Recently at Tsui Wah (翠華)

From a recent visit to Tsui Wah.....

I've been curious about their scallion oil pork chop with triple egg rice for a while, telling myself that I'll never get it because...ginger. Tried it recently. Ginger flavour's not as strong as I thought. Still not into it but at least now I know. Definitely not bad tasting. It's just me.

There was a limited time chicken cordon bleu for December. Crunchy fried outsides and moist chicken with cheese. A little greasier than I imagined but not bad tasting as a whole. Those buns that came on the side were nicely buttered. I've mentioned before that I like their borscht and that little bowl that came with the set was a bonus!

Mashi no Mashi, Pickering Street

Mashi no Mashi (#01-42 Nankin Row, 3 Pickering Street, tel : +65 8957 8620) relocated from their previous location at Guoco Midtown to China Square. Place downsized physically from what looked to be a full restaurant to a ramen bar. The menu kinda went the same route and streamlined. I guess a few hard lessons were learnt there.

Some refreshing lemon soda water.

A la carte orders get a complimentary serving of of their charcoal grilled edamame. Wagyu fat is apparently involved. Most of the flavour is on the pods.

Something(s) has changed with their ultra wagyu bowl. I remember the broth being better. Beefier. I'm getting mushroom elements in the broth today. Like those from the gyukotsu bowl at Ramen Makotoya. Except that Ramen Makotoya did it better. Visually, one can already tell it has changed from their previous bowl.

The hard noodles weren't that hard as well. 😮‍💨 

There's a summer truffle bowl.

It's oddly a little sweet. Maybe it's the snow peas.

I decided not to continue putting up with the sweetness. One's made with Habanero and the other, Carolina Reaper. I recommend the latter if you enjoy heat. Instant scalp prickles. But it dragged the summer truffle bowl out of the annoying in the sweetness.

Their wagyu horumon featured offal in some sweet sauce that reminded me of those from bulgogi. I recognised tripe. There was another thing in there that was super chewy. I mean, super chewy.

This was Mr Mashi. Banana sherbet according to the menu with pecans and maple that tasted like ice cream rather than sherbet.

Breakfast at A2B Veg Restaurant

We've had breakfast at A2B Veg Restaurant a few times. This wasn't the first. Ordered a few "usuals".

Like vadai.

And their mouth watering ghee pongal which appears to have gotten its form back.

I wanted another go with their carrot uttapam today. To convince myself that what I had previously was how it is and will be. But, the coriander wasn't in the uttapam today. The sweetness from the carrots also didn't taste as apparent. Why?!

Our first ragi idly. Never noticed them in the menu previously. These are made with millet flour. Texture was a little more supple and there seemed to be a faint nuttiness together with the fermentation sour.

Re-visiting Khin Kee Handmade Fishball Kway Teow

I was surprised to see Khin Kee open in the late evening. I always had the impression that they do breakfast and lunch. Maybe dinner but not late evenings. The old uncle wasn't there. It was some Chinese lady running the shop. She's managed to nail the bowl of noodles right down to the lack of awesome flavours just like how the uncle does them.

My consolation was the extra portion of fried fish cake.

Yujia Fried Pork Century Egg Dumpling Noodles, Boon Tiong Road

This stall is located in the same coffeeshop as Shiok Hokkien Mee. The noodles were similar to those from the defunct Sandankan Food and Ah Yen Traditional Fried Pork - Sandakan styled noodles from Sabah with fried pork that's been marinated with fermented bean curd. 

What differentiated Yujia from the other two stalls were their century egg dumplings. Kinda tiny and forgettable if you asked me. The sliver of century egg was puny. Not feeling for it. Pork's freshly fried and pretty good tasting. Flavour from the noodles were kinda pedestrian until I doused the chilli sauce in it.

Note to self: Noodles rock with the chilli sauce. Don't get those century egg dumpling from them.

Jiakali has shifted to a new spot in Chinatown's Food Centre

Jiakali closed their old shop and shifted to a new unit (Red Zone, #02-095 Chinatown Complex Market and Food Centre, 335 Smith Street). The menu has changed a little and they've also upgraded from plastic utensils!

This was their pork trotter curry. Unusual to say the least to have pork trotters in curry. Meat from the trotter was tender with jiggly bits of skin and fat. Nice.

You can top the rice with a fried egg.

This was the only bone from the entire portion of pork trotter.

Angus beef burger with bacon and peanut butter from Burger King in Taipei

I mentioned previously about peanut butter in burgers being a Taiwanese thing. Here's another. This from Burger King. Apparently, KFC has a peanut butter chicken burger thingy here too.

Tasted like how I imagined it would. I actually kinda like the creamy sweet saltiness.

Dubu House Korea, Gloria Outlets, Taipei

Korean lunch at the Gloria branch of Dubu House Korea (3rd Floor, No. 189, Chunde Road, Zhongli District, Taoyuan City, Taiwan).

Banchan has nice kimchi, nice (albeit sweetish) potato salad, bland bean sprouts and the wood ear fungus has ginger. Variety is kinda limited. One item not featured in the picture was nori which we got multiple refills of which was good eating with the kimchi (which we got multiple refills of as well) and the potato salad.

A pretty decent sparkling rose Americano to start. Surprisingly drinkable coffee.

This truffle cheese omelette had loads of truffle paste inside. Nice with the nori too.

Gyeran jjim with cheese and tobiko. And also baby corn. Not bad. Cheese added a needed saltiness which made it delicious.

This was their thick haemul pajeon. Seafood pancake. Nice. 👍🏼 Loads of seafood in it. It felt like eating a seafood quiche.

Pretty surprised to find lamb as a protein option in their kimchi sundubu. Not bad. I liked that the flavour of the meat was infused in the broth.

This was supposed to be their oyster seaweed sundubu. Never even noticed that there wasn't any seaweed in it. Anyways, I loaded it with a lot of nori because it was kinda bland.

I don't know if it's customary for them to serve dessert after meals. We didn't order but got some sweet bean curd.

Shi Jie Soymilk King (世界豆漿大王), Yonghe Road @ Yonghe District, New Taipei City

There're a number of Yonghe soy milk shops around. The name of the location has become a brand, a hallmark of sorts for soy milk shops. Much has been written about them. Plenty have claimed to be of said branding and origins. 

Can't say that I know any better which are or aren't. It's not a topic I have familiarity with beyond some superficial knowledge. Right in the middle of Yonghe Road in the Yonghe District, is Shi Jie Soymilk King (No. 284, Section 2, Yonghe Road, Yonghe District, New Taipei City, tel : +886 2 8927 0000). A shop with a claim to being the original from back in 1955.

Tried a bunch of stuff. Like dou jiang with egg. 

And salty dou jiang - which was pretty interesting. I'm not entirely sure but I think I kinda like it. As a whole, I dig the smokiness in all the dou jiang here..

You tiao is hollow-ish. I thought these would be breadier which would make a better vehicle for absorbing the soy milk. 

That's radish cake with egg. The omelette was a tad oily.

Some radish pastry which has something else inside. Maybe preserved turnips. Not a fan.

Fan tuan/飯糰, or rice balls as described in the menu. They're actually shaped like a roll. Inside the glutinous rice roll is you tiao. Carbs in carbs. 😬 This one was the sweet version so it has sugar too.

My favourite thing here was their shao bing. Specifically this one, 燒餅油條夾酸菜, which has you tiao (carbs in carbs again), pickled mustard greens and sugared peanut powder. This package delivered some crunch from the breads with some chewiness amidst savoury sweet nuttiness. That and a tangy vegetal crunch from the pickled mustard greens. Loads going on.

This bao was amusingly named 'The monk wants to eat vegetable buns'. 儈想吃菜包 in Chinese. Don't think they translate accurately. Anyways, bao's stuffed with cabbage, vermicelli, mushrooms, carrot strips and maybe some other things. Pretty good tasting.

Note to self: Their xiao long bao has ginger.