TW Tour: Shilin Night Market, Taipei AKA Mecca/Paradise/Nirvana

People have their various reasons for living. But for people like us, the primary reason is food. I once told a Sunday school teacher that I didn't want to be an angel because angels can't eat/taste. If food is your religion, then going to Shilin Night Market is making that holy pilgrimage that crystallizes and affirms your faith.

Check out the throngs of people here on a Thursday night. There weren't that many tourist types maybe because it was a weeknight. I can't imagine what it would be like on a Friday or Saturday night. There were tons of food stalls on the street despite there being a food area.
The in-door food area
A vendor with meat items
A bun vendor
A sausage vendor
A vendor for all things and parts chicken
The sen jian bao (SJB) vendor of fame.
Frying the SJBs.
This is probably why the SJBs in the US will never taste good. Check out that pan action.
The famed small intestine in big intestine vendor
Closeups of the "intestines" aka sausages.
And of course, we had one of these delicious creations. Buns are over-rated!
We also had those SJBs - juice literally squirted out of them. The plastic around was our shield from complete messiness.
Stinky tofu - no trip to TW would be complete without it.
TW "Tempura" - this is really oden but with all sorts of stuff the Japanese would never put in.
One of them being pork blood cakes.
Cold sesame noodles - these were delicious but packed the punch in chili heat.
Oyster pancake - perfection.
Shaved ice with mango, taro, green beans, and red beans.

Shilin Night Market - Jiantan exit off the MRT

TW Tour: Post Hike Lunch, Taroko Gorge

Our hike through Taroko was amazing... nothing like getting to a beautiful waterfall at the end of the trail only to discover that one can walk another .2km through caves to get to the other side of the waterfall. We stood in awe of the panel of water that lay before us. But needless to say, after all this exercise and water, we looked like drowned rats and were hungry rats at that. Our B&B owner recommended Lan Lan right outside the entrance of the park. Once again, it's a place with no menu. They tell you what they have (ingredients) and you tell them how you want it. I'm getting spoiled by this kind of restaurant interaction!

Cuttlefish with snow peas. The cuttlefish was cooked just tender and the snow peas were crisp.
Sauteed wild boar with home made chili sauce - what I can say.... wild boar was pretty tasty and not too gamey in this prep.
Sauteed san su - God, I miss this vegetable!
Clam soup - good but not as good as the oens we had in Chiayi.
We knew the food was going to be good as the stove in the kitchen sounded like a jet engine everytime it came on. With that kind of wok power, how can one go wrong?

Total came to NT960 (~$32)

TW Tour: Golden Traingle of Bras and Food, Hualien City

We were told by our Hualien B&B owner that that area cricled in pink was the triangle of food and bras. While we were lured away from eating at any of the places in the area (and they were plentiful!) by all-you-can-eat-and-drink karaoke private rooms with a private bathrooms attached, we did confirm the existence.

Food and bras... who knew... but a lovely combination, indeed.

TW Tour: Random BNS, Long Beach Township in Taitung County

I love it when this kind of thing happens... we had been driving for hours on winding, cliff "highways". It was starting to rain. We were hungry and decided to pull into the next town. After surveying the deserted, ghost-town like main drag, we decided to eat at this small joint. The store front you see here says it all - small, mom and pop in the country. They were making noodles so we ordered four bowls of beef noodle soup (BNS, TW's national dish), eggs with pickled radish, and some greens.

Our piping bowls of BNs were amazing. The broth was rich in flavour but clear and not heavy. The beef was tender but not spent in flavour. The noodles were perfection. I mean they were better than any fancy, hand pulled noodle place in the US that charges a small fortune. These puppies were NT70 each!
Another view of the BNS
The eggs fried with pickled radish and the stir fried kong hsing tsai.The outside storefront.
The total tab with ice tea beverages was NT565 (~18).
Off of Highway 9 in Long Beach.

TW Tour: Last Breakfast in Kenting

Another day of travel, another dan bing to start our day. This one with sauteed local Kenting onion. We certainly like our Chinese breakfast! We had pork floss again too (just not pictured).

TW Tour: Ali Seafood, Kenting

Ali Seafood on Da Guan Road is so well known that they bus tourist buses in. Generally, this is a sign for me to stay away, but after reading about and seeing the delicious meals on several TW food blogs, I knew I had to go see for myself. It certainly didn't disappoint and made our seafood meal of the previous night pale to not even worth mentioning despite it being rather good by any other standard. As you can see the restaurant itself is huge. You walk in, the assign you a table, and then the fun begins.

There is a waitress that comes by to ask for your beverage order, but then after that you go to the front seafood counter and order your meal. In an ice chest were fish that were freshly caught that day. We picked out a fish with the help of our order taker. She aksed us, "What prep? We asked for ours steamed and in soup (so 2-ways). We've never ordered this way before! One has to know ones seafood and what best preps and saucing might go well with it. The order taker may give suggestions, but there is no menu. It's point at something that interests you. Tell them how you want it to be cooked. Period.
Another view of the fish ice chest. We were wondering about the turquoise blue fish pictured above. But isn't it Nature's Law that the mroe colourful an animal, the less tasty?
The following is what we ordered from the ice chest, the tanks, and the glass chest displays of seafood and vegetables:

Local sashimi - buttery, fresh, melt-in-mouth
Clams in black bean sauce - way juicier and plumper than the previous night's. Also the saucing was much rounder. Served as a good direct, head- head reference point for the two seafood dinners.
Garlic stir fried kong hsing tsai - perfect and crunchy.
Fresh, fried handmade cuttlefish balls - with a dab of pepper salt, the perfect mound of fried goodness. You can still taste the chunks of cuttlefish in there.
Another view of the cuttlefish balls.
Local crab with ginger and onion sauce - the TW version has an egg batter around that was delcious. There was local onion as well as scallions. The crab was sweet and meaty. Not sure what kind it was but it certainly was not Dungeness.
Fish 2Ways in Soup_ the fish bones, less meaty chunks, and head made a wonderful light and aromatic soup.
Fish 2 Ways Steamed - Delicate, silken meat with the lightest touch on the soy and wine based sauce.This was one of the top five meals we had in TW and certainly the best seafood meal we had. For some of us, this was the best Chinese style seafood meal we had in a decade (and we're including places in SF, Taiepei, LA, NYC, Toronto, and Vancouver). It doesn't have the trappings of the some opulent HK style seafood banquet places, but man... the taste was 100% spot on. All this with several rounds of Taiwan Beer was NT2160 (~$72) for four people. Can't touch this...

屏東縣恆春鎮大光里砂尾路20-1號

TW Tour: Beach and Bao

After touring around the most southern tip of TW and Kenting strip, we picked up a bag of bao-zi from General's Bao-zi (戎將軍手工包子) in Nanwan and heading for the beach. Nothing like bao and beach and a couple buckets of beer. While we were confused about the TW people's lack of clothing removal on beaches - (come on people, what's the point of a bathing suit if you're going to wear full clothing over it in the water), we were happy with our bao selection. These babies were juicy and delightful. NT190 for 6 (~$6)

屏東縣恆春鎮恆南路29-5 號

Lu ruo (pork) and bamboo shoots flavour
Our favourite - lionshead meatball and preserved vegetable
Mixed veggie