On Sunday, my mom had another full day of class, but we met up with her later in the afternoon because her sister drove into the city to see us. My aunt and her husband drove into Taipei to pick us up for dinner and to show us around the city. Before having dinner together, we drove to Beitou, the town where my mom and her four siblings grew up. Beitou is famous for their hot springs (it’s actually so hot that you can cook eggs in some of the hot springs!)
Here’s me and David in front of one of the larger hotels:
After seeing my mom’s house, we went to a nearby restaurant that’s been open for over 100 years. They specialize in beef noodle soup, but instead of having a thick, spicy soup base, it’s a very light soup:
After dinner, we drove from Beitou to Taipei and went to the Shilin night market, one of the most famous in Taipei. My mom’s university is across the street and after classes, all of the students eat dinner at the night market. We already had dinner, but we went to get ice slushies:
We ate three different types of shaved ice (the green tea was the best, by far) and afterwards, found an area filled with little games we used to play as kids. My dad used to take us to the night market a lot when we were younger and David would always play with the BB guns…we found those games again and David played again (although we didn’t spend the entire night playing like we used to!)
My mom was teaching all day on Saturday so we met up with my dad and ate lunch at a German restaurant close to our hotel (our hotel is also close to National Taiwan University, so there are a lot of restaurants in the area for students and professors). After lunch, we drove to my aunt’s place to meet up with my cousin, Eric. Eric took us to the mall in his town, Miramar, which boasts a gigantic ferris wheel on the mall’s rooftop:
We decided against going up the ferris wheel because 1. I’m kind of afraid of heights and 2. it was really overcast and drizzling, but we did take this cute picture together:
After walking around the mall, we went back to my aunt’s house and ate a feast, eating things like fresh bamboo, pickled tofu ribbons, Chinese grapes, coral seaweed, and a lot of other goodies. We came back to our hotel a little early because I was really tired and met up with my mom, who had just finished a full day of teaching (9AM – 5:30PM).
For my Taiwan posts, I’ve decided to do short posts to let you know what I’m doing on a day-to-day basis and do longer posts once I return from my trip. I’ll also do longer restaurant posts, give some travel tips, and come up with “best of” lists once I get back and process all of these pictures! For now, a glimpse of our first full day in Taipei!
After Din Tai Fung, my dad took us to Bellavita, a new shopping mall that opened up about six months ago:
The mall has an European-style exterior because supposedly a wealthy mother took her three daughters to Europe and they liked the cafes around the Champs-Elysees so they wanted to open a coffee shop similar to the ones they saw in Paris. Instead of building a little coffee shop, their father decided to build them the Bellavita shopping mall! The mall is pretty quiet because it’s just opening, but has stores like Hermes, Tod’s, Eres, and a lot of other high end stuff you’d find on 5th Avenue in NYC.
In the basement of Bellavita, they sell macarons, French pastries, and mochi:
They also sell cakes that are coated in gold:
To give you an idea of how much the gold cake costs, the exchange rate is about 30 – 32NT = 1 USD. The cake was so small I could’ve eaten it by MYSELF in one sitting!
The area around Bellavita has a lot of different malls and Taipei 101:
After walking around Bellavita, we went to Shing Kong Mitsukoshi, another mall in the area. I thought this cat was cute:
So, in the basement of shopping malls in Asia, they all have really nice food courts where families go to eat after shopping all day. The food courts also have really nice bakeries where you can buy cakes (like the gold cake from Bellavita), gifts, and other delicious edibles. In the Shing Kong Mitsukoshi mall, we were walking around when we saw a huge line form at a bakery. Not knowing what the commotion was about, we asked around and apparently they were having a promotion – one type of bun that usually cost 30 NT was on sale for 10 NT, but only 30 people could take advantage of the promotion. David and I immediately got in line and guess what…I got the last ticket for the reduced price baked good:
David and I were so excited to get the baked good even though we had no idea what it would taste like (although all of the baked goods in Asia are amazing so it’s tough to go wrong). Here’s David with our pastries:
The bun ended up being absolutely delicious – it had a milky-like crumbly crust and the bun was very moist and soft. Good thing we randomly saw a line and got in it!
After walking around the shopping area by Taipei 101, we headed back to the hotel and hung out for a little before meeting up with my cousin and aunt at New York New York:
New York New York is actually right by the Taipei 101 area and is another shopping mall (home of a HUGE Muji store). We had an all-you-can-eat dim sum buffet on the 7th floor of the New York New York shopping mall:
After dinner, we took a cab home and went to the grocery store to pick up some toiletries and gum (peach flavored!) Taiwan Day 2 is coming up!
As a kid, David and I would come back to Taiwan every summer to visit my dad. We’d do things anyone visiting Taiwan would want to do; visit the National Palace Museum to see the special jade, climb Yang Ming San, meet up with cousins, go shopping, and eat lots and lots of good food. My dad is really good at navigating Taipei’s restaurant scene, so as a kid, we’d go all over the city eating at little stands with great beef noodle soup, dessert shops with the best mango ice, and Din Tai Fung for their soup dumplings. Din Tai Fung is very close to my dad’s city apartment, so as a kid, we’d make multiple trips to the popular restaurant. Also, David and I happen to absolutely obsess over their soup dumplings. Din Tai Fung:
There’s always a wait at this Din Tai Fung because it’s the original and whenever foreigners visit, it’s a guaranteed good meal. There are others around the city, but apparently the service and caliber of food are vastly different. My aunt and cousin went to the one located close to Sogo and said that the dumplings there inedible, so if you decide to visit, definitely go to this one. Me and David with my dad:
And me, David, and my mom with my aunt and uncle (my mom’s older sister and younger brother):
Din Tai Fung is so popular that they’ve created a dumpling character:
You can buy their merchandise (tons of little things like pens, pencils, keychains, etc):
The wait is never that long (we usually had to wait 15 – 25 minutes), but there’s also a bookstore next door that we’d visit while we waited. While you wait, you can peruse the menu (English, Japanese, and Korean versions are readily available) and make your order. As we walked to our table, I peaked into the kitchen, where they were wrapping and steaming dumplings:
As soon as we arrived at our table on the 3rd floor, a waiter came along to bring us some appetizers:
We decided to order the braised wheat gluten:
And seaweed with glass noodles, bean sprouts, and dried bean curd in a rice vinegar dressing:
Both appetizers were delicious, but we were visiting Din Tai Fung for these: 10 little soup dumplings:
The soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung are the best in the world; the skin is very thin but holds in just the right amount of pork and soup:
Also, each soup dumpling is supposed to only have 18 folds (my mom counted 19 in one…UH OH!). To make the soup dumplings, the chef first prepares a gelatin (made from a pork broth). Then they prepare the pork filling and when they wrap the dumplings, they put a little piece of gelatin in each dumpling. When the dumplings are steamed, the gelatin melts and creates the “soup” in the soup dumplings. I also really like their dumplings because the skin at the top isn’t too thick (that’s one of the problems with Joe Shanghai dumplings, in my opinion).
In addition to two orders of their famous soup dumplings, we also ordered steamed pork dumplings topped with shrimp:
These dumplings are another specialty of Din Tai Fung because it’s not easy to wrap them (keeping the shrimp in place while steaming is difficult). These were a little drier than the soup dumplings but definitely worth ordering.
We also ordered a chinese vegetable, translated as Taiwanese A vegetables:
These vegetables used to be eaten only by the birds, but someone discovered that they were really good for human consumption as well. They’re slightly more crunchy than chinese spinach, but have a similar taste and texture. These were sauteed in oil and garlic and a nice way to round out a very dumpling-heavy meal.
My dad ordered noodles with fried bean curd for my brother:
And chicken noodle soup for me and my mom:
The chicken broth is poured into the noodles tableside:
The broth is rich and very flavorful and the noodles are really delicious as well. It’s funny that the weather is so incredibly hot and muggy yet everytime we go to a restaurant, everyone is drinking hot soup! Even when we go to the night market, everyone is drinking hot soup, eating hot desserts, and drinking hot tea.
My dad told us that whenever locals go to Din Tai Fung, they always order the fried rice with pork:
He found out from his students because whenever they go, they order the soup dumplings and the fried rice. Din Tai Fung’s fried rice was really delicious; not too oily and the egg that was cooked alongside the rice wasn’t too thick. The pork was sprinkled with white pepper and very good on its own, but I could’ve eaten a bucket filled with their fried rice!
My mom wanted to get an order of their zong zhi, so we ended up ordering two for the table:
Their zong zhi is filled with wu-hua ro (pork belly) and then wrapped in bamboo leaves before being steamed. The rice is glutinous rice (not the same rice that was used for the pork fried rice) and comes out much stickier once cooked. The rice melts in your mouth:
The pork belly that was inside the zong zhi was only the meat; they remove all of the fat before placing it in the rice so you get the best meat and don’t have to chew through the fat to enjoy the good stuff.
For dessert, my dad ordered the steamed cake with red bean:
It’s similar to sponge cake; very light and delicate and then sweetened with a little red bean before being steamed alongside all of the dumplings. The cake needs to be eaten while it’s still warm because it toughens up as soon as the cold air hits it. I always like eating their red bean desserts and this cake was a sweet way to end the feast. Me and my dad after our lunch:
I really love visiting Din Tai Fung every time I visit Taiwan; my mom just told me she thought it was our best meal here so far (not sure if I agree with that statement considering I went to my aunt’s house and she cooked us a feast that was amazing). The original Din Tai Fung is the only one you want to visit; the dumpling quality at the other places will not be the same and I wouldn’t want you to have a bad Din Tai Fung experience!
My friends were asking me what I was going to do when I got to Taiwan…knowing my family, I knew we were going to drop off our bags and head straight to the night markets. The last time I was in Taiwan, in 2006, we literally dropped off our bags at my aunt’s house and went straight to Shilin night market. This time, we are staying in a hotel within walking distance of Shida night market, but I’m sure we’ll be paying a visit to all of the markets.
Night markets are very popular in Taiwan for locals and tourists. They open after dark and serve food, fruit drinks, have games, and sell little knick-knacks. When we were kids, my brother and I always looked forward to going to the night markets with our friends. David was a huge fan of playing with the BB guns (you can shoot little balloons with a BB gun for fun). I was always a fan of browsing the shops and eating the fruit ice desserts.
This stand was very popular with locals; you pick what you want to eat, they cook it, add sauce, and place it in a plastic bag for you to eat. You can pick all types of vegetables, meats, and fish on a stick:
Another stand selling the same kind of stuff:
We didn’t eat any of the food in a plastic bag because it didn’t look that appetizing (they also douse it with soy sauce and another brown sauce) but the locals we spoke with all said it was REALLY good.
The night markets always sell all types of fresh fruit – here are wax apples that are in season right now:
And all types of pickled plums and peaches:
Crepes are really popular in the night market – they have sweet and savory crepes for about $2 USD:
Here’s the owner making a nutella/peanut butter/banana crepe and a crepe filled with salad:
We eventually settled on two soups (even though it’s kind of warm/muggy, we were in the mood for soup!) This stand serves a lot of hot soups, which is popular even in the summer months:
The first soup is called dong-gui soup (pig’s feet noodle soup):
Dong gui is the medicinal herb used to stimulate blood flow. It tastes and smells a little bit like Chinese herb stores, but was very comforting. We also ordered the duck leg dong-gui soup:
And a night market favorite, oyster omelets! Here’s the owner making our order:
The oyster omelet is topped with ketchup and some veggies:
The omelet is quickly cooked with added cornstarch for an extra gelatinous texture. It’s really popular in night markets and I still remember eating it when we landed in Taiwan back in 2006.
Like I said, we literally dropped off our bags and headed to the night markets because we were SO excited. Here’s me after the 18 hour flight:
Before heading back to our hotel, we wanted to get some freshly made fruit juice (so cheap and SOOO good):
We ordered a kiwi juice:
YUM! Today, we are heading to Ding Tai Fung, one of our favorite restaurants in Taiwan. They specialize in soup dumplings and they are SO delicious!