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.

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.

Family Mart stuff in Taipei

Here's some of stuff we had gotten from Family Mart over the past week. First up was this brand of papaya milk where the flavour reminded me specifically of those Hawaiian papaya with creamy yellow flesh.

Chocolate and cream cheese sandwich. It was what it was.

Pistachio flavour's present for sure but I was hoping that it'd be a bit stronger.

The tea eggs were pretty good tasting. I've had more of these in the past week+ than I normally do in a year usually.

Not nice. Apple jam thingy wasn't particularly apple like.

Pretty sweet, had plenty of watermelon flavour but couldn't taste much of tea. Not good.

Has pineapple flavour. Interesting but won't be getting again.

We spent a while trying to figure the flavour out. It tasted like a mala broth minus the heat. Flavours unusual for sure but couldn't quite reconcile that with stinky tofu. Wouldn't get it again.

Sparking yuzu coffee. I had initially thought it was just sparking yuzu. Not bad. If they had used a stronger espresso, it would have rocked. 

Coffee's sour but I was thirsty and the fizz made it better. I don't mind drinking this again.

Luxe with hash brown in blueberry bagel from Two Men Bagel House

Something's off. I didn't seem to be enjoying this Luxe from TMBH ( 一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七, 十八, 十九, 二十, 二十一, 二十二, 二十三, 二十四, 二十五, 二十六, 二十七, 二十八) as much as I thought I would. Maybe I'll just milestone this and move into the MYOB for a bit starting the next time. I see that the Forged Gras is part of the protein option these days. 😏

Beef & Liberty, HKIA

Haven't eaten at Beef & Liberty since that time at Wan Chai. This location at the airport was in the way so I wanted to know if they were still like before. Menu's a little different.

Their basic burger uses Raclette - which was what intrigued me. It's apparently just for the shop at the airport. 

I got one with bacon. The glaring omission to the burger was salt. Considering that there was cheese and bacon, this was woefully bland. Seriously. I had to salt the meat to normalise the flavour. The other thing that bugged me were the caramelized onions which were a dominant flavour. It made me feel like I was eating a raisin burger.

While it didn't taste bad after the salt, I was somewhat disappointed with it.

What I didn't expect was fish & chips. It's called the Cod Father. Beer and vodka battered MSC Alantic cod they mentioned. Comparing with Smiths, the batter's a little dense here and not as well flavoured. One could easily excuse that since they aren't known for fish & chips. What's I loved about it were the fries, house made tartare sauce and their mushy peas.

Wouldn't say that I'm a big on mushy peas in general but these were minty and buttery and it's also now on the top of my list for mushy peas. 😬 The other memorable ones being the one from the old Lad & Dad when they were in Maxwell and those from the defunct Portico.

Sun Heung Yuen (新香園), Kweilin Street, Sham Shui Po

Came to Sun Heung Yuen (G/F, 38 Kweilin Street, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong, tel : +852 2386 2748) after hearing about their allegedly delicious minced beef and omelette sandwich (a.k.a. their 馳名蛋牛治 on the menu). Those are apparently a thing here. 

A piping hot 茶走 to start.

What came as an unexpected and pleasant surprise was their beef brisket macaroni. First thing that reeled me in was the piping hot beefy broth. And then the tender beef briskets. I could come back just for this.

This was their signature beef sandwich. Today, I have confirmed that it's regular minced beef and not corned beef. I'm not a fan of what most of the char chaan teng calls fresh or minced beef because by tradition in the way of prep, they're sodium bicarbonated to death leaving behind a smooth, unnaturally textured and bland-ish protein I wouldn't call beef.

This one wasn't as bad as some but it was still processed. And there's a sweetness in it that I didn't like. Edible but will not come back for it.

Their rendition of company/club sandwich (公司三文治) features the same minced beef omelette with ham and luncheon meat.

Wing Kee (榮記茶餐室), Yuk Wah Crescent, Tsz Wan Shan

Wing Kee (Shop A-B, G/F, 12 Yuk Wah Crescent, Tsz Wan Shan, Hong Kong) is known for their satay meat noodles and claypot rice. We trekked uphill from Diamond Hill MTR and was disappointed to discover that there were no claypot rice dishes as it was a public holiday. 🥲 The friendly proprietor did furbish us with how to get some the next time though.

Note to self: 

• claypots only available from 5pm

• not available on Sundays and public holidays because they close at 5pm
• not available on 1st/15th of every lunar month.

First time having ginger Horlicks. Both the ginger and Horlicks were a little thin here.

That's their claypot satay beef instant noodles. It's apparently a thing for those who're in the know. For some reasons, I had the idea that the satay gravy would be viscous. It wasn't. There were bits of crushed peanuts and toasted garlic in it which added flavour and the taste was somewhat more intense, but otherwise, it was kinda similar to the regular satay beef noodles. Didn't think was bad tasting. That being said, I also probably wouldn't get them again. 

The menu described this sandwich to contain minced beef and smoked meat. The minced beef component was corned beef - which we had already guessed. But the smoked meat wasn't the sliced pink sludge that's commonly used. I'm not sure what ham this was but it was indeed a little smoky and better tasting than the regular variety.