爆漿大貢丸-迪化店, Dihua Street @ Datong District, Taipei

Pitstopped here (No. 13, Section 1, Dihua Street, Datong District, Taipei) for some local bites.

Chilled beancurd with grated peanuts.

Lu rou fan here was much more enjoyable than the one from Raohe market. I attribute it to the flavour intensity of the sauce.

 Taiwanese sausage with tobiko. Couldn't taste those eggs but could feel them pop in between the teeth.

Crispy milk donuts in Taipei

These fried donuts topped with milk powder are apparently a thing in recent times.

Dough was the first stall that we happened across. We got a batch freshly fried and I loved them. Crunchy surfaced fried bread with the milk powder just worked.

Tried another one from Curly Mama's. Bread was a noticeably more dense and the flavour from the milk powder didn't taste as apparent. Dough beats this.

The one with plenty of hype came from 一脆鲜奶脆皮甜甜圈 which we found in Ximending. Or at least that's what I think the stall's called. Lacked the milkiness from the powder. In our opinion, not as nice as Dough but it has the longest queue because social media.

Ramen Makotoya, Zhongshan North Road @ Zhongshan District, Taipei

Came across Ramen Makotoya (No. 142, Minsheng West Road, Datong District, Taipei) by chance and was intrigued by their gyukotsu ramen which appeared to be a specialty. From what I gathered, the ramen-ya originates from Fukushima, Osaka.

Kaki frys had a nice crispy crust which wasn't excessively oily. Oysters were pretty good quality. Wished they were bigger though. 😬 

Gyozas were ordinary and had the textbook flavours. While it meant on one hand that they were competently done, they were also kinda boring. 😅

The milky broth of their gyukotsu was intriguing. There was a discernible beefiness and butteriness in it with undertones of mushrooms. Yeah, that mushroom-y element was pretty integral to the flavour. 

Overall, nicely done bowl. Wished the noodles were harder but otherwise, enjoyed it. If anyone was wondering, those charshu disintegrated in the mouth.

Not a fan of their shoyu bowl which I found to be too sweet. All that sweetness from the cabbage made it taste Chinese.

Their charshu don looked pretty ordinary. It was delicious in that ordinary sense with the sweet caramelized cubes of tender charshu, a richness from the molten yolk of the egg and the negi to cut through all of those. 

Once you've mixed in the grated garlic (which you can request for) and a splash of gyoza white vinegar, this became addictively moreish. Outstanding. 👍🏼

巨林美而美, Yitong Street @ Zhongshan District, Taipei

Breakfasts at 巨林美而美 (No. 127, 1 Yitong Street, Zhongshan District, Taipei). 'Breakfasts' because we came here more than once.

We had sandwiches with 3 meats. Custom order not from their menu.

Dan bing with onion. This sorta reminded me of prata.

Radish cake. Not bad tasting. Like the crusty surface.

Bacon, cheese and chocolate sandwich. Not bad tasting. Also obviously not on their menu.

Peanut butter, egg and bacon sandwich. Another custom order. Peanut butter's a little thin.

Coffee's from a machine. Not the old school kind I thought this stall would have. A little thin for my blood for morning coffee.

Tea was likewise thin. Don't think they use milk here as well. Maybe creamer.

A few days later......

Tuna, bacon and egg sandwich. Custom order. The tuna seemed to be a little sweet but otherwise tasted like how I imagined it.

Radish cake with chilli. That chilli packed a bit of punch from the both heat and garlic. This combination with a molten yolk fried egg rocked.

Another time......

Ham, cheese, fried egg and strawberry jam. I could barely taste the ham or cheese.

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.