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.

すしの魚君 (Sushi no Uo-kun Uni-President Times Department Store), Zhongxiao East Road @ Xinyi District, Taipei

The search for the address of this restaurant was a little complicated but I think I've gotten the correct one (B2F, No. 8, Section 5, Zhongxiao East Road, Xinyi District, Taipei). We stumbled upon it near Taipei City Hall Station or thereabouts and after some ChatGPT/Google-ing/asking for help, we've concluded that this was it. B2 of Uni-President Department Store next to Taipei City Hall MRT.

Earlier searches led to Sakanakun Don which seemingly are different branches of same business. Google wasn't definitive (I want to add that Googling for the same thing at different times can yield different results) about the address (even gave me locations in Singapore) and their reservation link points to B2, No. 16, Songgao Road, Xinyi District. Yes it was confusing.

Anywayss, pretty good quality Japanese food here. Wasabi's a blend of grated and paste. Plenty of ikura in their rice bowls.

Anikmo was chunky and yummy. If anyone was wondering, there's ponzu in there.

Minced crab, ikura, scallops, raw egg and kani miso. Loads of crabbiness from the kani miso!

Ebi tempura, salmon cubes, ikura and raw egg.

Mentaiko and tamagoyaki don. More ikura below.

Salmon belly was chunky and melty.

Unexpectedly tender gyu katsu sando. I liked that they did not overdo the katsu sauce.

Grilled fish.

Selfish Burger (自私漢堡), Zhuangjing Road @ Xinyi District, Taipei

Selfish Burger (No. 180 Zhuangjing Road, Xinyi District, Taipei, tel : +886 2 2345 0825) is in the game for burgers that are fun. Aside from one classic burger on their menu, most of the rest are more...progressive/experimentative and flavour forward. Not so much for purists. But what do I know.

There's a Smoky Cocoa burger for their fall/winter. Beef patty, bacon, caramelized onions, caramelized bananas, cocoa spread of sorts and rockets. Chocolate's assertive with this one, countered by a fruitiness from the caramelised onions. And then bananas, bacon and beef. Rockets fell by the wayside. I think it's not bad, interesting even.

Blue cheese burger. Blue cheese sauce, rockets and balsamic vinegar. I don't know if the intention was to keep the blue cheese intensity moderated. I mean, it's there but I personally feel more presence would be nice. 

Fried chicken with cream cheese and crushed honeycomb. That and a horizontal cut slice of apple beneath. The flavour combination worked. I liked this. I could come back for this. That fried chicken was outstanding.

There're options to upgrade burgers into a combo meals that comes with a side and a drink. 有點饿 (a little hungry) includes fries while 超級饿 (super hungry) tops those fries with onion rings and a fried chicken wing.

Fish sticks were much nicer than the name suggested. Those are real fingers of real fish meat, some with skin on still.

Their brown sugar whiskey milk shake was nicer than appearances suggest.

周照子 (Chou Chao Tzu), Xining Road @ Wanhua District, Taipei

周照子 (No. 167, Xining Road, Wanhua District, Taipei, tel : +886 2 2381 2580) appears to be a fusion of Taiwanese styled teppanyaki and Taiwanese porridge. There's a teppanyaki bar along with a menu for a whole slew of stir fried dishes. Come to think of it, those stir fried dishes might have come from the teppan anyways. 🤔

Most of the dishes were in small sharing portions.

There's stir fried ox tongue with scallions which we had seconds of. Tender, chewy and greasy in a good way.

Pretty decent cai por omelette which we had seconds of as well.

Pork liver in sweet sauce. If memory serves, also had seconds of.

Beans sprouts stir fried with beef fat which paired deliciously with rice/porridge.

Another dish we had seconds of was lamb stir fried with onions and soy milk miso. This was pretty good.

Love their oysters stir fried with spring onions and fermented black bean.

Pan fried mackerel was okay-ish.

Not so much into the halibut. Meat wasn't firm.

Stir fried cabbage.

All the dishes were made to go well with their bottomless rice and porridge with sweet potatoes. That and sides like salted duck egg, meat floss or fermented bean curd to name a a few that one could add on via self service for 25NT each.

This was sugar cane with milk which we ordered out of curiosity. It did appear to be slightly milky but tasted exactly like regular sugarcane juice.

Jiufen (九份)

Finally at Jiu Fen. We told ourselves to keep our expectations moderated because we've grown wise to the ways of social media whores. The location was magical in its own ways but not necessarily along the old street (老街) where it's mostly and unimaginatively featured.

Here's some of the stuff we ate. 'Some' because it was almost impossible to get photos of everything we ate in the crowd.

Tried some cream puffs. Decent tasting. The orange one was sweet potato custard.

Squid sausage was pretty peppery. No squid ink flavour here.

Finally got some grilled eringi after seeing them around in numerous street stalls. The mushrooms were a little juicy and a little spongy. Tasted much like how I imagined them. 

Snails. The chilli sauce packed a bit heat and vinegar. So while it added some zing, it also mostly overwhelmed the natural briny flavour of those snails.