Places to eat in Taipei Shih

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As you walk along the Jiufen old street, you'll see many stalls selling taro balls desserts. Taro balls desserts: A bowl of yam balls and sweet potatos balls with sweet soup base. They have it hot or cold.

I saw a very popular stall along the Jiufen old street called Lai Ah Po, was filled with people crowding around the small stall. I didn't try this stall because it was too crowded. I tried another award winning stall along the side lane of the main old street, Ah Gan Yi. The desserts tasted quite nice actually.

This side lane was near the end of the Jiufen old street. There is a small insignificant signboard showing the directions to Ah Gan Yi at the beginning of the side lane. Next to the dessert stall is a small stairway to a primary school where you can take a rest while enjoying the dessert.

Tai Yang Bing, a local pastry which is flaky on the outside and soft with malt filling on the inside. It's similar to Lao Po Bing, just that Lao Po Bing is filled with winter melon sugar while Tai Yang Bing is malt.

When I read about Tai Yang Bing on the travel forum, I thought I won't be very interested in it. However, when I tried Li Yi's, hey, it's quite tasty.

I've compared Tai Yang Bing from Li Yi's and from another popular shop near Keelung Miaokou night market, Li Gu. They are slightly different in that: Li Yi's Tai Yang Bing has a very smooth taste and soft texture. I feel so comfortable eating it. Li Gu's Tai Yang Bing has a flakier crust and is more dry.

I've tried their lotus paste with salted egg pastry too but I prefer's Leechi's (Another pastry shop) one.

You can find Li Yi's shop just opposite Jiu Fen old street, where alot of people are queuing for the bus to Keelung. If you are not going to Jiu Fen, they have a branch at the Taipei Main Station underground mall area, near exit 8.

Favorite Dish: Tai Yang Bing

If you've read forum replies in Tripadvisors, you may have read about this Taoyuan beef noodles, voted the best by many forumers.

I've tried their beef noodle (Hong Shao flavour) and their beef slices are a notch above others. I find the noodle okay but the beef slices, although thick cuts, were so tender and well cooked that it breaks easily when held with a chopsticks.

The Hong Shao soup base was too oily for me, so maybe I should have tried the clear soup flavour instead.

They also have pork ribs noodles.

A bowl of beef noodles cost $150 TWD.

This beef noodle eatery has no signboard. Try to identify it by it's unit no. Unit no 15. At the junction between Taoyuan st and Bo Ai Lane 160.

To go there: Exit Ximending station No 4. walk down Heng Yang road (away from XMD) until you see a building Taiwan Cooperative Bank. Taoyuan rd is on the right hand side. Walk into it and walk near to the end of the road. This No.15 stall will be on your left.

I'm not recommending any particular restaurant but introducing a local fruit "Wax Apple". In chinese it's called Lian Wu. It's also commonly known as "Jumbu". It taste very different from other fruits. A fresh good, ripe wax apple feels hard. When you bite it, it's very crunchy yet very juicy because it's very porous. The taste can be very sweet and very refreshing.

Normal wax apple is red but there's one kind of wax apple known as the "black pearl" which is dark red in color, even near to reddish brown. I call it the "king of the king" wax apple. It's big and really sweet. Harvest season for wax apple is July to August and there are fruit farms in Taipei where you can pick your own wax apples from the trees!

Highly recommended to try! Must try!

One popular pastry that tourists love to buy back home from Taiwan would be the pineapple pastry. In Taiwan, it's butter pastry usually shaped in a cube filled with pineapple paste. The pineapple paste is usually made from real pineapples and so you could still taste the rough texture of real pineapple fruit when you eat the pastry.

After being in Taipei for some days, I find nearly all the shops will claim that their pineapple pastry is the authentic one/ the real traditional one, so called. Hence, my suggestion to you is to believe in your taste bud rather than their claims. Since the most traditional taste may also not be of your taste, right!?

I went all the way to look for this shop Leechi as I've heard many travel forumers talking about it. There is only one Leechi shop in Taipei and it's not along the way to major shopping malls or tourist attractions.

Beside selling pineapple pastry, Leechi also offers a large variety of traditional chinese pastry like Tai Yang Bing, Dan Huang Su, Lau Po Bing etc.

I've tried the pineapple pastry from this shop Leechi and another famous/ popular shop among forumers called Li Gu Bing Dian in Keelung. Both are good while my personal preference is of Leechi's. I find Leechi's pineapple pastry more buttery and the taste of the pineapple paste is stronger.

As different people have different taste, you may like to try them both and make your own decision. :D

Favorite Dish: Beside the pineapple pastry, I really like their Dan Huang Su. It's a pastry made of lotus paste with a salted egg yolk wrapped inside. The lotus paste is very smooth and the salted egg yolk is not too dry. This pastry can last at most 3 days so it's difficult for tourist to buy back home for relatives and friends.

Tai Yang Bing - pastry with malt fillings, can last around 1 week.

Pineapple pastry - can last around 2 weeks.

Taiwanese style of meat dumplings known as "Bak Zang" is made up of big chunks of pork meat, usually with a half dried chinese mushroom, a chestnut wrapped in glutinous rice that was pre stir fried with soya sauce and dried shrimps. Sometimes peanuts were also added.

I was so deprived of such rice dumplings in GZ that I so wanted to eat them in Taipei. However, it was not as common as I thought it will, to find a rice dumpling stall in the city of Taipei. The one eatery that I finally found near Ximending is this "Wang Ji Fu Cheng Rou Zhong".

The rice meat dumpling I've tried in this eatery is considered good. It's not fantastically superb but the taste is just nice, the glutinous rice well cooked and the fillings in the dumplings is sufficient. One rice meat dumpling cost $55 TWD.

Beside selling rice meat dumplings, they also sell bean dumplings and veg dumplings.

They have 5 stores in Taipei.

Oh yes, I spotted an eatery at Danshui that sells rice meat dumpling too and it looks really delicious. Too bad I was too full that day to try it. If you got the chance to try the one at Danshui, pls let me know if it's good or not. Thanks!

Oyster omelette (commonly known as "Or R Jian") is another local dish easily found in street stalls, restaurants and night markets. Ingredients includes eggs, starch water and oyster and vegetables, pan fried into omelette. Served hot with a slightly sweet red sauce on top.

It's quite nice, slightly different from those you find in say, Singapore. Singapore's style is more crispy, no veg in it and no sweet red sauce on top. Taiwanese style is softer with veg and has sauce on top.

You'll find this dish everywhere in restaurants, in night markets, in roadside stalls or foodcourts etc.

It's braised pork meat with gravy on plain rice. You can eat it by it's own because it's tasty and have pieces of tiny pork meat in it. Or, usually people will order it to go with other dishes, say, pork chop, preserved side dishes, soup etc, whatever you like to have.

Usually a bowl of Ru Rou Fan cost around $20 TWD.