Interesting Corner of Me : Time to Eat in Taiwan

Pic credit: Air Asia

Do you able to grab cheap flight ticket on this Monday? Air Asia was giving us a great opportunity to travel by launching the promotion with super low fare ticket. Everyone was discussing this great deal in town. For sure, I am also planning on this matter. Taiwan is my preference country. Thus, my friend and I hurry catch up our step to go checking the ticket. The fare of the flight ticket is within our budget. However, I could not make purchase yet because I have to discuss with my colleague for the leave matter. The fare ticket was increase shapely on the next day. This news was ruining my day. Therefore, my plan to Taiwan was force to cancel.

Although I did not manage to grab the chance to fly to Taiwan, I still fall to Taiwan with tasty food. Please lend me a minute to watch a video and do hold your saliva because it's look delicious.

Now, I would like to propose my planning on what to eat in Taiwan from morning to night.

Breakfast

(Pic source: Darin Dines)

Normally my breakfast will eat noodles. Noodles are a common breakfast in Malaysia. As in Taiwan, I would like to try some traditional Taiwan breakfast like fried dough with a bowl of soy milk and Sao Bing You Tiao (thin flatbread with Chinese doughnut and egg) in a well-known restaurant called Fu Hang Dou Jiang. You might think that it is just a light meal, will easy get hungry after a few hours later. It is because we can spare some space in stomach for hunting other dishes.

Souvenir

(Pic source: Fang Shui Shui, The Star & For the love of food-Indulge)

After breakfast, we can start our journey to go around in Taiwan. We can take the chance to look for souvenirs. I did receive some food as souvenir from friends so I think that Taiwan food is a great gift for friends and family. Before doing purchase of those souvenirs, you also can have a try on the taste. There are many types of souvenir such as pineapple cake, Taiwan nougat, Sun Cake available in Taiwan.

Pineapple cake

Pineapple cake in the shape of bricks and filled with butter, flour, egg, sugar and pineapple jam. It has a lot of flavors for you to choose such as salted egg yolk, green tea, cheese and others. SunnyHills win a lot of good recommend and feedback as it uses local pineapples so it has a darker filing, rougher texture and sourer taste.

If you are interest on the cake, Kuo Yuan Ye Meseum of Cake and Pastry is a must to visit. Kuo Yuan Ye Meseum is not just a museum. It is because it also has cooking class provided for all of us to learn how to make a delicious pineapple cake.

Taiwan Nougat

Taiwan Nougat is a snack made by milk and peanuts which the texture is smooth and sticky. It has many flavors such as cranberry, milk, black tea, green tea and many more.

Besides buying Taiwan Nougat, don’t forget go to Taiwan Nougat Museum which has DIY pineapple cake workshop, nougat-making performance and exhibition. It is a great place to know more about Taiwan Nougat.

Sun Cake

Sun Cake is a popular Taiwan dessert that originally from Taichung. The typical filling consists of maltose (condensed melt sugar) and sold in gift boxes as souvenirs.

When searching for more information about Sun Cake, I noticed that in Taiwan has Sun Cake Museum which has display the history and story of Sun Cake. If next time has chance, definitely I will go there for a visit.

Taiwan Mochi

Mochi is a dessert which make from glutinous rice with sweet potato, red rice and water. Its filings include sweet peanut paste, red bean, coconut, fruits and many more. The texture of mochi is sticky and chewy.

One of the reasons that I like Taiwan beside food is the museum. Its museum is so attractive and included many social media such as video. You will not get bored in Taiwan museum. Last for Taiwan Mochi, I will introduce you to go Taiwan Mochi Museum. At here, you can know history of mocha, actual making of mocha and many more.

Lunch

(Pic source: B-kyu.com)

For the lunch, I would like to try for Taiwan Railway Bento. The Railway Bento is originated from Taiwan where the locals bring the bento on board the trains to consume during their long train journeys. The bento has varieties choices such as vegetable, chicken, egg and so on. It is designed for everyone with different taste.

Through the blog of B-Kyu, I saw different design of bento such as Master Q picture bento, hexagon shape bento and many more. I think I will having dilemma in choosing which bento because every bento is very special. Haha..

Tea-time

(Pic source: Sardpnna & Haruhii)

For tea-time, I would like to introduce these 2 cafés which are Oia Café and Aranzi Café. The reason that I choose for Oia Café is because of Alpaca. Alpaca look cute and friendly so it able to attract me well. In Oia Café, you can interact or hug and touch Alpaca. Alpacas are very active because they love to walk freely in Café. With Alpacas, I don’t even feel the length of time of my food to serve.

I also wish to go Aranzi Café because of its interior design and cute presentation of food. When you enter this café, you will see that it has many characters of Aranzi around the café. Then you will been attract and started to take photos in every corner of this café.

Besides that, it has sell Aranzi stuff like postcard, glass, toys and so on. When the food present, you will keep said “Kawaii” as all those food has Aranzi picture especially the cake. What you wait for? Take the camera and shoot it.

Dinner

(Pic source: Travel 163 & Taiwan Food Culture)

Taiwan famous with night market, of course it is advisable to look for dinner at there. Amazingly, you will feel happy because there are lots of food at night market such as stewed pork rice, scallion pancake, big bun wrapped small bun, oyster omelette and many more. Let me share with you four types of foods that must be eat when you are in night market which as below:-

Stinky tofu

Stinky tofu come with bad smell, I am wonder that how bad smell of it, is it smell like rubbish? Hehe.. Stinky tofu usually served with deep fried with pickled cabbage, carrots and chili sauce.

Da Chang Bao Xiao Chang (Small Sausage in Big Sausage)

In Taiwan, I would like to try of small sausage in big sausage that has different taste than the normal sausage that we eat. It is grilled pork sausage wrapped in a glutinous rice sausage. It can be eaten with different of sauce.

Do you know what the story behind this snack is? According to Taiwan Food Culture that a night vendor who loves both sticky rice sausages and pork sausages but found it troublesome to eat them separately so he came up idea of blending the two in order to savor delicious, chewy sticky rice together with juicy pork sausage.

Oyster Noodle

The oyster noodle is very popular in Taiwan which has main ingredients of oysters and misua (Taiwan vermicelli). It usually comes with many and big size oysters that you will feel so satisfaction after finish a bowl.

Gua Bao (Taiwanese Burger or Pork Belly Buns)

In Malaysia, we usually eat chicken burger while in Thailand must try for pork burger then in Taiwan? The answer is Gua Bao as it is consist of a slice of stewed meat and other condiments sandwiched between flat steamed bread. It also called as “Tiger bites pig” due to the mouth like form of the bun and the content of filing.

Gua Bao are shaped like a wallet full of money which become a custom in Taiwan to eat buns at year end parties on the 16^th day of the 12^th lunar month as to devour all the bad things of the past year. By eating of this bun can pray for a lucky year so I need to eat lot of Gua Bao when in Taiwan.

Supper

(Pic source: Mimg47)

Taiwan really a food heaven, Supper has many choices such as porridge, rice, steamboat, noodle and many more. Lastly, I think I will choose for porridge as I did not want to eat heavy meal in the midnight.

In Tainan, has a famous porridge named “悦津咸粥” which open 24 hours. If you see properly, you will found out its porridge is different from Malaysia version. It porridge is some like rice soup as you can see clearly of each rice as it did not cook the soup with the rice together. Besides that, it has many choices of side dish for you to eat with porridge.

After writing this post, I have more knowledge about Taiwan than before. I found that Taiwan really attracted me the most. Hence, I hope one day I can realize my dream which is travel to my favorite country-Taiwan.