Angus beef burger with bacon and peanut butter from Burger King in Taipei

I mentioned previously about peanut butter in burgers being a Taiwanese thing. Here's another. This from Burger King. Apparently, KFC has a peanut butter chicken burger thingy here too.

Tasted like how I imagined it would. I actually kinda like the creamy sweet saltiness.

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.

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).

葡吉手工包子 (Pucci) at Songjiang Nanjing Station

Came across 葡吉手工包子 in the train station selling handmade buns. Bought from them a couple of times. Not all are great. I'm talking about you 花卷 with cheese. The ones with vegetable stuffings were pretty good.

This with cabbage and vermicelli (高麗菜包).

And this with mushrooms and some green vegetable (香菇素菜包) which I couldn't identify.

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.