Tonghua Nightmarket – Where to, Gumshoe?

Taipei (Day 65): Comfort Food

May 4, 2016

We spent a good chunk of the morning organizing our backpacks and giving items for Mom to bring back home for us. What a load off! My luggage feels like it’s 10 pounds lighter (Tim: probably because it is 10 pounds lighter). I caught up on my blog entries while Tim went to Yong He (our regular breakfast place) to get breakfast for everyone.

We didn’t end up leaving the apartment until just before 2pm. It was nice to be able to just hang around and fully relax and not feel like we had to see something or go somewhere. We didn’t have anything on our agenda since Mom was busy with her own plans. Since we’ve been in Taipei with her, she’s been non-stop busy meeting up with people who want to see her. The one thing that I wanted to have before leaving Taipei was bubble tea (a few times) and the gua bao (pork belly hamburger) we had in March.

Tim and I walked to Gongguan and cut diagonally through the National Taiwan University (NTU) campus along the way. It’s very hot here, about 32 degrees celsius with humidity. My back was sweaty the entire day since I was wearing a backpack and a cotton dress (it wasn’t pleasant). This is preparing us for hot weather to come during our SE Asia part of our trip in June.The pearl milk drink and the gua bao stand in Gongguan was highly recommended to us by Tim’s cousin, Karen. Unfortunately, when my sister and Noel were in town, we didn’t hear about it until the day they were closed. We’ll have to come back with them another time. I feel bad, the gua bao was on my sister’s top eats for Taiwan.

When we arrived in Gongguan, the pearl milk stand had a line up but surprisingly, the gua bao stand didn’t have a line up (Tim: maybe because it was not really lunch time). The pearl milk line wasn’t too long but by the time we got to the front of the line up (5-10 minutes) the line up had curled around 3 times! We just beat the crowd of students. We took our lunch to the NTU entrance benches and sat and enjoyed our cheap and delicious lunch. As I was eating the gua bao and biting into the best pearls I’ve ever had (super soft, warm and chewy), I kept thinking, “this is amazing”. I’m really savouring the good and cheap food in Taiwan because I know when we get to Australia, everything is going to be more the double the price and probably not as delicious.

After we finished our lunch, we decided to walk to the Roots Canada Lodge store and an Eslite Bookstore. We had noticed that Taiwanese people love Roots clothing when we first arrived in March. Even when we were in Korea and Japan, when we saw people with “Roots Canada” t-shirts, we knew they weren’t Canadian, they were Taiwanese. Coincidentally, Mom brought a brochure back from Roots back home that says “Roots loves Taiwan”. There’s a campaign by Roots Canada and Tourism Taiwan that shows pictures around Taipei as well as suggestions on where to go (it’s a pretty nice pamphlet). The store on Robson just had a grand re-opening on May 3rd and Mom was asked to look for Taiwanese dancers for their event. Pretty cool!

Any how, we were both interested in going to a Roots store in Taipei and the one we saw the other day while in the car had a Roots Canada Lodge restaurant. They served Canadian food – like Nanaimo bars, bacon cheeseburgers and poutine. We went into the store to see if they had any t-shirts that said Taipei on it because one time we saw someone who had one on. Tim asked the sales associate and she said those t-shirts only come out once a year and it’s usually in September. Roots clothing isn’t cheap and it’s definitely not cheap in Taiwan. A plain zip up hoodie is around $140 CAD (almost double what it would be back home).

We then made our way across the street to Eslite (the 24 hour bookstore). We hadn’t been to this location before, only the one near Taipei 101. Tim was looking for the Marie Kondo book, “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” in Chinese. He has been recommending this book to a lot of people and wants his parents to read it as well. I haven’t finished it yet, and I’m recommending it to others (Tim’s not happy that I haven’t finished reading it since it’s so short). We wandered around Eslite and browsed around at all the floors – besides books they have a lot of neat shops to look at.

On our way back to the apartment, we stopped at a CoCo bubble tea and ordered a passion fruit tea. This was one of our favourite drinks here as it’s super refreshing. With the heat, I wouldn’t have minded if it were all slushy. I know they opened a CoCo in Vancouver and I probably won’t go there this summer since it’s going to cost 4 x the price for what we had and I would have had enough bubble tea in the past 3 months to last a year.

We came back to the apartment to rest up and cool off before dinner. Tim and I had been going to a hot pot place a lot in March and we had a stamp card that only needed one more meal before we got one free (yes, we went that much). Hot pot isn’t something you crave during hot humid weather, but since they blast the AC so high in Asia, it’s always perfect.

As soon as we walked into the restaurant, the waitress recognized us. For the most part, the restaurant isn’t a tourist destination or even on most people’s radar (we couldn’t find any information on it in English at all). I guess she hadn’t see us in a month so when she saw us she asked us where we’re from etc. It’s basically Tim answering for both of us explaining that he’s Taiwanese and his parents were born here and then they look at me and ask what I am. Then he says, her family is from “Tai San” then they say, “you should teach her some Mandarin” and we all smile and laugh.

We ordered two types of beef as usual and enjoyed our last meal there. We both put a lot of fresh garlic in our sauce, so now today we both have severe garlic breath. When we were done, Tim showed her our stamp card and she said usually you are supposed to use the free one during your next visit (which is what Mom told us would probably happen) but Tim said this is our last day in Taiwan so she let us have the free one. Our meal was 270 NT = $10.71 CAD for the both of us.

After dinner, we walked back towards the apartment and went to the Linjiang Tonghua Night Market (this is like our neighbourhood market since it’s so close). I wanted to buy some more dried guava for my family, fresh cut guava (for me to eat tomorrow), and a phone case (since mine was in horrible and dirty shape). We didn’t eat any food at the night market since we just had dinner. I bought a new phone case, which wasn’t that cheap but cheaper than home ($9 CAD). I know how cheap these phone cases could be, so anything sold in Taiwan isn’t cheap compared to China. My former co-worker asked me if I wanted phone cases before she went to China one year and I said I wanted one that you could put cards in. She told me it’s buy 1 get 9 free and showed me the Chinese website. I said I only wanted one and she’s like, it’s okay you can have them in 9 colours. So when she came back she gave me a box with 10 cases in it, and they’re the exact same ones in the night markets here.

We headed back to the apartment and packed up and went through all the items Mom is bringing back for us. It’s such a big help that she’s here to bring a lot of things home for us. I have a bunch of clothes that I didn’t end up wearing much and I know won’t be good for Australia and SE Asia. You really don’t need much clothing while traveling (Tim: which is pretty common advice, yet lots of people don’t adhere to) and especially in the humid heat, Lululemon or any dri-fit type of items are the best.

I’m a pretty sentimental person so whenever it’s the last day or last of anything, I do get a bit sad and reminiscent of all the good memories. During our time in Taipei, we became very familiar with the Daan area. Even as someone who isn’t great with directions, I got to know Daan very well. I’m happy that we got to see so many people while we were here and were able to spend 2 weeks with my sister, Noel, and Nate. Even passing by the apartment we stayed at or going around to sites we visited together, I think about them.

Steps today: 24,000

Taipei (Day 26): A Near Perfect Day

March 26, 2015

Today was our last day with my sister, Noel, and Nate here with us in Taiwan. We woke up to sun shining through the window blinds – which made for a good start to the morning and a perfect last day with them.

We walked to Daan Park one last time to play in the playground with Nate. I think we went there four times with them during their twelve day trip. It would have been more if not for the rainy weather and going to Kenting for three days. After the playground we walked through the park towards Yong Kang St. for lunch.

The plan for lunch was to go back to Yong Kang Beef Noodle since it was Noel’s favourite meal of the trip. We made our way to Yong Kang St. around 10:45am and headed for the restaurant. There was already a line formed and the restaurant was full. They hadn’t opened the upstairs section this time so we had to wait about 10 minutes before we were seated. Since we were on the first floor, there were no high chairs available and all the tables were way more cramped. Sitting downstairs is where all the “action” is but also made for a very different dining experience. My sister had to hold Nate while they both ate, which was a bit trickier, but Nate loved their noodles so he was happily slurping it down and wasn’t fussy.

Next up on our agenda today was to visit SunnyHills pineapple cake shop. Pineapple cakes are the most common souvenir people buy when they’re in Taiwan. There are so many shops around Taipei it’s hard to sift through which ones are actually good. On our first trip to Taiwan, Tim’s aunt bought us both Chia Te and SunnyHills to bring back to our families. Chia Te is the most internationally known pineapple cake shop and is often the only place people will buy their pineapple cakes from. After trying both of them, our favourite was SunnyHills. They use real pineapple rather than jelly or melon (which most places use), so depending on the season the cake filling may be tart.

At first, my sister and Noel weren’t planning on buying any pineapple cakes since Noel isn’t a big fan of them. He talked about how the first time he had a pineapple cake, it was so dry and turned him off from them. We tried to convince him that the SunnyHills pineapple cake were different than all the other ones he’s had before.

I did a bit of research on the SunnyHills store as it’s about a 15 minute walk from the closest MRT station in a residential area. Luckily we had google maps loaded on Tim’s phone because you can easily miss the subtle signage. When we found it, it looked like a little oasis in the middle of the city.

When we walked in, the very friendly and pretty ladies (Nate kept waving and saying “ni hao”) at the store led us to a table to sit down. The front room was full so they brought us to the back room and we got to sit at our own round table for four people.

The ladies there were so kind and kept pouring us more tea, which was nice of them. Noel, the former pineapple cake hater, had a change of heart after trying them here. After sitting and relaxing for about half an hour, we went to buy some pineapple cakes. Each pineapple cake is 42 NT = $1.70 CAD, and buying them in boxes of 10 or 15 doesn’t change the price per unit. Along with pineapple cakes they sell pineapple juice, honey cake (Castella cakes), and tea.

I would highly recommend anyone traveling to Taipei to go here for pineapple cakes. I have yet to try a better one. I haven’t been to Chia Te yet to look around but I can only imagine it would be a gong show of a store as Trip Advisor reviews all say to go early to avoid massive line ups. SunnyHills was seriously such a calm and relaxing experience that I wouldn’t mind just going there to have some tea and reading a book if they let people do that.

We headed out and decided to walk to our next destination – Breeze Shopping Center. The walk was about 30 minutes and it was nice because we were in a more residential area of Taipei. The streets were tree lined and very quiet. One of the major streets had multi-coloured pinwheels lining it, which gave it a community feel.

As we were walking along the “pinwheel street”, we found a Cama Coffee (I call it Taipei’s Starbucks). We have seen locations all over the city but my sister and Noel (who are coffee drinkers) hadn’t had a chance to try one. Interestingly, as much as Taiwan is a very tea-centric country, Taipei has a lot of really great coffee shops all around the city. Tim and I don’t drink coffee, but according to my sister and Noel, all the coffee places that they’ve tried were very good. Their iced Americano from Cama was 40 NT = $1.60 CAD.

We finally made it to Breeze Center, a mall filled with high end luxury goods as well as other stores. We were there for the other stores, like Muji, Uniqlo, and they even had a Maison Kayser (Paris bakery).

After a pretty full morning and afternoon, we made our way back to the apartment so they could do a final pack up before dinner and the airport. We planned on going to the Tonghua Night Market for dinner, since Noel wanted stinky tofu for the last time and my sister hadn’t tried an oyster omelet yet.

We went to the night market around 6:30pm and it was already really busy (it’s a Saturday night after all). Since Nate needed more of a sit down dinner place, we took them to Formosa Chang’s on Tonghua St. first. Formosa Chang’s is the fast casual chain restaurant that serves a good braised pork on rice. We ordered two large rice bowls, a stewed egg, a plate of vegetables and a pork chop for 242 NT = $9.80 CAD. After we ate at Formosa Chang’s, we got our night market eats and headed back to the apartment with about 45 minutes to spare before Uncle Albert came by.

We’re very fortunate that Uncle Albert has been so kind to us and to my family. Without even meeting them he offered to pick them up from the airport and now has dropped them off for their 11:55pm flight back to Vancouver. My sister and Noel said he parked and saw them off through the security gates.

Saying goodbye to loved ones, especially when we’re away from home for 4.5 months is hard. As most people know I’m extremely close to my family and see them more often than the average person, so being away from them for so long is harder on me – that and I’m a pretty emotional person. Saying goodbye was a teary affair for me and my sister. I think Tim was worried about how much I was crying when they left (I’m better now).

It was great having my sister, Noel, and Nate here. Things started off a bit rocky with Noel and Nate not feeling 100% but after that initial hurdle, the days couldn’t have been better (despite the rainy weather). It was awesome that they were able to come visit us in Taiwan and be able to meet some of Tim’s family and learn more about Taiwanese culture. I’m happy that Taipei was so baby/toddler friendly and we actually learned a lot about what it would be like to be a parent in Taipei (I’ll expand more on that in a future post). We all said we would come back in 10 or so years when we have kids – hope that happens!

Steps for the day: 24,000

Taipei (Day 19): Family and Food

March 19, 2016

It was another rainy morning in Taipei, but at least it’s a lot warmer than earlier in the week. Nate was in a good mood this morning and asked to sit in his stroller after breakfast and said to my sister, “Go!”. My sister and I took him to Daan Park to walk around, but as we began walking there it started to rain even harder. So unfortunately for Nate, he wasn’t able to play in the park.

When we got back from the park, Tim and I went to grab breakfast for everyone from a restaurant down the block that has since become our new breakfast/lunch/late night eats joint – “Ya Meile”. Once we walk in, the lady behind the counter recognized us and welcomed us in. She gave us free soy milk and said it was her treat (we think she’s the boss lady, she’s really friendly and very in control of everyone). We brought some dumplings, XLBs, lo bak go (fried turnip cake) and rice rolls to bring back to the apartment. It was our second day eating at this place and it’s probably one of the cheapest restaurants we have found for good eats (for breakfast, lunch and dinner). We could feed all four of us for less than $10 CAD.

The rain was coming down really hard at this point in the morning so we decided to just chill out and let Nate nap. The guys stayed back at the apartment to rest while I went with my sister to walk around a bit and get some bubble tea. We headed towards Daan Park and stopped by a Coco Bubble Tea. My sister really likes their passionfruit tea with coconut jelly and pearls – it’s really refreshing and only 40 NT = $1.60 CAD! We were discussing that this drink in Vancouver would likely be around $5. We also went to try to look for a KFC so my sister and Noel could try their delicious egg tarts. We had no luck because the one I looked up that was close to Coco closed down.

After our failed attempt to find a KFC, we walked by a beautiful indoor flower market – if only we actually lived here I would buy fresh flowers and an assortment of succulents.

On the way back to the apartment, we stopped by a restaurant that looked like a very popular lunch spot a few blocks away (Tim: Ruei An Taiwan Buffet). It was a self-serve lunch bar but we weren’t sure if they charged by the box/plate or if they weighed it. We didn’t see any signs with a fixed price so we assumed it was by weight, as people weren’t going crazy filling up their boxes/plates. We picked a few things to share and went to the counter to pay. There wasn’t a scale, but the cashier counted everything with her tongs and charged us for what we had. For a pretty full box we paid 90 NT = $3.60 CAD.

When we got back to the apartment, Nate was waking up from his nap (such good timing). We got ready and headed to Zhongxiao Fuxing to go to SOGO (Japanese department store). I’m always impressed by children’s toy floors at department stores here. They have a huge selection of toys and a variety of arts and craft stations around- like sewing, embroidery, clay making, painting, etc.

After SOGO, we walked down Zhongxiao Road towards Ice Monster. We wanted to stop by before dinner to get a popsicle as we wouldn’t have enough time before meeting the Ho family for dinner. As it was a Saturday afternoon, there was a huge line up for Ice Monster if you wanted to eat in. We got two popsicles (passionfruit and mango) just to try. They were perfect for Nate – super mini popsicles for 30 NT = $1.20 CAD.

We met Auntie Sandra, Uncle Dave and Kris for dinner at the original location of Shin Yeh. They were in town for the weekend so it was perfect timing that we were all able to meet up. Uncle Dave ordered a lot of classic Taiwanese dishes for us to try (I forget to take pictures).

After dinner we headed back to the apartment to put Nate to sleep before heading out to the Tonghua Night Market. My sister was exhausted so she decided to stay back and just go to bed early (it’s hard being a Mom…). We’ll come back to this night market again with her when we get back from Kenting – it’s close to Tim’s uncle’s apartment, where we’ll be staying for their last night in Taipei.

Now we’re back at the apartment, all ready to go to sleep. We’re planning on going to church tomorrow at the Holy Family Catholic Church close by (on the other side of Daan Park). There’s one English service there on Sundays at 9:45am.

Our total step count for today was 21,045 (I walked a bit more than Tim because I had two separate walks to Daan Park without him 😛 )

Taipei (Day 3): Walkathon and Street Eats

March 3, 2016

We woke up this morning at 4:30am and by the time we got ready to go it was about 8:30am. We decided we should try to take advantage of our jet lag and catch the sunrise from Elephant Mountain (which has good views of Taipei 101) at least once this trip. So we’ll attempt to do that tomorrow! This whole waking up for the sunrise thing is a “Tim thing”. Before him, I wouldn’t wake up to watch the sunrise and then when he visited me in Chicago on a work trip and made me wake up at 5:30am to watch the sunrise at “the bean” – which was actually pretty amazing! Anyways, the plan is to wake up early and hike up the mountain to watch the sunrise with Taipei 101 in the background. We’ll see if that happens tomorrow.

Ok back to today. Tim was looking at CNN’s list of “40 Taiwanese foods we can’t live without” to see if there was anything close to our walking route for the day. He wanted to try the recommended place for braised pork over rice (similar to what we ate on Day 2 at Formosa Chang).

We took the same route as we did yesterday, passing by the Airbnb apartment we’d be staying at when my sister and Noel arrive. As we walked past the apartment, we stopped by a food stall (which looked like a husband and wife team) with a lady rolling out green onion pancake dough. Tim ordered one and we sat down to wait for it. The husband gave us free warm soy milk while we waited – which was very nice of him (so far, everyone we’ve encountered in Taipei have been so friendly). We ate our green onion pancake and kept walking.

I enjoy walking through all the small streets and alleys to see if there’s any restaurants or shops that look popular among locals (line ups are always a good sign!).

We came across this place in one of the alleys on our way to the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Park. There were two old ladies making buns and Shaobing (燒餅) in a stand up oven (bin), sticking the dough to the sides of the bin similar to a tandoor. There were several locals waiting there for the bread to finish so we stopped to give one a try; we ordered one with green onion in it. As we were waiting for ours to finish cooking, the lady grabbed a wet mop and stuck it into the oven (to my horror). I don’t know what she was doing with it as there was still buns in there! The mop looked pretty dirty. Tim turned to me and was like, did you get a picture of that? I said no. I guess I was a bit horrified at what was going on. Two minutes later, she pulled our hot bun out of the oven and we continued our journey as we munched on it. I hope we don’t get sick tomorrow. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

We made it to the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Park, which I thought was pretty impressive. It was only about 10am when we got there so it wasn’t that crowded, just a few groups of Japanese school girls around. We stood in the middle of the square taking pictures and selfies like everyone else under the beating sun. It was only 10am and the sun felt a lot stronger than yesterday. For some reason Disney has a Frozen exhibit in the middle of the square right in front of the actual Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. It’s been there since Christmas and is there until mid-April. It’s too bad that it’s set up right in the middle of everything, it’s a bit of an eye sore when taking pictures and each time we walked past it, we heard “Let it go” blaring inside.

We basically just went to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall today on the way to eat braised pork on rice. Tim doesn’t cook much Taiwanese food at home, but when he does, it’s usually this dish. He’s made a few batches and they’ve all been really good (fatty but good). We found the place, Jin Feng Minced Pork Rice , mostly due to the large amounts of people surrounding it. We found an empty table in the back of the restaurant, sat down and stared at the order form for a bit. Tim can speak Taiwanese and Mandarin but can’t read and I’m… useless. Luckily Tim recognized some of the characters and we ordered one large rice to share (large in Asia is half of a side order in America). It was good, the fat made the rice taste velvety (those were Tim’s words). (Tim: But they have mushrooms in their sauce, which I’m not a big fan of.)

At this point, the sun was feeling a lot hotter and I kept thinking about drinking bubble tea or having shaved ice. I actually was craving a slurpee from 7-Eleven multiple times during our walk. But there are no slurpees at 7-Eleven in Taiwan! (I know, I sound like an ignorant foreigner)

Finally, we made it to Ximending. This area according to Tim is a trendy area and popular with “young people” – which makes us sound super old when we refer to others as “young people”. I guess we’re not that young anymore.

This area is full of food vendors, chain restaurants, branded shops and nightmarket-esque stalls. I enjoyed walking up and down the busy and flashy streets. There were multiple bubble tea shops on each street, which made me really happy. We saw there was a “Hot Star Chicken”, which is a Taiwanese chain specializing in deep fried chicken cutlets, and this location also served bubble tea. We ordered a passion fruit drink with aloe and coconut jelly (95 NT = $3.80 CAD, Tim got up sold on adding aloe AND coconut jelly) then walked around Ximending before deciding we wanted to try the chicken. When we ordered the chicken, the guy gave us a coupon for 5 NT off our drink purchase. (Tim: We should have bought the chicken before we got a drink). We then looked at the sign and it said “Buy meals get drinks with discount.” Apparently we can’t read English either.

At this point, we were both pretty exhausted from the sun and walking (we’re weak sauce). We decided to take the MRT back to the apartment and rest. We had plans to hike up Elephant Mountain this afternoon that’s not happening.

At about 6:30pm, we were still feeling sleepy and knew that we had to get out of the apartment or else we’d both fall asleep and probably end up waking up at 3am. We got changed and went out to the closest nightmarket to us, Tonghua/Linjiang Nightmarket, which was about a 5 minute walk.

The Tonghua Nightmarket has a good mixture of clothing and food vendors. We started off by having an oyster omelet. It was my first time having it. The flavours were all really good, but I wasn’t too crazy about the chewy starch part.

The next item on the menu was a deep fried green onion pancake with an egg. This was actually really good, especially when you got to the yolk part.

For dessert, I ordered a “UFO disc” with creme brûlée custard inside. This was like eating a warm egg tart.

Tim’s choice for dessert was “Masa’s delicious spring roll” which was made up of cilantro (yeah, it was weird), ground up peanut brittle, 3 scoops of ice cream (pineapple, taro and red bean) wrapped up like a spring roll. I was the first to take a bite, it was interesting. I think the cilantro threw me off as I was expecting something savoury but just tasted ice cream. I can see how it could be refreshing on a hot summer day. Tim really enjoyed it!

Now we’re back at the apartment washed up and ready for bed, at 8:30pm… stupid jet lag.

Steps for the day: 24,800