Following on from Eating in Taipei – Shilin Night Markets, and Modern Toilet Restaurant, we went for a walk to visit the Taipei Bridge which my father-in-law helped construct back in the day. To get there, we walked through the Datong district, one of Taipei’s oldest districts and its dried food hub. Spices, tea, dried fruits and more. The entire place smelled like herbal medicine. It felt like real Taipei without the tourists. We stopped in what seemed like a small indoor shopping square selling fresh food, meats, and clothing. There was a long line out the door and down to the street for something. Curious, we walked in to see what the queue was for. It was a stall selling rice, chicken, mushrooms and an egg yolk packaged in plastic all served in a large box. Perfect to feed a few people for lunch.
After visiting the Taipei bridge, we took the train back to the Da’an district as I wanted to try out beef noodle soup at Yong Kang Beef Noodles. It was around 1.30pm, and we easily spotted it with the long queue of people waiting outside.
It was only about a 20 minute wait before we gained entry at a communal table.
The menu was limited to about 10 dishes. We ordered the beef noodles of course. The menu stated the bowl came with soy bean sauce and would be spicy. There was also beef tendon noodle soup available or a half/half option. There was a decent amount of chunky beef provided, some still on the bone. The dark beef soup wasn’t too rich but I found it slightly salty. Yong Kang provided a big bowl, plenty of soup of slurp down, chewy noodles and lots of beef. However, I thought the beef at Niu Dian in Xinmending was better and more tender. Although the menu stated it would be spicy, it was actually quite mild.
We tried steamed pork spare ribs with rice which we could see being steamed from a window outside.
The serve wasn’t as big as it looks in the photo as it’s propped up by a bamboo rack sitting underneath about half way down. The rice had gone too mushy for our liking and there were crunchy bits (bones?) dotted throughout the rice which we didn’t like either. Since I didn’t know if we’d ever go back, I took the opportunity to order the noodles with pork and fried beans sauce as well. This was a far better dish with plenty of flavour, mince and beans. I thought it was better than Din Tai Fung’s version!
I had researched some breweries around Taipei for Mr FPJ, and there was one close by called Zhangmen. The chalk board above the bar outlined the 20 beers available, the percentage of alcohol content and IBU. Mr FPJ tried the ‘beer flight’ of six beers for NT $600 and wished we’d had more time to discover more beers.
After the brewery, we walked back down Yongkang street, one of the main food streets in the Da’an district. We saw a queue wrapped around the corner for a small street food vendor selling scallion pancakes, another Taiwanese staple. Of course we joined the queue!
I later found out the street vendor, Tian Jing Cong Zhua Bing, has been there since before Yongkang Street became hip. Luckily there was an English menu and numbering, so we just had to point to our number to order. Love it!
I decided to try number 1, the original scallion pancake for NT $25 (around AUD $1.10). I would have liked to try the ham and cheese one but we didn’t have the stomach space or time. The pancake had lots of soft flakey layers but was quite greasy with a very minimal amount of scallions mixed in it. I was actually a little disappointed with it.
After another day of exploring and getting massages from the blind, I decided to try a matcha café Matcha One just off of Yongkang Street in the Da’an district. I had read great reviews about Matcha One and being a matcha lover, I needed my matcha fix.
Our waitress greeted us as we walked inside and luckily it wasn’t too busy. She was really friendly, spoke a little English, provided me with an English menu and was able to provide recommendations on popular desserts and drinks. There were various cakes, waffles, pancakes, soft serve ice cream (in koicha and ujikintoki flavours in addition to matcha), and various hot and cold drinks. It was really difficult to choose something.
I finally chose the matcha latte with bubbles (pearls) and matcha soft serve ice cream (NT $200). This was a good choice as I got a bit of everything – a hot drink, cold soft serve AND pearls! The matcha was on point – not too bitter and not too sweet, and the pearls were soft but chewy.
I also ordered the matcha mille crepe (NT $195) which came with a small glass of matcha sauce. It turned out to be quite creamy as each crepe is filled with a layer of matcha cream. As much as I love matcha, it got a bit too much for me and we didn’t end up finishing it. I would love to go back and try out more of the amazing matcha items on offer. There were also houjicha, genmai and koicha lattes and desserts available.
We visited Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper in Taipei with 101 floors. I came across a bubble tea store on the ground floor (bubble tea originated in Taiwan!) and chose the original milk pearl tea. It was one of the best I’ve had – perfect balance of tea, milk and sweetness. And the pearls were very fresh and soft.
We visited the top floor to get a view of the city and made it in time for sunset (there was about a 25 minute queue to get to the top).
As our accommodation included breakfast daily, I didn’t get to try out any Taiwanese breakfasts. But when I passed by a shop selling Taiwanese soy milk and youtiao fried dough stick crullers with a crowd of people waiting, and sitting down and eating breakfast, I joined the queue for second breakfast. The shop also sold an assortment of mantou (steamed buns) sitting in a hot steamer. Besides a banner on the side announcing the shop as the ‘Yonghe Chinese style breakfast shop’, there was no other English available on the actual menus.
I also saw shao bing (baked flat bread) topped with sesame seeds ready to be filled.
As this was second breakfast, I only really had room for the youtiao and some hot soy milk. This is a common and popular street food and I was told I’d find a few food stalls and peddlers out in the morning offering this to workers. I don’t know how, but I managed to communicate what I wanted when I reached the counter to pay for my meal. It was good. I liked dunking the dough stick into my hot cup of soy bean milk. It’s not for everyone (like Mr FPJ) and you kind of need to have grown up with hot soy bean milk to appreciate it fully.
Most of the day was spent looking for stores close by that made name chops/seals, a wooden block that’s carved at the bottom with your Chinese name or business name, and used as a stamp with an ink pad. Basically an ancient signature! Mr FPJ had researched that you just needed to look for a particular symbol above a shop, usually a key maker would have it, which signified that they made chops. We decided on one of the larger shops we had come across as it was close to our hotel, Dian Shih Jhai Seals which had been founded more than 60 years ago. The owners were really friendly and one of them spoke broken English, the prices were low, your names are hand carved into the chop (most use machines nowadays) and there was more variety in materials for the chop – you could choose from jade, marble, various wood, and more. (Turns out that it’s a lot cheaper getting them made in Singapore which we found out a few weeks later.) The owners were fabulous and carved all 12 of them (we had a big order as some were given as gifts to friends) within 24 hours as we were flying out of Taiwan in 1.5 days. It was lucky we chose the store closest to our hotel.
After putting in our chop order, we had free time to do more exploring and eating. For lunch, I wanted to try out more beef noodle soup (I needed another fix!). I had read about one that was close by called Taoyuan Street Beef Noodle. It was difficult to find as we couldn’t find street numbers nor any English signs. I was also expecting a queue or a crowd of people but it was a very quiet street. We saw what looked like an eatery with an outdoor kitchen, sink and a scallion pancake trolley and finally saw a banner with a photo of a man pulling freshly made noodles and photos of beef noodle soup.
We kept wandering in case the eatery was further up but there was nothing else we could see along the street. A lady waved us back and confirmed in broken English that they are the famous beef noodle shop, the best in Taipei in fact, and asked us to go upstairs to eat. By this stage, we were both hungry and not in the mood to look for anything else, so we took our chances and headed upstairs. There was only one other diner in the seating area which did not bode well but I was happy to give the place a go. We were given menus where I believe there were only about 5 dishes to choose from – various styles of beef noodle soup as well as a steamed rice dish, and various side dishes of mainly pickled vegetables. Food is cooked in the kitchen on the ground floor and placed on the dumbwaiter to the first floor.
We both ordered the beef noodle soup of course. Mine was the original while Mr FPJ ordered the spicier version. Both were around the NT $220 mark (about AUD $9.80) which was pretty expensive given the cheaper versions we’d tried.
I loved the freshly made noodles – they were firm yet chewy just how I like them. The beef broth wasn’t too rich or salty. However, Mr FPJ’s broth tasted exactly the same as mine and there was no spice at all. I felt like the amount of beef was minimal and wasn’t as tender as other places we had tried. It also still had a lot of sinew intact. I liked that each table had a container of pickled greens that could be added to dishes.
We then wandered back to the Ximending main shops, and I stopped by the Ximen Mango Shaved Ice shop for dessert. I ordered the mango shaved ice of course (around NT $190, or AUD $8.50). Big enough for the both of us to share, it was Mr FPJ’s first Asian style shaved ice. Light, sweet and delicious with big chunks of mango.
That afternoon, we caught the train to Jiantan station so that we could have sunset drinks at the Grand Hotel. This was a tip from my in-laws who would often have afternoon drinks at the Grand Hotel when they lived there. It’s a pretty amazing looking hotel!
We sat down and had drinks at the lobby. Prices were the most expensive at The Grand (around the AUD $15-20), as can be expected in a more upmarket hotel. I had the virgin Shirley Temple (far too sweet) while Mr FPJ had a Mai Tai. We stayed until the sun set before wandering back to the Shilin Night Market.
We checked out Jolly brewery after snacking at the Shilin Night Markets since it was close to our hotel. The waitresses spoke English and provided me with an English translated menu. The bartenders were not as good with the English language but Mr FPJ was able to communicate beer talk with them. Mr FPJ tried the taster of six beers.
I got a dessert of sticky black rice and coconut. It was warm and very sugary, but I ate the lot! It was also great on a cold night.
The brewery had a nice quiet atmosphere as it was a school night so there was only one other table of diners besides the two of us. I can imagine it getting loud and rowdy when packed with people on a weekend. The brewery was very open so you could see straight up to the other two floors. Toilets are at the very top and there are only stairs. We were the last ones out of the brewery at around 10.30pm.
The following day, we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Bangkok. We had premium lounge passes and spent about an hour at the Plaza Premium Lounge. There are basically two rooms, the lounge area split into couches as well as small individual pods with a seat, table and lamp where people could do some work on a laptop, and then a small dining area with some hot food at one of the counters. After being treated to quite an extravagance at the Hong Kong lounge, this was a bit of a let down (#firstworldproblems #spoilt).
The food consisted of spring rolls, curry fried rice, roasted bbq pork spare ribs, mixed vegetables, and baked mashed potato which were regularly topped up. There were tea and coffee facilities available as well. Though it wasn’t the biggest selection of items, the lounge allowed us to nibble on some food, and relax on the couch while looking up a few things to do in Bangkok.
Recap of eateries visited in this post:
- Yongkang Beef Noodles – No. 17, Lane 31, Section 2, Jinshan South Road, Da’an District, Taipei City
- Zhangmen Brewery – No. 10號, Lane 4, Yongkang Street, Da’an District, Taipei City
- Tian Jing Cong Zhua Bing – No.1, 6 Alley, Yongkang Street, Taipei City
- Yonghe Chinese Style Breakfast Shop – No. 30 Section 2, Hankou St, Wanhua District, Taipei City
- Ximen Mango Shaved Ice – No. 17, Hanzhong Street, Wanhua District, Taipei City
- Matcha One – No. 16, Lane 75, Yongkang Street, Da’an District
- The Grand Hotel – 1 Zhongshan N Rd, Taipei City
- Jolly Brewery – No. 60, Hengyang Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City
More related posts:
- Eating in Taipei – Part 1 – Beef noodle soup, xiao long bao, mochi and mee sua
- Eating in Taipei – Part 2 – Ningxia Night Markets
- Eating in Taipei – Part 3 – Eating in Shilin Night Markets
- Eating in Taipei – Part 4 – Modern Toilet Restaurant
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