Taipei 2014: Taipei City Edition

Taipei is just an hour flight from Hong Kong, yet I've never been. Now that I have Taiwanese friends, I had to visit them, eat, and shop. Having local Taiwanese friends means that I get the local taste and experience: I know what places are actually famous and good, and what places in travel guides that are a waste of time. I was there for 8 days, so I will divide these 8 days up to blog about it. I loved Taiwan and will definitely go again in the near future.

First, I hit places in Taipei City, like XiMenDing, DongQu, Eslite book store, Taipei 101... all the Taipei landmarks.

Eslite book store is heaven for all you book worms out there. There is one in Hong Kong, but nowhere near the size of this flagship store. They sell various books, stationary, CD/DVD, and dainty accessories. English books are really cheap there, and you get tax refund tourists (if you buy over 3000NTS and show passport). I love travel guides from Taiwanese publishers, they're just so adorable!

8% ice is a very popular ice cream place in Taipei. We found one at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, near Eslite main store. I ordered a milk tea flavour (I'm kind of a milk tea addict). The ice cream is quite creamy, which is a plus, but they are slightly over priced for ice cream. Their interesting flavours, like Hojicha with honey (what I ordered), Chocolate with Earl Grey, Pumpkin etc. really draw me in, as I like exotic and unique ice cream flavours more than the typical vanilla/chocolate.

同心圓紅豆餅 is very famous for their red bean cakes. They have different flavors like black sesame, peanut, red bean, custard... and you can order regular or mochi ones. When I tried it, it was amazing to my expectation. So soft and chewy. I love anything with mochi and I love red bean cakes too, so that was just the perfect combination. The location is convenient and they open till late, perfect for supper!

When in Taiwan, you have to participate in their cafe craze. Melange Cafe is one of the famous coffee places in Taipei. They are quite particular about their coffee and have millions of choices. I went to the one in Sogo because the other ones were completely full but I only had to wait for around 4 tables to get in. The interior design of the cafe is home-y and posh, just how I like it. The service is amazing. So much better than in Hong Kong. When I praised the service here to my Taiwanese friend, she agreed that Taipei is in general well-known for good service.

Yes. Waffles. Most of these cafes specialize in this kind of dessert. I love their waffle. It's so thick, soft and chewy, which is my expectation of a good waffle. If you like thin, crispy ones, this may not be for you. We ordered the seasonal fruits waffle because we just could not pick what fruits to go with our order. It comes with a huge cup of assorted fruits and ice cream on the side. This is great because your waffle will not turn soggy as it would if the fruits and ice cream was placed on the waffle. We shared this because it was really big and we of course had to leave room for further eating down the road!

I'm not a huge coffee drinker, so I ordered an Earl Grey Latte. It was amazing. The milk/cream came in a separate jug, and I think they whipped up some cream so it's thick and fluffy but still runny, I have no idea the technical term for that but I try. After I pour the cream in, it floats on top and a long spoon is required to actually mix everything up. It was delicious. One of the best Earl Grey Lattes I've ever had.

They are actually very well-known for their cold drip coffee 冰滴咖啡. Too bad I'm not that into coffee drinking, or else I think it would be a really good idea to try that.

Ximending is an area for teenage shopping. A lot of celebrity shops and young people brands gather here, so it is constantly busy and full of both tourists and locals. I came just because it was a must go for tourists, but the style of clothing sold was not really my taste, so I didn't really buy anything. This area is perfect for 13-16 year olds (said my local friend). There are lots of Korean makeup brands though, so if you're into that, go look around.

BUBBLE TEA. It's Taiwan. Need more explaining?
I found out that bubble tea prices here are half the price of Hong Kong ones. Their "expensive" bubble tea is 天仁喫茶趣 (can be found in HK), and I like to order their bubble tea but with fresh milk. Most other shops use milk powder, which is obviously not healthy compared to fresh milk.
50嵐 is quite a popular bubble tea shop here, where the locals go. They provide different boba/tapioca sides. Mini or regular/big. I tried the mini one and they're so cute and adorable. Haha how can a drink be cute I don't know. Of course they also have ice level and sweet level options.

Brune egg & tofu is a specialty of Taiwan. Laotianlu 老天祿滷味 is an old brand that attracts many locals and tourists. They have eggs, tofu, duck, chicken... lots of options to choose from. I wanted the egg and tofu just for a treat. They don't look too appetizing in the bag, but it's really good and the taste is rich and all soaked inside, what you want brune food to be like.

If you want some good Taiwanese food, 度小月 (duxiaoyue) is quite good. I've never had 擔仔麵 (Tann-ah noodle), but I was pleasantly surprised The braised pork is very flavoured and the noodles are the perfect texture. We also ordered some veggies and black peppered pork to share with was also amazing.

東區粉圓 is another famous old store. Basically all it is is chewy balls. I'm not kidding. (The Taiwanese really like their chewy foods). They have different flavoured tapiocas and ingredients you can customize for your own bowl of chewy dessert, served hot or cold. They even have extra ice and syrup at the eating area so you can make your bowl sweeter or not. I like chewy stuff, so that was pretty good. Its a relatively large bowl of starch, so I would recommend sharing with someone.

YongKang street is a small area that has some good food too. The well-known DinTaiFung 鼎泰豐is just around the corner, but I didn't go because there were too many people. We did have some green onion pancake with egg, which is so good I want it now. It's situated at a street corner and does not have a very obvious or flashy sign, but look out for it and you will not regret paying a mere 30NTS for it.

Although I put food as a priority over museums when I'm in Taiwan 國立故宮博物館National Palace Museum was worth a visit. My friend brought me to specific displays that are famous in there, like the carved olive-stone boat and Jadeite cabbage with insects. As someone from Hong Kong, I was not largely interested in the classic jade and ceramics, but the special and unique things are worth seeing.

After a week of eating Taiwanese food, my friend brought me to her favourite Italian restaurant, Cosi O Cosi. It was really good bread and meat and pizza. The environment is cozy (no pun intended) and the food came pretty fast. We ordered a meat antipasti, and a 4 cheese pizza, both my friend's signature order when she goes. It's not expensive for Italian food at all, but the quality is really good.

My conclusion: Taiwanese food is cheap, so just go explore, eat, and shop. It is great if you go with a bunch of friends, so you can all order and try loads of things. This is the first time I'm in Taiwan, and I fell in love. I would love to go again in the near future.

More info from my trip to come!

xoxo

Foodie Review: Milk Top Ice Cream

I am someone who does not like wasting my eating quota on trash. So when it comes to summer, I am very picky about my ice cream. My philosophy is: chocolate ice cream is too overrated, has to be so rich it's fudgy to make me eat; vanilla ice cream is only for eating with apple pies, chocolate molten cakes etc. never on its own; soft serve ice cream is not rich and concentrated enough, unless you're talking about Hokkaido's milk ice cream...

As you can see, I don't just get any ice cream. I save my quota for the good ones. Maybe you do not agree with me, it's ok. Everyone has their own taste. But I really do want to praise Milk Top's ice cream. And because I will only indulge myself on interesting and worthy flavours, I will talk about some of my favs.

I can safely say my favourite ice cream flavour is now ginger, thanks to Milk Top. Ginger? Some people will think it's disgusting, it really is a hit or miss kind of thing. This ice cream is not particularly smooth, it is ginger flavoured afterall. It's more icy than it is creamy, but I love it. It has the ginger kind of spice, but also is sweet like ice creams should be. If I didn't have to worry about my body shape, I can engulf 5+ of these in no time.

They also have various tea and milk tea flavours. To someone like me who drinks milk tea like it's water, these flavours of course are close to heaven to me. Because this ice cream is royal milk tea flavoured, it is smoother and creamier than the ginger, but is definitely not the softness of Mövenpick ice creams. But the taste is all the matters. Moreover, I like stiffer and harder ice creams if you cannot already tell.

Green tea. This is one of the most popular flavours in Hong Kong recently. First thing first, I've been obsessed with green tea ice cream since I first had it at the age of 6. I understand the hype of green tea products, but don't understand the obsession with everything green tea. This Milk Top green tea ice cream did not disappoint me in one bit. It is very rich and heavy in green tea flavour, and judging by the taste and colour you know it's high quality green tea.

Milk Top products use high quality ingredients like Hokkaido 3.6 Milk, probably why they're so good. I always go to the shop in Causeway Bay Sogo. They have counters and store in other places, but cwb is my to-go location.

I hope you are having an enjoyable summer!
xoxo

Osaka Grad Trip!

A chapter of my life has ended, and I have finally graduated from high school! The past 3 years in California have been some of the best times of my life. Now that my friends and I have graduated, we of course had to jump on the "grad trip" bandwagon. It is true I've been to Japan numerous times, but some of my friends, not so much. So this time, we decided to go on a 5 day Osaka trip. Yes, I was just in Hokkaido the past winter, and Osaka exactly 2 years ago, but who's counting?

Day 1 was spent at Kyoto. We took Peach Airlines, which is not bad for a very economic price. We landed in Kansai Airport at 5:30am, and took the JR Haruka line straight to Kyoto. From Kyoto JR station, we took the bus to Kiyomizu-dera, a must-see attraction at Kyoto. Kyoto is well-known for having a number of ruins and old temples for sightseeing, and Kiyomizu-dera is probably the most famous one. The road to the temple is dainty and laid with various souvenir shops. Green tea is popular there, so there are a lot of green tea snacks sold there. At the temple, you can wish for anything you want. Most people wish for luckiness in their love life. There's even 2 rocks dedicated to bringing romantic luck!

For lunch, we travelled to the other side of Kyoto, around Arashiyama, to enjoy a traditional kaiseki meal at Shoraian 松籁庵 Tofu Restaurant. It was one of our most expensive and filling meals, but so worth it. I recommend calling and making a reservation, since the place doesn't have a lot of seating, but is quite well-known. Their tofu is so rich, and all courses were made with supreme detail. It's not the first time I've had kaiseki, but it was really an enjoyment.

After a full meal, time to enjoy the Bamboo Forest. I wasn't super impressed with it I have to say. It seemed very man-made and unnatural, because it was just weird to me that there's a fenced in bamboo area among non-bamboo trees. It was still pretty fun walking through it and goofing off with friends.

After a long day, we returned to Osaka-shi, to our machiya near Matsuyamachi. We found this location through airbnb.com I do recommend looking through their accommodations, perfect for us students who do not want to spend too much on a hotel room but can still enjoy the stay.

Day 2 we decided to do some shopping at Shinsaibashi, the famous shopping street of Osaka. We did quite some damage to our wallets, not gonna lie.

For lunch, we walked all the way to Amerikamura (American Village) to have Omurice with curry. Hokkyuokusei not located exactly in Amerikamura, so I recommend asking shop owners for directions. This is my second time at this omurice restaurant. It is quite well-known, but I feel like to me, it's just... omurice, nothing super special. I think their menus have Chinese and English translation, so don't worry when you order.

 Pork Katsu Omurice with Curry

 Fish Rod Omurice

While walking back to Amerikaruma, we passed by a record store and Alice On Wednesday. I'm not a huge records fan, so I'll talk about Alice On Wednesday. At first, I thought it was a gallery or exhibition, seeing it from the outside. But since my two friends went in and didn't come out for quite some time, I decided to go in and take a look. They have 2 rooms, one selling accessories and stationary, another for food and drinks. The decoration is adorable and the merchandise is inspired by Alice in Wonderland, the classic one, not necessarily the Disney version. I. Went. Nuts. And of course causing me to completely forget taking pictures of the interior. Don't worry, they welcome everyone to take photos of the store. But seriously, go to their Facebook page to see the interior design and their products. I died. The cutest thing I got was a "Drink Me" bottle of water. That thing is on my shelf, for my collection, no kidding.

Then we walked back to Shinsaibashi and chilled there for the rest of the night. For dinner, I have a tradition that I have to have a crab dinner. So we tried to get a seat at the famous crab place in Dotonbori called Kanidouraku Dotombori-Honten. I've been to this restaurant literally every time I go to Osaka with my family. However, we were super tired and hungry, but we had to wait for 30 min for a small table because it was so full, so we decided to go to another crab restaurant 5 min walk away. This restaurant is actually under the same company, but just not as well-known as the flagship one. It's also Kanidouraku. For the 5 of us, we had our own large room and sat really comfortably. We ordered 2 sets, which included crab sashimi, shabu, boiled, grilled, sushi etc. It was a very fulfilling meal.

From top (clockwise): Boiled crab, crab salad, crab sashimi

Original shop

Pablo Cheesecake is quite well-known for its softness and goo-y-ness. So we bought one to bring home to try. For me, it wasn't really worth the hype, maybe because I like my cheesecake heavy and cheesy. The pastry crust tasted good, not oily, and not too filling. The cheesecake itself is more eggy than cheesy. It's super light, and reminds me of an enormous egg tart. Personally, not worth the money.

 Random green tea Portuguese style egg tart + Pablo Cheesecake

Day 3 started with Osaka Castle. This is a must-go attraction in Osaka. It really is quite a nice looking castle, I like the style of the architecture and inside, every floor has an exhibition/museum where you can learn about the history of the castle.

 View from the top floor

Kuromon fish market. Maybe I'm spoiled by Hokkaido's fish market, but I was quite disappointed with Kuromon. I guess Osaka isn't as close to the sea as I had imagined. Yes, it does have a lot of seafood and food stalls, but I found the sashimi not as fresh as I had hoped. The grilled food is not bad, but not the best I've had. The fruits though, PARADISE. I feel like at these markets, fruits are pretty much guaranteed to be amazing for not a very expensive price. We bought a box of peaches and some pearl grapes. The peaches were around HKD 35 each, but they were so sweet and juicy.

That night, we planned to go to Umeda to look at the night lights. So after going back to our apartment and resting for a bit, we set out for Umeda. Our first stop was the famous Ichiran Ramen. There is one Ichiran in Hong Kong, we felt like it is a must to go have ramen in Japan, and why not one of the best?

Buy tickets

Customize (they have English version!) 

They recommend 1/2 spicy sauce for first-timers, but personally do not feel any spice, and I can't take too much spicy, so I would recommend regular spice :)

Cubicle style eating

After a good ramen meal, we burnt off all that calories by walking to the sky building (it's actually not THAT bad). There, we went up to the floating garden to enjoy the view of the city at night. There's also an area for love locks if you're into that. They even have a special seat for you to take pictures at.

Day 4 is Shinsaibashi/Dotonbori take 2. Yep, we just couldn't have enough of this shopping and eating paradise. We first hit Tokyu Hands, a popular Japanese department store and had some fun there. Then we headed to Mizuno Okonomiyaki. I have to confess that I've never had the Osaka special Okonomiyaki despite visiting Osaka for at least 3 times in the past. This okonomiyaki place is super packed, but it was quite worth the wait. I'm pretty sure they're used to everyone trying to take a picture of the food and the frying pan. We ordered a set for 3-4 people aka 4 regular size and 1 small size okonomiyaki. They're quite filling, and I like the one with the noodles most. They put the same sauce on all the okonomiyakis, so they all kind of tasted the same after a while. I would say maybe try different combinations of the sauce for each and don't put all the sauces on all the okonomiyakis. They were not bad regardless.

Then we walked down Dotonbori and into Little Osaka, a snack and souvenir shop. They sell lots of different Japanese cookies and food. One of the most memorable thing they sell is this:

Breast pudding...?

Anyways, we walked along the river and into shops we haven't been yet to finish our shopping. Don't judge. We consist of 5 girls. What do you expect.

We then had takoyaki. I was never a huge fan of this kind of food, but my friends are, so why not. This place is pretty good (judging by the fact that they have a huge octopus sign). The takoyaki is blazing hot, the batter is good, and the octopus is pretty fresh.

I was craving for some dorayaki, so we found some at the Daimaru in Shinsaibashi. Daimaru is a famous department store. We found the dorayaki at the basement food level. At first I wanted red bean, but the sweet potato is just irresistable. This dorayaki has a crunchy and crispy shell, I was hoping for the thick, chewy kind. But nonetheless, the sweet potato filling is satisfying.

Day 5 the last day was spent on outlet shopping. We chose to go to Mitsui Outlet Park at 門真南 station. This is a smaller outlet, but we thought it was going to have more shops geared towards our style. However, it was a big disappointment. Some sales was good, but there really weren't a lot of shops, explains why not many people were there.

We wasted our time walking around and traveling to Mitsui Outlet Park that we didn't have time to go to Rinku Premium Outlets before catching the plane. This outlet is right next to the airport, and provides a free shuttle to the airport. We walked through it just to see if we could sneak some time, but 30 min was not enough for us girls. Rinku is way bigger than Mitsui, and provide a larger range of shops. If you like outlet shopping, go to Rinku before catching your flight.

We decided to go souvenir shopping before checking in our luggages at the airport. There is quite a few things in Kansai airport, mostly food, to buy back home. I got a green tea Kyoto baumkuchen cake and a Konditorei Kobe Cream Cheesecake, two of my favourite foods from Japan.