Food Delights at Taipei

Recently I made a trip to Taipei but with few opportunities to eat outside food. Here is one packed lunch from a shop around Ximending area. The way they serve packed lunch is unlike S'pore's. They serve rice separately from the dishes.

I love the left corner beancurd like dishes which is known as "Taiwanese's vegetarian chicken". It looked like beancurd but tasted like compact beancurd skin and according to my S'porean friend who had stayed in Taiwan before, it could be found easily in the markets of Taiwan and looked like shape of intestine in its raw form but does not seem to be introduced into S'pore yet. I wish it could be imported into S'pore soon...:P Another interesting point for their packed lunch is they are priced by the weight rather than selection of dishes.
Fried smelly beancurd (臭豆腐) from Shilin nite mkt, but I still miss the "Shenkeng" (深坑臭豆腐) smelly beancurd tried years ago at Taipei's Danshui street. The beancurd tasted then was "fragrant"and smooth & chilli that goes with it added points to it.
Just like Durian, those who love it will find it "fragrant" while those who don't will avoid the smell. :-)


Coffin Shaped Bread (Guan Cai Ban 棺材板) which is like a thick piece of toast bread without the core part. The vegetarian version was filled with stuffing of salad corn & vegetables.

And not to be missed is my all-time favourite Taiwanese snacks: Fried mushrooms (炸香菇) ! Now, they use the Xin Bao Gu (杏鲍菇 or Bailing mushroom), cut into small cubes, coated with flour and deep fried them. There's also the shitake mushroom and golden needle mushroom version. Very delicious!
Being quite derived of noodles when on mountain, (we had rice every meal except twice when there is fried udon but the Taiwanese rice grains are similar to Japanese rice, very Q & tasty that I don't mind having them every meal, almost tempted to bring back a packet of their rice from the supermarket:P) I searched for noodles stall & was quite surprised to find a vegetarian noodle stall at a corner shop near our hotel at Ximending. We tried the Cold noodles (Liang Mian 凉面) which tasted like dry maggie-mee like noodles with peanut-like gravy.

Another popular/specialty noodles according to the boss is his mushroom and pumpkin noodles. Initially, we thought the speciality would be the texture of the noodles with pumpkin taste but it turned out to be maggie-mee like noodles soup with mushroom, vegetables and big pieces of pumpkin with slices of vegetarian ham. The soup was tasty though.
It was an enjoyable supper with great company. Thanks, All! :-)

Eight Immortals (Great World City Food Junction)

It seems that if you do not know what to order, just order the most common, e.g. Hor Fun. Back to basics and sometimes you get surprises. They put in fried Toupok instead of beancurb, and the mock roasted pork-like item which is actually known as vegetarian duck slices was quite tasty. I saw something similar to vegetarian duck slices at the vegetarian product stall that I frequent. If it is the same product or is nice, I will introduce soon in my other blog. :P

It is located at Food Junction at Great World City Basement 1, corner stall besides Mr Prata.

Zhen Vegetarian, Maxwell Road Food Centre

This stall is located on the left (#7) of the lane where the drink stall: Cool Station is facing. It sells mixed rice with 3 dishes at $2.50 as well as Laksa, Lor Mee, Dry noodles at $2.50 while Hor Fun etc at $3. A good alternative for those who are lazy to cross the road to Chinatown.
I tried the Lor Mee today. The gravy was rather thick, but not sizzling hot enough. It came with fried goose pieces and its dumplings were handmade, with soft beancurb as its fillings.

7, Maxwell Road Food Centre, left lane where drink stall: Cool Station is facing.

Nature Vegetarian (Sin Ming Ave)

Vegetarian Chicken Rice, fried vegetarian chicken drumstick with Azha, cucumber and tomato slices as side dishes. The rice tasted okay but flavour abit "disturbed" with too much dark soya sauce over it. I thought only white rice needed the dark sauce for roast pork.:P The drumstick was those common beancurb skin often seen. The chilli sauce, Must try!!! Fantastic! So far, the best replica of the chicken rice chilli with ginger taste tried. :-)

炸酱面(Zha Jiang Mian), one of the Special Menu of the day at their stall selling Ngian Toufu. I quite like their noodles, always well-cooked. This time, using the flat noodles, it was covered with mock meat cubes and gravy. Taste-wise okay lah, btw, I had long forgotten how the original meat version tasted liked so can't really compare it to the original version. :P

The coffee shop is located at 409 Sin Ming Ave, #02-01 (Opp Bright Hill temple)

Opening hrs: 7am to 9.30pm

吾家有宝素食小站 VEGETORIUM

Visited the eatery place again, had wanted to try their fried prawn dumplings but it was not available. Ordered their Vegetarian Minced Meat Noodles this round, the well-done noodles came with quite a big portion of ingredients. They are currently having a promotion on hot drinks: tea, coffee, milo at only $0.50 in small traditional cups.

For those who missed the canned tomato sauce sardine, Strongly recommend their Sardine curry puff (different from Malay version of sardine puff) which the fillings and gravy is very replicate of the canned sardine, and you will ask the question: "Is this really vegetarian?" after a bite.

The shop (a bus-stop is in-front of it) is located along a stretch of shophouses (besides the pte apt: The Cassandra, Opposite Currency House) on 124 Pasir Panjang Road, S(118545).Operating hours: Mon to Sat 6.30am to 3pm; 5pm to 9pm. (Closed on Sun & Public Holidays)Tel: 64747 203

NutriHub the organic fusion cafe

NutriHub is located at #B2-25/26 of Cuppage Plaza, just behind Orchard Point OG.

Ramen
Their Sandwich

Sushi

The Salad/Fruity? Sushi seems to be getting popular in fusion cafes, a very healthy dish. My friends liked their Ramen and the sandwich is nice too, worth trying even for non-bread lover.
It can be a good place to catch up with friends over healthy meal.
Generally, the opening hours are 10am to 7pm and Sunday to 4pm. Tel: 67382746
http://www.nutrihub.blogspot.com/

素满园 (Suntec City Fountain Food Terrace)

Was really glad to find the vegetarian stall serving morning breakfast before 8am and at a discounted price of $2.20 in the morning ($2.80 for lunch) for their mixed dishes with fried meehoon or mee. I like their fried Kway Teow and by ordering with their stewed beancurb dishes and requesting for more gravy, it became a version like Cantonese Hor Fun at much cheaper price. :P Their economical promotion (considering in Foodcourt) certainly attracts customers.

After having a couple of lunch & dinner meals on rice for a noodles lover, on final day of retreat, feeling hungry, I finally sneaked out during break to have noodles and retried the stall's Spicy Sour Veg. Noodles. After days of non-spicy food, it could be that my taste bugs was being neutralised as the noodles tasted real spicy this round and good:-) which provided me with good energy to continue the next retreat session:-)

The vegetarian stall is located near the food court entrance near Pasta Mania.