Today we'll be meeting our Taiwan colleagues for sightseeings and food!! But before that, we decided to grab some finger food near our hotel.
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| 老蔡水煎包 |
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| it's supposed to be very good! but i din try since there's shrimps inside |
First sightseeing of the day, 深坑老街!
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| tourist map of 深坑 |
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| the afternoon crowd |
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| the afternoon crowd |
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| 庙前阿家的店 |
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| the menu list |
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| mushroom soup medium |
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| deep fried smelly tofu |
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| 麻辣 smelly tofu |
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| stir fried cabbage |
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| smoked tea goose meat (highly recommended!!) |
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| braised tofu |
The lunch is simply 超赞!! That's of cos, if you're a fan of 臭豆腐 lol You can have them deep fried, braised, steamed etc and the smoked tea goose meat is a must-try! Meat is tender and flavorful with the tea fragrance. It'll be even better if deboned (especially cos I'm lousy using chopsticks)... haha!
After the super satisfying lunch, we headed out further into the 老街 and found this stall with super long queue... guess what... it's 臭豆腐 again!
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| long Q for smelly tofu |
Let's take a closer look...
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| very hygienic with cap, mask and gloves |
It's the traditional charcoal grilled smelly tofu!! Even though we were all very full from the lunch, we decided to join the crowd and queue for more 臭豆腐 haha!!
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| spreading the special sauce |
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| you get to choose 2 condiments per stick |
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| the masterpiece! 2pcs on a stick NT$35 |
The 泡菜 condiment tasted the best along with the 臭豆腐 compared to the basil leaves. Piping hot and appetising... (I'm missing the taste already while updating this blog...)
The afternoon crowd was really building up, since it was a Sunday the place was flooded with not just tourists, but locals as well.
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| malt candy on stick NT$10 each |
Next destination, 猫空 (=^.^=)
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| maokong cable car route map |
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| 5 pax, just nice to have the whole crystal cabin to ourselves |
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| KONG mascot (din manage to take MAO mascot cos a kid was hogging it for pix) |
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| one thing good about crystal cabin, you dun have to Q.. it's almost like VVVIP |
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| a ride on this would be priceless lol |
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| crystal cabin.. the floor is transparent so you get a clear view of the height and what's underneath |
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| cable car distance between |
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| uphill |
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| late afternoon view |
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| almost like a lone cypress |
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| cable car stops and altitudes |
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| maokong station schedule |
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| the ticketing booth |
Arriving at Maokong Station around 4+, nice cool weather and cold breeze... gotta love it! After all the "oooo!!" and "wowww!!" and "ahhhh!!" in the crystal cabin, we were all thirsty and a bit hungry. Came across this very nice wooden cabin style fences, followed along and TADA! It's 小木屋茶坊.
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| pretty flowers nestled along the wooden fences |
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| colorful flowers and warm lights |
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| menu |
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| choco banana waffles with generous servings of whipped cream |
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| freshly baked fruits n nuts loaf (400g) |
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| cappuccino |
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| late evening view of maokong station, actually it was only 5+ |
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| we took the crystal cabin on the way back again... vvvip |
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| we were late by more than half an hour but, they still allowed us in :D |
The skies really turned dark much earlier than Singapore, something which I couldn't adapt to. Feeling almost like 8+, we took a cab to 宁夏夜市 for more street foods!
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| 宁夏夜市 |
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| early evening crowd |
We did a brief walk through the crowds, checking out the stalls before actually heading to join in the queue for foodies.
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| long Q for the soya milk |
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| the signboard |
We were tempting to Q for the soya milk, seeing so many people wait patiently for that but decided to give it a miss! (kinda regret it now...)
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| yam balls |
This was something which we missed out on as well... yam balls with yolk. The crowd queueing for this was horrendous. It must have been very yummy but, oh well. (shakes head in regret again)
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| gigantic 汤圆 bigger than fish balls |
Yah yah, dun ask me why I'm displaying pictures of food which I din even get to try... the riceballs were really huge! But we were looking forward to try the small finger food instead of glutinous desserts which would take up our stomach capacity. (excuses!)
Finally, we spotted this.
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| 大肠包小肠 NT$50 |
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| the bigger sausage is actually rice, sliced open in the center add some pickled veg and finally a smaller sausage |
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| 官芝灵大肠包小肠 |
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| 葱抓饼 |
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| 猪肉馅饼 NT$30 but I prefer the 福州世祖胡椒饼 which is wayyy juicier |
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| steamed water caltrops, looked like buffalo horns but tasted very nice like roasted chestnuts/yam |
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| 冰糖葫芦 candied cherry tomatoes with prunes, absolutely heavenly!! NT$30 |
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| stewed pork in steamed bun NT$40 |
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| it's supposed to be very good but I was too full to enjoy much of it :x |
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| we found people queueing again, this time 蛤仔煎 |
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| we joined in the queue too! lol |
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| look at the generous amount of oysters! (but I'm non-seafood) |
Taiwan is famous for the fresh oysters 果然名不虚传 check out the amount of oysters this stall is preparing for the 蛤仔煎! Being a non-seafood eater, we ordered a plate without oysters (yes, duh! and double duh!!)
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| otherwise known as orhjian without orh NT$45 |
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| another snapshot of what lies within |
The taste, slimy. It's very different from the Singapore orhjian being much more starchy, no 菜蒲 and it's served with some special gravy on top. I won't say it's not nice, just not the usual style I like.
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| 麦芽饼 |
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| you get to choose the type of biscuits used to sandwich the malt candy NT$50 each |
End of second day in Taipei, feasting so much that our waistlines would have busted the jeans we wore that day... one word, SATISFYING!!!
