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.

Mega Sausage McMuffin with egg from Taiwan's McD

I got one of these because pork sausages.

@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.

Almond 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. 👍🏼