Taipei 2019 Day 04
The start of our fourth day in Taipei! Bright and early we woke up to do some early shopping and head over for breakfast. Early in the morning, we wanted to head to 小潘蛋糕坊 or Xiaopan bakery, but they were unfortunately closed on that day! We took a cab there and were sorely disappointed, and they were closed the next day as well! Meaning that we had to scramble to find other places that sell the pineapple cakes as we were leaving the next day.
Thankfully, SF remembered that a nearby 7-11 at the Ximending area sold some of the Xiaopan cakes, and we told the cab to head back to Ximending. Before heading to the 7-11, we headed to Carrefour, to do some light shopping and stock up on drinks. Although we found some interesting instant noodle flavours, we decided that there was nothing really worth bring back for our own consumption.
After getting our stock of Xiaopan pineapple cakes — and they were amazingly decadent, tastes like no other pineapple cake that I have ever eaten before — , we headed off to our planned breakfast spot of the day, which was Chen Ji Intestines and Mee Sua. We opted again not to go for the most popular option of Oyster Mee Sua, which was Ah Chung Mee Sua, and decided to go for Cheng Ji. Cheng Ji serves their oyster mee sua with additional pig intestine, and that was what drew us to the store!
Ordering our four bowls of Oyster Mee Sua, we found a seat and chowed down with a spoon, authentic to the way that the Taiwanese eat their Mee Sua, with just a spoon! The flavours were excellent and the noodles amazing in texture. The pig intestine also added some of that braised flavour that are not in other Mee Sua stalls, and is especially much nicer than the Mee Sua that we have tried in Singapore. Highly recommended!
Before heading off, we also did a mini-hunt for a frozen bag which was supposed to be stocked up at 7-11 stores. We had enough points spent due to buying all the Xiaopan cakes, and wanted to find a place that had the bags to redeem. Unfortunately, we could not find a single 7-11 that had them in stock, even to the last day and almost 20 stores visited. After another short stop for some Taiwanese sausage, also very different and much nicer in Taiwan, with the sweetness of the sausage being carried off by the natural pork fats rather than sugar. We left satisfied and headed back towards Ximending.
We stopped by the Heritage cafe, on our way back to the hotel for some light food before heading for another night market tonight for our dinner. We ordered some cakes, tarts and some coffees, The coffee was cold-brewed and served with some fresh milk, while not overpowering the coffee flavour. It was rich and also smooth. Instant like.
The cakes and tarts were also nice, the carrot cake was also a good one, although not as nice as the ones that we have tried in Vegas, it was coming close, and even I enjoyed it. The Key Lime Pie was also nice, if not as stand-out as the carrot cake.
Some sightseeing while on the way back to the hotel. It was a surprisngly quiet day so far in Taipei, and all of that was about to change in a few hours time…
After a short break, we were prepared to head over to Ningxia Night Market. Ningxia was a smaller Night Market compared to Raohe or Shilin, and we planned for it to be our stop for dinner.
When we reached, we were shocked to see waves of people, literally 人山人海, and we had to slowly navigate the heart of the night market. At the entrance for the night market was one of the most crowded and what I thought would be the “flagship” store of the market, much like Raohe had its Pepper Buns.
This store sold the same delicacy as the Dragon Gate Dumpling Inn from last night’s dinner, 卤味. You simply choose what meats or other items you want in the dish, pick them up into a metal bowl and hand it over to the stall owner, who would then fry and braise the item in their large woks, before handing it over to you.
Interesting discovery was that this was even nicer than the one we had at Dragon Gate Inn Dumpling House, the fresh preparing of the food made them not only hot but much nicer texture. We picked out quite a few pig intestines as well, much to our delight, and they were delicious. Other dishes included chicken’s feet, chicken wings, pork belly and quail eggs. This was certainly our biggest surprise during this trip, that we would enjoy this delicacy this much!
We continued down the extremely crowded and narrow street of the Ningxia Night Market. There we see many repeats from the Raohe night market and we were not surprised — how different can night markets be from one another after all?
We had some oysters, unfortunately not living up to their expectations, quite tough and the cheese not sufficiently melted, some meat skewers which were almost always consistently nice and juicy, and again ordered some beef cubes. We were almost at the end of the street, and seeing how crowded the area was, we decided to bow our heads and give up, heading back to Ximending to further explore the area — there was much more in store there!
Back at Ximending, Ashley got a customised cap, and although I wanted one as well, they did not have one that I really wanted, either not being the correct style or the correct colour or font. Continuing on, we also had some Xin Fu Tang before heading back to the hotel. We concluded that we all preferred the more familiar and less milky flavour of Tiger Sugar, which was almost chendol tasting. The Xin Fu Tang we found was over-hyped and tasted mostly of milk.
Heading back to the hotel, we were still quite satisfied with our day, even though Xiaopan was closed, we were able to salvage the day thanks to 7-11 stocking some of their cakes, and able to visit one last night market. Tomorrow would be our final day of the trip in Taipei, and then it would be back to reality.