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.

劉山東小吃店 (Liu Shan Dong Xiao Chi Dian), Kaifeng Street @ Zhongzheng District, Taipei

劉山東小吃店 (No. 2, Lane 14, Section 1, Kaifeng Street, Zhongzheng District, Taipei, tel : +886 2 2311 3581), or also commonly referred to as Liu Shandong Beef Noodle is a beef noodle shop of no small repute in Taipei.

Saw the queue from a distance we did as we approached.

Menu's pretty straightforward.

We had dried tofu strips (干絲). Minimal seasoning in this.

And dried tofu (豆干). Pretty good texture.

Not impressed by the broth. It's kinda lightweight for the hong shao variety and I was hoping for more depth and intensity to the flavour. Maybe it's how they roll but my opinion is that Din Tai Feng makes better.

Adding a generous bit of pickled mustard green and fermented black bean spiced things up a couple of notches.

Their pickled mustard and shredded pork noodle had broth that was even...blander. I'm not sure if I'm tasting it right but there appears to be some beef flavour in the broth so I suspect it's the same one from their other Pure Braised Beef Noodle (清燉牛肉麵).

早安美芝城 Good Morning, Yitong Street @ Zhongshan District, Taipei

Came across 早安美芝城 (No. 5, Lane 66, Yitong Street, Zhongshan District, Taipei) by chance.

Picked up one of their sandwiches which seemed to be running out fast in the morning. This had egg mayo, ham and seaweed. Liked it. The seaweed added more umami to the standard egg and ham combination. 

One could upgrade it to a set that came with soup and drink. We picked their seasonal sweet corn soup and warm 豆漿.

The staff recommended their 3 Cups udon which they claim to be popular and also featured by Youtubers. Got it 大辣. Sweet and savoury and a healthy hit of heat from the chillis. Tasted like pad thai with basil. Those tender pork strips appear to be a standard ingredient for a number of their dishes.

Alaskan cod burger according to the menu. Ok-ish fish burger.

Breakfast plate with garlic bread, scrambled eggs and those sweet pork that were also featured in their 3 Cups udon. Garlic bread's not bad. Also slightly sweet. A number of things which I expect to be savoury appear to be slightly sweet in Taiwan.

Radish cake with eggs and pork strip - same pork as the ones from the breakfast plate and udon. Cubing the radish cake introduces more surface area ration to crisp into the crusty exterior...so that's nice.

A couple of days later......

Radish cake with eggs. No pork unlike the one above. Also wondering why this one wasn't cubed like the one with pork.

Cheese dan bing with mozzarella. This one was good. Saltiness from the regular sliced cheese and stretchy milkiness from the mozzarella. Actually one of the more memorable dan bing I've had this week.

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.