shaved ice because it's hot hot hot

This is mochi + peanuts + sweet, delicious sauce on a bed of shaved ice. With a couple black sesame seeds thrown in. From Ningxia night market.

寧夏夜市花生麻糬冰。40NT.

They also have a black sesame topping version which is delicious as well. I already know I am going to miss this when I leave.

beef noodle soup | 牛肉面

Saturday night dinner! 100NT for a (small) bowl of beef noodle soup.

This is one of those signature Taiwan dishes. I just got this from a restaurant not far from me, but Taipei actually has a whole street somewhere that's just for beef noodle soup shops. I definitely need to go at some point.

The first time I got beef noodle soup in Taiwan I made the mistake of ordering 牛肉汤面 not realizing that what I actually wanted was 牛肉面. When you order 牛肉汤面 it's just soup and noodles, with no beef. 牛肉面 is still soup noodles, but with beef, but when I saw it on the menu I thought it meant dry noodles. Lost in translation, I suppose (and this is why I love menus with pictures!). But I have since learned. 

I thought the spice level and flavour in this bowl was particularly good. The last time I had this dish at a shop in Xinyi district, the soup was bland and I didn't want to finish it after eating the noodles. I finished all the soup this time. Yum yum.

Apologies for the photo quality, I just snapped this on my phone.

牛肉面

Carb on carb

The Taiwanese are not afraid of combining starch with more starch (see 烧饼油条！！). Which is great because I love carbs.

Here we have a chow mein with some kind of meat (I'm going to guess pork) wrapped in egg and Chinese pancake. 70NT (2.80CAD) at Ningxia Night Market not far from my apartment. It's a form of dan bing which is a common breakfast item, basically mian bing 面饼 with egg inside. This dish is called 黄金烧面捲 but I honestly think a better name would be 炒面蛋饼... though there's probably something lost in translation for me.

This was quite delicious. Night market (夜市) food can be hit or miss this was a hit!

Menus with pictures. What a godsend.

day trip to the sea

Over the weekend I made a day trip to Jiufen (九份) and Keelung (基隆) which are both about an hour away from Taipei by train/bus and also about an hour away from each other by bus. What a difference that hour makes!

九份风景

Jiufen

Every even semi-touristy place I've been to in Taiwan is full of tourists with selfie sticks. It has officially gone mainstream. It's not even just Asians who use them.

 In Keelung, I went to Heping Island (和平岛). Super relaxing.

And back in the city:

 

Miaokou Night Market in Keelung

7-Eleven

7-Eleven is ubiquitous in Taipei. I read that there is a 7-Eleven for every 5000 people in Taiwan. This doesn't even include the other convenience store franchises.

At every convenience store they have a whole bunch of refrigerated meals to choose from and the cashier heats it up in the microwave for you.

This was the genius carrying device they gave me in lieu of a traditional plastic bag (I find they're generally not big on those).

GENIUS. I had to take a picture.

Good morning, Taipei!

The blog is back because I will be exploring new places again this summer. I am interning in Taipei until August and then going to check out South Korea for a bit. I suppose this is the second segment of "Annie's adventures in continents that start with 'A'". There will be a lot of posts about food. It appears that Taipei/Taiwan has a strong food reputation because nearly every Asian person I have told that I am going to Taiwan responded with, "There's great food there". 

Early morning, 5:55AM. That's Taipei 101 in the background! And no, Taipei's air isn't that clear - I confess I adjusted the lighting in the photo. 

This morning I was up very early (jet lag) and headed on over to the popular 阜杭豆浆 for breakfast which was conveniently a five minute walk from where I was staying. Popular is an understatement - I got there by 6AM and there was already a very long line. You don't think it's that long, until you realize it swings around the corner, up a set of stairs to the second floor, and continues from there to the ordering counter. It was 7AM by the time I got to order, meaning I waited in line a full hour!

They sell cold/hot salty/sweet soymilk, you tiao (油条), shao bing (烧饼), dan bing (蛋饼) and also this thing I never heard of before called hou bing（厚饼) that they are well known for.

在做厚饼

I ordered hot, salt soy milk and hou bing (thick pancake? would be my terrible translation) with egg ("厚饼蛋"), which came to 63NT. Was it really good? Yes. Was it worth the hour long wait? Probably not, but no regrets. I'm not a big soymilk person but I quite liked the salty soymilk, which I never had before. I only previously had sweet and plain. I discovered in China that I am incapable of consuming any quantity of plain, unflavoured soymilk. The hou bing was very interesting, it was definitely a savoury bread but had a slightly sweet exterior.

I think the wait was extra long because it was a Saturday morning. It's definitely possible to get these things elsewhere but I like to follow the herd sometimes.

热豆浆和厚饼蛋