Friday, December 30, 2005

Time for the Taiwan post! It was a whirlwind trip around the island, with us spending about half a day per city. Night markets almost every night, except in Hualien and Taichung. There wasn't much to buy since it was mostly winterwear, but that didn't stop me from buying myself a wallet, 2 t-shirts, a shrunken jacket, a pair of earrings and 3 skirts (2 of which i regret buying). I have a theory that everyone there wearing lian clothes made me temporarily develop lian taste!

Anyways most of the places we visited were temples, which quickly became boring after a while. (I actually do think temples can be quite interesting places to visit, cos I like looking at the carvings and statues and have nothing against the colour red, but 3 temples a week is quite enough - and 6 is rather excessive.) Also, we spent about 60% of our time travelling by bus, which allowed me to watch Initial D (boring), World Without Thieves (weird), 50 First Dates (cute) and some Hokkien song concert (excruciating).

One of the more fun activities was staying in a hut at the Master Bear Resort where we played with fireworks. We also lit up a kong ming deng (this paper lantern that you write your wishes on before sending it into the sky like a hot air balloon), which was fun. Toilets were reminiscent of Redang Lang though.

Of course, the highlight of the trip was the glorious food! I'm sure you all know that Taiwan is famous for their xiao chi, and we went wild at the huge variety of good eats at the various markets and eateries we went to! You're probably familiar with the likes of smelly tofu, oyster mee sua and taiwanese chicken cutlet, you've gotta try their da bing bao xiao bing, da chang bao xiao chang, tai yang bing, pineapple tarts (different from the ones you get here), mua chee (also different from what you may find in singapore), tie dan, ice cream po piah, cong you bing and lei cha.

And there are of course local specialties in certain places, like the ultra-fat bee hoon at Ri Yue Tan and the amazingly sweet custard apple (called shi jia cos it looks like the shi jia mo ni's head) at Taidong (I think). They also have beef brisket noodles, but I personally still prefer the one at Purvis St. Oh but I had the most amazingly cheap steamboat cum bbq buffet in Taipei, NT210 (about S$10) per person, and the spread included fresh flower crabs, sea cucumbers, prawns and at least 4 different types of delicious fresh mushrooms! Even the restaurants that the tour group sent us to served pretty good food, and they included 2 "branded" restaurants in the itinery. One was dian shui lou, which was a dim sum restaurant that is supposedly of the same standing as ding tai feng in Taiwan. The food was really not bad, but I prefer the xiao long bao at ding tai feng.

Now the other place deserves a special mention. It's called wu jiao chuan ban and there are branches in a few cities all over Taiwan. They pay a lot of attention to the architecture and design of the restaurant, and every branch has a different theme. The one that I went to had a stone age theme, with the building and furniture all stone-based. There was a long pathway lined with trees leading up to the entrance, and even the toilets had interesting sculptured walls.

And the food was something else. I think I could call it gourmet Chinese cuisine. Very original means of handling traditional dishes like bamboo shoots and dumplings. And the crabs were yummy. I would've taken photos of the food but we were sitting with another family and I didn't wanna appear weird. Oh even the tomato juice was delicious! And the mua chee they served was the best I've ever eaten, and mind you I've had mua chee almost every day I was in Taiwan too. Liberally scattered with ground peanuts, it was extremely fragrant and literally melted when I put it into my mouth. It was so good we bought a box to take away. But cos it was so fresh it couldn't be kept for more than a few days, so I couldn't buy more to share with you guys! And I think my brother wouldn't have been able to keep his hands off them. :)

-- tee @ 10:06 pm |