@Ximending

I've heard of 阿宗麵線 (Ah Zhong Mian Xian) for years and I'm finally trying it now. With their chilli (2.5 spoons for this small bowl), vinegar and fried garlic, it was an outstanding bowl. Smooth and slurpy with sour and heat, layered with a toasty garlic flavour. Cannot comment on how it'll be if those condiments were absent but I suspect I wouldn't be so much of a fan. Other than mee sua, there's only pig intestines in it.

Good thing the queue at 天天利 was only for dine in. Radish cake's pretty good. Finally got to try Taiwanese orh ah jian. Not a fan of the sauce and the gummy starchy batter.

台灣鹽酥雞 (Taiwan Popcorn Chicken King) came by way of recommendation. The variety was pretty overwhelming. Narrowed down to a bunch of stuff eventually. 

Bean curd skin was a lot crunchier and dryer than I imagined. I expected only the exterior to be so but part of the insides were fried and crunchy as well. Don't like.

Small fried crabs. Tasteless crabs.

Deep fried octopus tentacle. Tasteless octopus tentacle. A bit too chewy.

The humble potato wedges turned out to be the best tasting of the lot we tried at Taiwan Popcorn Chicken King. They were adequately salted and tasted like potato wedges. 😬

Fried chicken was...just fried chicken. I'm at this point getting tired of the salt and pepper and five spice combination which seems to be everywhere.

老牌牛肉拉麵大王, Chongqing South Road @ Zhongzheng District, Taipei

Stumbled upon 老牌牛肉拉麵大王 (No.7, Lane 46, Section 1, Chongqing South Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei) along the back lanes. Google lists this shop as 'Beef noodle of the King' which isn't an accurate translation to the Chinese name. Tried a bunch of their offerings.

Like dumplings which were filled with vegetable and pork instead of beef which we assumed. There were chunks of beef with those dumplings though.

A mala beef noodle bowl which wasn't close to crazy spicy but had a nice mala flavour.

Mixed parts bowl with very chewy tripe. Very chewy.

Tendon bowl which also had meat instead of just tendons. The texture of those tendons were not consistent. Some were pretty tender while others were a little gummy and chewy.

The black horse turned out to be the sesame sauce noodles. Pretty moreish after you've dumped in a generous pile salted mustard greens which added an appetising zing with needed salt and a bit of textural crunch. I could come back for this. 

Some tau kwa on the side.

To briefly overview, portions were pretty huge, even for the small bowls. Those thick udon-like noodles had a dense chewy texture. Cuts of meat were chunky and had inconsistent texture. Meaning that while some were tender, others were a little hard and stringy. Broth was also a little spicier and oilier than what I was expecting from 红烧牛肉 broth.

I could do the noodles and broth again (if ever) but I'm not keen on the protein (beef) here.

金花吐司專賣 (Golden Flower), Hanzhong Street @ Wanhua District, Taipei

Breakfast at Golden Flower (195 Hanzhong Street, Wanhua District, Taipei). This shop is kinda known for their toasts/sandwiches which are a couple of steps up from those at the traditional breakfast spots. Some of their sandwiches sounded interesting.

Like this one with tuna, lemon curd, cheese and egg. Like the Koreans, there seem to be a sweet element to their savoury food. That's icing sugar on top of the sandwich if you didn't notice. Couldn't taste the lemon curd but it was a nice tuna sandwich.

Their lava cheese with pork and peanut butter tasted like the ingredient described.

There's another one with taro, meat floss and condensed milk. The taro paste was chilled. Sweetness came through from icing sugar and condensed milk. That being said, it wasn't as sweet as it sounded/appeared.

Taro milk as an alternative to the usual tea/coffee because the usual tea/coffee around appear to be weak and diluted. This was not bad.

What's also cool about this shop was that they provided plastic gloves to navigate the mess their sandwiches tend to make. 👍🏼

Ningxia Night Market (寧夏夜市)

Ningxia Night Market (Ningxia Road, Datong District, Taipei) this time. This was so much smaller than the one at Raohe. It also appeared to be much more packed in the small main street.

Got this mung/green beans smoothie thingy near the entrance of the market. Nice. There's loads of mashed mung/green bean packed into the cup.

Tried something called zhi gao fan (知高飯) which was basically a small rice bowl with some braised pork trotter, bamboo shoots and an egg. Pretty good. The other bowl was dan bao xia ren tang (蛋包蝦仁湯) - basically soup with egg and prawns. Yes, those orange things were prawns coated in some flour.

Giant chunky chicken skewers. Not unique to this market but we've seen them a number of times and decided to just get them to see if they were like what we imagined. These were flavoured with salt and turmeric as far as we could tell.

Was a major pain moving through the street of this night market. It was an experience for sure, one that I do not care to repeat.

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.