanese food which i treated my aunts to....

Above: Shabu-Shabu which is popular in Taiwan...if in Taipei, u shld try the Ma-La Hotpot which is famous as you can choose two soup types together for ur steamboat meal or one thing i hihgly recommend is the ‘buffet steamboats’ 吃到饱 which are very common around Taiwan and which are immensely value-for-money which is again something unique to Taiwan (the concept was copied from Japan i think..cos its popular there too..)..another plus of Taiwan, u can get alot of delicious value-for-money meal deals here, even better than Malaysia and of course Australia..

Above: The famous 'Yonghe Doujiang Dian' where i always visit for supper or get takeaway cos its walking distance from my place in Taipei..the 豆浆,蛋饼,米浆,烧饼油条,葱油饼 are just some of my favourites:-)

Above: It is quite common to see stalls selling korean homemade kimchi at nightmarkets nowadays in Taipei and the above was one...indeed, Taiwanese nightmarkets nowadays sell not only taiwanese delicacies, but also japanese,korean, thai milktea,etc...

Above: A rare sight nowadays (according to my dad) of an old man pushing his bicycle along selling 烧肉粽 at the Dihua Traditional Food Street CNY Bazaar near 12am...
Above: Tasters for customers to try before buying...

Above: A crowded Dihua Traditional Food Street after 12am...

Above: Sashimi at Keelung Miaokou Nightmarket...many ppl dun know, japanese sashimi stalls are a staple at many taipei nightmarkets! And they're very fresh too! (and of cos cheaper than restaurants) So u know where to head to for fresh n cheaper sashimi next time in Taipei! The sashimi served comes from the same source as those in restaurants but without high rental/staff costs added into ur meal price..

Above: Keelung Miaokou Nightmarket..

Above: This famous dish at some hole in the wall eatery near Wanhua District i think...its eel's eggs in deepfry...very unique taste...
Above: Jiufen Chaikuai i think...

Above: This is quite possibly the most delicious and satisfying meal i had in my entire time in Taipei (besides my godmother's homecooked bowl of noodle gongwan soup), simple as it is, it's called 特制乾麺 and 白萝卜汤at the side..god i love the soup...its located just from the corner of the lane into my grandparent's house along Roosevelt Road...it tasted so unbelievably good...


Above: Some apparently expensive lunch buffet at a hotel on Zhongxiao East Road but it simply confirms my theory that Penang's hotel buffets are THE BEST and THE CHEAPEST for the same stuff u get in Taipei, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, and where ever else i'm familiar with...
Above: Some vendors making Jian Rou Bao 煎肉包 Shida nightmarket...
Above:関東煮and 油饭...yummy....takeaway from Shilin Nightmarket....


Above: shilin 'coffin bread'...funny name...

Above: 台式米粉 at Shilin Nightmarket...i prefer the malaysian style one personally...
Above: Omg! they actually have Ootoya here too...this is a chain store in Japan serving affordable japanese teishoku..i found this in Bangkok too bck in 06..

Above: 木瓜牛奶 on Zhongshan Bei Lu...

Above: What i missed the most, along with other taiwanese delicacies, was this: 台湾清粥小菜

I dare say this is something unique to Taiwanese cuisine although chinese in other hokkien populated places also eat it as home-style cooking occasionally..its basically porridge with alot of taiwanese style side dishes...its often the simplest of taiwanese cuisine which taste the nicest...hhmmm...




Above and Below: Little Penang in......Taipei!!! This is a chain, upper class too mind you!...serving Southeast Asian food with its theme being my other hometown, Penang!! The guy in the pic is this random stranger whom appears to have lived in Penang before as he was telling the girl about Penang food,etc..but he wasn't malaysian by hic accent, prob a taiwanese whom happened to live in Penang before...

Above: Tofu-fa..Taiwanese style...with soft peanut, fen yuan...gosh i love taiwanese tofu-fa! Better than Malaysia's and DEFINITELY tastier than Hong Kong style ones...

Above and below: I ate alot of late-night suppers whilst in Taipei...above is
蛤蜊汤,肉燥面,squid,..and ice crush below..watched quite a few episodes of 光阴的故事 which was on repeated telecast everytime i had my supper...



Above: Gongguan...Gua Bao which is another Taiwanese specialty from mainland China....


Above: Usually, in alot of eateries in Taiwan, you tick what u want and hand it over to the waiter/waitress...so if u ever visit a shop which has something like the above, u know not to sit there dumbly and wait for the shop ppl to come and take ur order...

Above: Biscuits and cake at the (expensive) Eslite Cafe at Eslite 24hr Dunhua Bookstore...not really worth the money but cos it was open late and the atmosphere was nice and close by to where me and my primary school friend lives, we decided to have our little reunion there after at least 7 yrs...
Above: The longstanding Dinghao 哨子面and Gongwan 汤 at Zhongxiao East Road...Above and Below: Mantou and some ham (?) at Nanmen Shichang..




Above: A fav. of mine in Taiwan, Mi Tzu Huo Tui.....
Above: Famous Taiwanese sidedishes for sale....at the well-known Nanmen Market...


Above: Taiwanese ice crush....the one on the right tastes good, with my fav toppings of fen yuan and sweet potato,yummy!!!!!
Above: The flight back to Hong Kong, a typical Taiwanese meal on the airplane, Rurou Fan.
More food photos at my online photo album: http://hcpen1111.buzznet.com/user/photos/recent/

4 comments:

Unseen India Tours said...

Nice photographs !! Really Loved the food....Also I Have Started My Own Website And Would Like You To Have A Look At It.I Would Love To Have Your Comments On That Also.Unseen Rajasthan

hcpen said...

unseen rajasthan: thanks for your comments:-)

Bean Sprout's Cafe said...

thanks for visiting my site... wow, its my first time to know Malaysian/Taiwanese.. I love malaysian food and just have lots of Taiwanese friends in Sydney.. They always tell me about how good taiwanese food are... really wanna go there.. I will come back to read again :D

hcpen said...

bean sprout's cafe: no worries:-) i will visit ur blog again soon!