Almond this time

When I bought the Nori Pork Roll, I also bought this Almond Pork Paper at the same price of NTD150 (New Taiwan Dollar) which is MYR20.58 nett at the exchange rate of NTD100 to MYR13.72 and there are about 6 pieces in one pack.  

There are almond bits and sesame embedded in paper thin pork slices.

Tasty thin snacks. There is a desiccant packet inside the pack to keep the snack dry and crispy.

ChiaTe

ChiaTe is a popular bakery in Taiwan selling an assortment of Taiwan style pineapple tarts.

Walnut pineapple tart covered with acrospire - NTD35 nett (MYR4.80 nett at an exchange rate of NTD100 to MYR13.72).

The fillings are made up of walnuts and pineapple with a bit of winter melon taste. Sweet but not too sweet so is quite tasty.

Update: 7 April 2018 (Sat)

Strawberry flavour

The strawberry flavour is subtle so I won't be buying this flavour again. 

Paper Thin

Nori Pork Roll at NTD150 (New Taiwan Dollar) which is MYR20.58 nett at the exchange rate of NTD100 to MYR13.72 and there are only 3 rolls in one pack although the 3 rolls look like 4 rolls in the above photo. Very crispy and a very expensive snack. The nori is in wasabi flavour so it is spicy.

They were sealed in the silver packaging seen on the left in the photo above.

Simply the Best

Just need to queue to buy one to try.

The long queue.

Got it!

One lonely cheese tart - freshly baked so must eat at once.

Take a nibble.

If you take a close look at the pastry crust, you can see that the crust has been pre-baked before the fillings are poured into it and baked again causing the crust to be very crunchy. The fillings are made from 3 types of cheese according to its website and is very soft but not watery. The cheese taste is light but yet distinct so it is very tasty, not cloying at all. You won't just stop at one so luckily I bought only one so I can't binge on them.

This cheese tart is from Bake (originated from Hokkaido, Japan) which is not available here but you can get it in Singapore, Japan, Thailand, Korea, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. I bought one from Taiwan and it costs NTD70 at the exchange rate of NTD100 to MYR13.72 so this cheese tart costs MYR9.60 nett which is more expensive than Tokyo Secret's cheese tarts (MYR7.90 nett).Will it ever open a store here?

T2014 Eat before Fly

At TaoYuan airport (Taipei), we bought a set meal from a stall that we have eaten from before in the food court of the department store near our budget inn. You can see the plates having the name of the stall on them in both posts - 小南門.

The set meal consists of a bowl of white bitter gourd soup, a drink, a plate of  water spinach (kangkung) and a plate of rice with minced pork.

A lot of water spinach (kangkung)

The rice is sticky and delicious!

Food counter at the airport

T2014 Red Bean

Is this upside down?

Guan Pei Redbean Cake - we bought one to share and try. Nice when eaten warm. This is quite similar to the Japanese Dorayaki - red bean fillings sandwiched between two small pancakes, sometimes in the shape of a fish.

There are 7 other types of fillings: cream, yam, chocolate, peanut butter, sesame, cheesy corn and a savoury sweet type which is radish filling. Please refer to http://guan-pei.com.tw/product/ and we only tried the red bean type.

關 北 紅豆餅 - website: http://guan-pei.com.tw/ The cakes are made after you have placed your order so that they are as fresh as can be. The shop is in Taipei.

T2014 8 percent ice

Our friends in Taiwan brought us to this ice cream specialty store called 8% ice which serves gelato, sorbet and soft serve. We ordered three standard sized cups of macha (green tea) gelato, blackcurrant and rose gelato and mango sorbet (I think). Each cup costs TWD100 which is about MYR12. Normally I don't spend so much on ice cream but when one is out travelling, one tends to be less thrifty so expensive ice cream it is.

Don't be frightened by the strong colours because the colours are all natural colours as explained by their "aboutus page": http://8-ice.blogspot.my/p/about-us.html so the taste is really nice, no fake taste at all. They have other interesting choices such as "Brown Sugar with Sea Salt from Miyako Island" and "Matcha Yuzu" which we didn't manage to try because we were too full from eating almost all the time round the clock. This is a must-try for ice cream lovers.

T2014 Favourite Ice Cream Stick

This is my favourite ice cream 紅豆粉粿 (Hóngdòu fěn guǒ), I think I ate one stick everyday during my trip to Taiwan since there is a 7 11 around every corner where I can buy this.

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. If you search for 紅豆粉粿, you will find many photos of 粉粿.

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 so I prefer Xiao Mei because its taste is lighter with less milk which enables me to eat more.

T2014 Sushi Express

When we were in Taipei, we kept coming across a sushi conveyor belt store. It seems that this store has many outlets and offers affordable sushi at one fixed low price of TWD30 per plate. TWD30 is about MYR3.60 so we decided to go for it and went to the Sushi Express (爭鮮迴轉壽司) at Ximending.

According to their website http://www.sushiexpress.com.tw/  they have a branch in Singapore too. For about  MYR3.60 a plate, I have to say that the quality is quite nice since we can't expect it to be the best. The key is to select only those sushi that is expensive since all plates cost the same price per plate but we did not do that because we wanted to try as many types as we could. There are a few types that we don't find at all in our local conveyor belt sushi chain stores. What we ate:

1. Fish and Roe Sushi

2. Pickled Fish Sushi

3. Prawns Sushi

4. Steamed okras

5. Smoked Salmon

6. Ikura Gunkan Maki Sushi

7. Mussels

8. Cashew Nuts Inari Sushi

9. Salmon Sashimi

10. Salmon Belly Sushi

11. Top view Salmon Belly Sushi

12. Salmon Sushi

13. Fish roe Sushi

14. Gunkan Maki with Shrimp Roe

15. Tamago

16. Mango Pudding (not nice)

17. Steamed Prawns

18. Steamed Egg

19. Fish Sushi

20. Mentai Squid Sushi

21. Fish Liver

22. Please click on the above menu for a larger image

23. Please click for a bigger image

For the low price, this is a place worth eating at. We wanted to return for more but couldn't find the time to do so as we have too many other eateries to explore.

T2014 Big Bing

One day when we were walking back to our budget inn, we saw this thick spring onion pancake being sold and since I like to eat doughy food, I bought one to take back to our room to snack on and to share with my friends.

This is called 蔥花千層大餅 (Cōnghuā qiān céng dà bǐng) which literally means Spring Onion Thousand Layers Big Biscuit. It is like a big and thick pancake. I bought just a section and they cut it up into smaller pieces for me. As can be seen from the photos, it has layers and layers of "flour" with spring onions in between the layers. It is doughy but not so oily although you can see the oil in the "bing" layers but because there are so many layers, I don't feel that it is oily when I ate it as there are more layers than the sping onion oil.

This is a common food item in Taiwan and there are many road side stalls selling this bing.

The bag says they make their bing with less oil, less salt, less sugar.

Outer layer crispy and inner layers soft, very tasty!

This is the little shop

哈爾濱陳蔥花千層大餅

中正區重慶南路一段83號