Sunday, November 18, 2012

Day 2: Taipei

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.
老蔡水煎包 
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!
tourist map of 深坑
the afternoon crowd
the afternoon crowd 
庙前阿家的店
the menu list
mushroom soup medium
deep fried smelly tofu 
麻辣 smelly tofu
stir fried cabbage
smoked tea goose meat (highly recommended!!)
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!
long Q for smelly tofu
Let's take a closer look...
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!!
spreading the special sauce
you get to choose 2 condiments per stick
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.

malt candy on stick NT$10 each
Next destination, 猫空 (=^.^=)
maokong cable car route map
5 pax, just nice to have the whole crystal cabin to ourselves
KONG mascot (din manage to take MAO mascot cos a kid was hogging it for pix)
one thing good about crystal cabin, you dun have to Q.. it's almost like VVVIP
a ride on this would be priceless lol
crystal cabin.. the floor is transparent so you get a clear view of the height and what's underneath 
cable car distance between
uphill
late afternoon view 
almost like a lone cypress
cable car stops and altitudes
maokong station schedule
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.
pretty flowers nestled along the wooden fences
colorful flowers and warm lights 
menu 
choco banana waffles with generous servings of whipped cream
freshly baked fruits n nuts loaf (400g)
cappuccino
late evening view of maokong station, actually it was only 5+
we took the crystal cabin on the way back again... vvvip
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!
宁夏夜市
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.
long Q for the soya milk
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...)
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)
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.
大肠包小肠 NT$50 
the bigger sausage is actually rice, sliced open in the center  add some pickled veg and finally a smaller sausage
官芝灵大肠包小肠
葱抓饼
猪肉馅饼 NT$30 but I prefer the 福州世祖胡椒饼 which is wayyy juicier
steamed water caltrops, looked like buffalo horns but tasted very nice like roasted chestnuts/yam
冰糖葫芦 candied cherry tomatoes with prunes, absolutely heavenly!! NT$30

stewed pork in steamed bun NT$40 
it's supposed to be very good but I was too full to enjoy much of it :x
we found people queueing again, this time 蛤仔煎
we joined in the queue too! lol
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!!)
otherwise known as orhjian without orh NT$45
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.
麦芽饼
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!!!

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