Tsujihan (つじ半), Breeze Xinyi, Taipei

Tsujihan originates from Tokyo. They're apparently a "viral" cash only and no reservations restaurant. This branch in Taipei (No. 68, Section 5, Zhongxiao East Road B1, Xinyi District, Taipei) takes reservations so we were able to get seats without having to queue. Also accepts credit cards.

What many people seem to be getting here are their kaisendon sets. 

Ankimo ponzu which wasn't part of the sets. Nice.

Saw quite a number of pictures of this tai sashimi with sesame sauce online. It was ok.

This was their 特上 kaisendon bowl. Seafood quality was just passable. I was expecting them to be exceptional. The uni was sweet but there was pretty strong taste to the point that it wasn't pleasant anymore. Crab meat was shredded and doesn't have much to go with mouthfeel. This felt like a glorified kaisendon.

One can get chazuke by requesting for their tai broth to be added to the rice. Other than the fish, I'm guessing dashi and miso. Not bad but it would cook whatever bits of fish that's still left in the bowl. 

Some milky pudding with matcha and an anko ball at the end.

阿城鵝肉 (A Cheng Goose), Jilin Road @ Zhongshan District, Taipei

Lunch at A Cheng Goose (No. 105 Jilin Road, Zhongshan District, Taipei, tel : +886 930 105 668). It was a 45 minute queue and we were wondering then if it was worth the moments of our lives we were going to waste waiting in line for it.

Fortunately the food was good enough that we never dwelled on the time spent after we had started eating.

Their smoked goose was outstandingly tender and smoky. This was a breast meat order which they served by mistake but it was delicious enough that we didn't want to make a fuss of it. 

Pretty decent sweet potato leaves.

Those goose blood curds in mala soup were delicious. There's a bit of heat in the broth and it's on the whole more savoury than spicy.

Spicy braised stinky tofu (臭豆腐). I get the impression that this had more stinky flavour than the fried ones we had from Raohe Market.

Platter of goose hearts and liver. Both were delicious.

Encore of goose. This time, it was the regular poached version. We got ourselves the lower quarter of the bird with drumstick. Meat was smoother and fattier than the earlier breast cuts and I liked this as much as the smoked goose with both bearing their own merits. 

These were sausages with trumpet mushrooms - the latter were in small chunks, dispersed into the fillings of said sausages. The texture was apparent but I couldn't taste those mushrooms because the flavour was mostly just the savoury sweetness from the fatty sausages.

Goose oil rice. Flavoured also with fried shallots. Good with everything we've ordered because you only live once.

A breakfast in Taipei

First breakfast in Taipei. Random breakfast shop along Bade Road in Songshan District.

Warm soya bean milk (豆漿).

Some dan bing. The top one has cheese in it.

And luo bo gao. Flavour's quite nice.

Got a breakfast sandwich with cheese, ham and egg. There's some stuff in it which I assume passes for mayo. Sandwich was kinda dry.

Raohe Night Market (饒河街觀光夜市)

First time going to a night market in Taipei. This one was the Raohe market (Raohe Street, Songshan District, Taipei). Went a little wild with the food.

First time trying 大腸包小腸. While the Chinese name translates into big intestine wraps little intestine, the outer layer isn't an intestine - it's made of glutinous rice. The garlic bits stuffed into it helps make the savoury sweet sausage easier to inhale in the tube of glutinous rice. Now that I've tried it, will probably never bother with them again.

There's a stall that has amazing thin sliced roasted pork belly. The fat readily melted in the mouth and those crackling was crunchy and not hard. One of the more memorable eats here.

The other thing I liked a lot was guava with the plum sauce. There's a spin the wheel with each purchase and we won a second bag of guava from that.

Squid fried rice - the rice was bad. Possibly the worst fried rice I've ever had. Squid was not bad. Am gonna call it out as the worst eat here as a reminder to self never to get anything from the stall again if we ever came back.

This stall did a variety of braises where you could pick your choice morsels and they'd pack it up with the braising sauce. Nice.

A stall selling oyster omelette. Just oyster and eggs, no batter. This was nice. Oyster was fat and tasted good.

This was pandan flavoured kanom krok. The pandan flavour was weak. 

First lu rou fan in Taiwan from this stop. I'm gonna just call it okay tasting because there wasn't anything about it that was outstanding. It levelled up to pretty good with the chilli. Stinky tofu was also okay-ish. Rocked with that salty bean sauce though.

There're these pastries called hu jiao bing (胡椒餅) which are stuffed with peppered pork and spring onions or chives. This stall at Raohe market was suppose to be one of the better ones. Queue's long and moves pretty fast. Nice sesame flavour from the pastry and the fillings were definitely peppery. I think it's ok...meaning that while I didn't dislike it, I wasn't particularly impressed. Am unlikely to get them again if the opportunity presented.