Stir Fried Betel Nut Flowers

Wed 7 Nov 2018 Day 2 in Taipei and at 11.30 am, for lunch (meal 2), we went to this quaint restaurant.

It is a vegetarian restaurant.

Oh, A Michelin Star Vegetarian Restaurant to be exact. How many stars? I don't know even after reading the Michelin Guide online here for this restaurant which is named Serenity. For vegetarians who are interested to eat here, the address is:

Serenity
1, Lane 1, Zhenjiang Street, Zhongzheng, Taipei, 110, Taiwan

My family did the ordering and these are the vegetables dishes. One dish that we cannot find here in KL is the Stir fried betel nut flowers dish - the dish in the middle row on the most left - bunga pokok pinang. I guess in Penang, there should be a lot of pokok pinang with flowers but do people eat them locally here? It taste nice. You can read all about this Stir Fried Betel Nut Flowers dish in this article.

This dish is a must-order. Their famous stinky tofu dish. Very flavourful and tasty - I like!

Cross section of the stinky tofu.

I think this is some sort of mochi desserts.

12.47 noon - we walked past this dumpling (jiao zi) eatery. Wanted to eat there but the queue overflowed onto the street so not queuing so bye bye and we walked on. This eatery, Takumi Dumplings (巧之味手工水餃), sells many types of dumplings. You can read all about it here in this article. I guess I miss this one forever.

For you all who love to eat sui jiao or jiao zi, here is the address but be prepared to queue:
Takumi Dumplings
No. 6, Section 2, Jinan Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City, 100

1 pm - we walked past this bakery 滿福堂餅行(Man Fu Tang) which I went in to buy some pastries.
Address: No. 3, Section 2, Zhongxiao East Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City, Taiwan 100

In the morning at 9.40 am, we just ate breakfast in the room. Soy drink.

Bread

Red Bean Glutinous Rice Chang - not sure bought from where in Taipei.

After breakfast, we walked to Serenity Restaurant for lunch via the underground Zhongshan Metro Mall located between the MRT Taipei Main Station and Shuang Lian Station (we stayed near Shuang Lian Station which is our stop) and walked past this Jazz Square with big mirrors to encourage students and citizens to use the Jazz Squares for dance practice. Can you see people dancing in the above photo? I love to walk through this section. You can read more about this underground mall in this article.

*** Monday 29 June 2020 d104 ***

My breakfast at 10.30 am of egg, cucumber and bread.

Eat eat eat eat

Recognise this place?

Where are we going at 2.30 pm?

10.20 pm - so unlike me to eat so late but the objective of this trip is to eat as much as I can in the little time here. A bowl of sour spicy soup. The ingredients are tofu, bamboo shoots, carrots, cloud ear fungus, meat slices, egg drops.

Ordered two items only, price 63.

Ba Fang eatery, a chain store.

6 dumplings

Seldom can get here - kimchi pork dumplings. So appetising, so yummy!

11.30 pm - still eating - my favourite ice cream here.

My favourite ice cream 紅豆粉粿 (Hóngdòu fěn guǒ). 紅豆is red bean. 粉粿is flour cakes which are chewy (QQ) cubes embedded in the ice cream.  粉粿 is made mainly from tapioca flour. 

There are two main brands selling this type of ice cream: 義美 (I Mei)  and 小美 (Xiao Mei). Both are nice but I Mei has more milk in its ice cream.

This one that I am eating is Xiao Mei.

This is I-mei. Photo sourced from internet.

Short trip to Taipei on Tue 6 Nov 2018. I don't think I will ever go to Taipei again. So am feeling nostalgic looking at the photos so decided to put them here to remember my farewell trip to Taipei.

*** Sunday 28 June 2020 d103 ***

Dine in 4 - Around 10.30 am, we were in the vicinity so we dropped by Homemade Fish Ball House, Sri Petaling and saw there were no customers dining in so we ordered two small portions of Kai si hor fun at MYR 7.50 nett and steamed chicken hor fun at MYR 8.50 nett. Then from another shop we takeaway Bak Kut Teh for one pax MYR 14 nett and requested for MYR 2 nett rice. Also bought ytf 5 pieces x MYR 1.60 nett - 2 tofu, 2 bitter gourds and 1 brinjal from FM. From 7-11, we bought a loaf of gardenia wholemeal bread MYR 3.3 nett, gardenia red bean buns MYR 3.50 nett and 2 packs of mighty white banana Walnut muffins at MYR 1.60 nett each so the total is exactly MYR 10 nett. On Saturday, I wanted to buy a roll of Tao sar pneah but it was MYR 4.50 nett and the tub was quite light. The seller explained that it is priced higher than other mung bean biscuits because the brand is Ban Heang from Penang. I didn't buy because it was light and I didn't bring a 50 cents coin. Maybe next weekend I will buy to try.

Too much

 Bought this amount of char siew at MYR 12 nett. I requested for as lean as possible. Taste like Bak kwa cos it is lean meat. Went out to the hardware shop nearby to buy filter cartridge and it was quite risky there because the majority of contractors crowding around the entrance are not wearing masks and are describing what they want to buy to the shop assistants with gusto so saliva should be flying. I was wearing those common disposable mask which I doubt give much protection to me and only protecting others from me.

The shop lady boss told me a 1 micron filter cartridge is sold individually at MYR 5.50 nett and 5 cartridges of 5 micron filter in one pack is sold at MYR 12 nett. As I was requested to buy 1 micron I bought 6 only to see the label says 5 micron and the shop helper has the nerve to tell me the manufacturer labelled them wrongly, should be 1 micron. Who is he trying to fool? I didn't want to argue with him so I just top up MYR 2 nett to change 4 cartridges (MYR 22 nett) to 2 packs of 5 cartridges of 5 micron but with thinner walls (MYR 24 nett). I will monitor myself for 14 days to see if I was exposed by this event. What a Saturday morning at about 10.30 am. 27 June 2020 d102.

 My portion of pepper pork stomach meehoon hor fun MYR 8 nett with the char siew at 12 noon.

 1 pm - charsiew on bread. Taste just like Bak kwa.

 6.30 pm - instant noodles with the remaining roast chicken from Aeon bought on Thursday 25 June 2020 d100 for dinner for two pax.

 The portion remaining after eating his fill. I managed to finish everything on this pan but was very full. So next time I must not buy one whole chicken again because even after eating it for 3 days, we have difficulty finishing it until I had to eat more than I wanted to.

We were requested to buy this fragrant rice loong (dragon) ju (pearl). 5 kg at MYR 29.50 nett. After buying the cartridges and rice, we delivered the goods and changed the water filter cartridge. All in a day's work.

Do you have a water filter at home? What brand of rice do you buy? Photo of this rice is sourced from the internet, no idea where as it was sent to me as a guide to buy the correct brand of rice.

Roasted Chestnuts

12 noon - Fried rice for the whole day on Friday 26 June 2020 d101 but I don't think anyone is counting the days anymore. Ingredients in this fried rice: Eggs, Roast chicken meat bought from Aeon on Thursday 25 June 2020 d100, 2 Dong Guan Waxed Sausages (bought on Friday 22 May 2020 d66), rice and frozen mixed vegetables bought from Giant supermarket.

This is the Kawan Frozen Mixed Vegetable 500g bought from Giant Supermarket because it is the only brand of Frozen Mixed Vegetable available in that supermarket.

I got a request to buy ready-to-eat chestnuts. I could have bought those ready-to-eat peeled chestnuts from supermarkets (which I did not see any but I did not go search in detail) but then I thought to buy from this kiosk in Aeon food court. Now while writing this, I found out that I have bought from them before back in 2014. 

The chestnuts are cooked in coffee beans I believe. I also bought two roasted sweet potatoes. Total price for chestnuts and roasted potatoes is about MYR 34 ish. Have to pay first and then only return with the receipt to collect the food.

Bought 280 g for MYR 18.50 nett. Back in 2014, 300 g costs MYR 14 nett only.

The chestnuts are quite small compared to those I bought and ate in Kyoto, Japan back in 2009. I did not count how many chestnuts there are for 280 g.

I peeled them for about 1 hour and got 25 nicely peeled whole ones. I think there are about 6 to 8 ones which I ate while peeling because I broke the chestnuts so might as well eat them.

The chestnuts are put in a paper bag.

They took the trouble to provide information about the chestnuts on their paper bag. These chestnuts are imported from Tien Jin, it seems.

This is the whole roast chicken I bought from Aeon food court which some of the meat were used in the fried rice.

They call it Ayam Golek fresh from oven, only MYR 11.70 nett per chicken by weight. More affordable than the fried chicken from the Colonel.

Bought Bee Cheng Hiang 4 slices of BBQ Minced Pork at MYR 150 per kg so for 4 slices it costs MYR 34.50 nett which works out to be MYR 8.625 nett per slice. If I am diligent, I must learn how to make this Bak Kwa from Nancy. She provided the recipe here in her article.

Bought this Safegg Pasteurized Eggs at MYR 14.50 nett.

Ate the banana cake bought from Aeon Food Court on Thursday and found it to be sweet and a bit on the dry side which is what we expected so confirmed that TK banana cake is better at MYR 7.80 nett compared to this banana cake at MYR 7 nett.

10.19 am - my breakfast of Milo cereal with Sprouted grains rainbow bread.

1.57 pm - my lunch of fried rice.

Hands free sanitizer dispenser

Thursday 25 June 2020 d100 - 3rd trip to Midvalley Mall since mco began on 18 March 2020. Once we entered the mall from the car park, we have to sanitise our hands.

Very useful contraption to avoid using hands to press the pump of the bottle.

Bye bye Ko Ko Kai that used to occupy this kiosk. I wonder are they still in Aeon One Utama or not.

The passage connecting Aeon to Aeon Big is closed to control the crowd.

Can't help but to buy the Aeon pandan layer cake again since the offer of buy 2 packs for MYR 9.90 nett is still on. The cake is definitely not as good as RT and TK but the jelly like layer is nice. I hope RT and TK would put in a jelly like layer instead of a jam/paste like layer. Bought a banana cake at MYR 7 nett to see how it tastes.

Pandan Layer cake is by this wonderful cake house in Aeon food court.

Exit and also temperature scanning for entry. Good to see Aeon still implementing the SOP.

What's new?

Garlic Cream Cheese Bread but I didn't buy to try.

Not my lunch of dried oyster ribs carrots radish bacon choy sum soup with mihun at 12 noon.

Shared dinner of instant noodles with choysum and ribs at 6.30 pm.