[Taipei] 独立牛肉面 Du Li Beef

In 2019, I was determined to try at least one meal of beef noodles, which Taipei is famed for. Wanted somewhere that's not too far off from the hotel, and I was staying at 璞漣商旅西門館 Hotel Puri Ximen Branch. According to Google Map, it takes only about 7 minutes from the hotel to the beef noodles shop. Great! If Google estimated 7 minutes, that's probably 15 minutes for me. My sense of direction is not that great... hahahaa, but eventually found it. Across the street, there was a dumpling shop and I was tempted...

shop front

But I didn't waiver because beef noodles was what I came for, and I shall be eating that!

The interior of the shop feels like a cafe. Mostly young adults were seen in there. Was greeted by the staff once the sliding door is opened. Awkward as that will also cause the patrons in the shop to look at who's walking-in. Lone diner will be directed to the window seats.

nice sunny day

The shop is manned by just the staff and the Chef in the kitchen. Pretty efficient. I liked the shop decor. Cosy and plenty of natural light.

shop decor

write down your order

The place is semi self-service, and one orders by ticking the desired items in the order chit. It's in Mandarin though. Heng, I can agak-agak (guess) a bit.

Once you have decided and indicated on the paper, pass it to the staff. She was kind of taken aback when I asked if I need to pay first when submitting the order. Hahaa! She patiently informed that customers will pay after they're done with the meal. Oh, and I was happy that she asked how I'd like the tendon to be, as she mentioned that most customers liked it chewy. For me, I wanted mine to be soft.

As it was past typical meal time, Chef started to prepare my bowl almost immediately. The staff will bring the noodles to your table. For utensils, napkin and chili oil, one can take from the common area.

红烧牛肉麵 (半筋半肉)

pretty bowl of piping hot beef noodles

a good bowl of beef noodles, 好吃

yellow noodles

Soup was lightly beefy and fragrant with herbs. Not too overpowering, clean tasting and served piping hot. Noodles were smooth and easily slurped. There were plenty of beef pieces in there and I was a tad worried if it would be tough. I was all smiles at first bite. Wow. Beef was well cooked and fork tender.

so yummy

Tendon was soft and gelatinous. So goood! Overall, happy with the place, the food and the service. It was a good choice!

hi there

One could have a meal here at a relaxed place as there are no long lines outside, pressurizing you to eat quickly. Although, the boy who sat next to me managed to finish his up-sized noodle bowl within 30 minutes. Can see that he too, was satisfied with his meal.

Once done eating, diners usually would collect their empty bowl, used utensils and return it to the staff.

Spent NT$190 (~ SGD9) for the beef noodles.

独立牛肉面

Address: No. 31, Section 2, Guiyang St, Wanhua District, Taipei City, Taiwan 108
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DuLiBeef/?fref=ts
Contact: +886 981 738 089
Business Hours:
Mon to Sat: 11.30am to 2.20pm, 5.00pm to 8.30pm
Closed on Sundays

[Taiwan] 李仔哥 (Lee Zai Ge) 爌肉飯 @ Xinyi Road, Puli Township, Nantou

After our good stay at Sun Moon Lake, it was time to head back towards Taipei. We went to visit Puli Wine Brewery and we got hungry thereafter. It was almost 1pm before we stopped by this shop that Sam, our local guide suggested. Braised pork rice for lunch? Yes please.

shopfront

It feels like a hometown eatery where parking space is limited and by the roadside. Lucky us, we managed to find a spot within walking distance to the shop. They have seats upstairs so one need to place order at the counter downstairs for food and drinks, make payment and then get a table upstairs. There are washrooms available upstairs and differentiated for males and females.

Mostly uncles and aunties were seen in the shop. Local tourists, they seemed. Sam mentioned that they have a special off-menu item called tui ku rou 腿裤肉 (leg pants meat?), or maybe they meant the upper limb meat. Not quite sure but Sam warned us that this is one piece of fatty meat!

Was seriously thirsty by the time we got to this shop. Partly due to the alcohol tasting at Puli earlier. Keke. The drinks was nice but the tiny tiny fen yuen (flour balls) makes it really hard to get to the liquid. Ugh.

wintermelon lime with fen yuen

Very quickly, lunch is served. We ordered fried pork ribs rice, braised pork belly rice, one dried preserved vege braised rice and two specials of fatty meat rice. Side dishes of braised items and stir-fried lettuce. The lettuce was the only greens amongst the browns.

lunch for 5 pax

Had a quick question for our guide as to why the braise sauce in Nantou, southern of Taiwan, is so light. For Hokkien or Cantonese style of braising, usually we will use the dark soy sauce and the colour would be much darker. He pondered, and answered. He also does not know why! So, if anyone could help enlighten, please send an email to purplerain@gmail.com. Thanks!

腿裤肉 (fatty meat) braised rice

Surprisingly, while there were plenty of fats for the meat, it wasn't cloyingly oily. It was just soft collageny goodness. The meat was also rather lean in the sense the fats were all on the skin part. Yummy with the bamboo shoots. Worth ordering.

李仔哥爌肉飯

Address: No. 326, Xinyi Road, Puli Township, Nantou County, Taiwan 545
Website: https://www.facebook.com/%E6%9D%8E%E4%BB%94%E5%93%A5%E7%88%8C%E8%82%89%E9%A3%AF-146746108713498/
Contact: +886 4 9298 3496
Business Hours:
Daily: 6am to 3pm

[Taiwan] Lu Sih An 麓司岸餐坊 手創料理 @ Sun Moon Lake

Visited in May and the weather was generally hot in Taiwan. First time visit to Sun Moon Lake and was eager to try some of the local eats here. Lu Sih An was recommended by our local driver so we decided to give it a try. This restaurant serves Ita Thao food.

restaurant facade

interior

From the framed medals on the wall, the place/Chef seemed to be an award winning one! The TV in the restaurant had food programmes featuring its restaurant on loop.

menu

There's set meal as per normal in a Chinese restaurant, or one could do ala-carte. We picked a couple of items based on guide and shop's recommendation as well as our own preference. Or rather, our own inquisitiveness to try the new foods!

The prices are for mid-range dining and the interior feels like my hometown restaurant. It is airconditioned and seating were comfortable. We were there before 630pm and there were about two other tables occupied.

The lady staff/boss was pretty humorous. There is a dish that our guide requested for them to prepare earlier. It is the shop specialty of deep fried sharpbelly fish. Thanks to Wiki, now we know that sharpbelly fish is a type of wild carp.

Specialty - Crispy Fried Sharpbelly Fish 酥炸奇力鱼 @NT180

It is salted and deep fried along with seaweed. Quite addictive, but one needs to watch out for some sharp protruding bones. Tasty and goes well with beer. But we did not do beer that evening because too full from pre-dinner snacks.

To warm our tummy, we had soup. Oh my. The soup pot was huge! We had bowls after bowls of the warm soup. Down-to-earth flavours but too bad the clams were not as sweet as I had expected.

Miso Soup with Clams and Mixed Mushrooms @NT480

Did I tell you how much I love the vegetables in Taiwan? Well, I do! Especially those variants that we can't find in Singapore/Malaysia. Adding a touch of exoticness into our food intake. We ordered Guo-Mao which is a type of wild fern. Not sure why the vegetable is named like a cat but it has a tongue numbing effect when eaten raw. Maybe it was because of this that we got the saying of "the cat got your tongue?" Hmm, points to ponder. The stir-fried vegetable was soo good!

過猫 Guo-Mao Vegetable Fern @NT120

Because we were at Sun Moon Lake, we gotta order a lake fish to try! Steamed version. About SGD21 for one steamed fish. It is abit like tilapia though not muddy.

Steamed Sun Moon Lake Fish @NT450

Oops, forgot to mention we did order an appetiser. Since it was bamboo shoot season, we ordered a baked bamboo shoots with cheese. Its Chinese name is Baked Beauty Legs? So funny.

焗烤美人腿 Baked Water Bamboo with Cheese @NT250

We also ordered wild boar meat on hotplate but that's the one dish that was least likable (for me). It was sprinkled with some herbs that not only masked out the taste of the meat, it tasted something like those bitter powder medicine that you had to pour onto your tongue.

Dinner for 6-pax

Our driver, Sam was so nice to order dessert for us. Goreng Pisang. Joking, but indeed it was a banana fritter type of dessert. Looks lovely and tasted crispy and sweet. Banana taste was minimal. Kids would love this!

signature dish of fried banana 麓司岸の焦焦者 ·@NT250

麓司岸餐坊 手創料理

Address: 號, No. 108文化街, Yuchi Township, Nantou County, Taiwan 555
Website: http://www.lusihan.com.tw/
Contact: +886 4 9285 0451
Business Hours:
Daily: 11AM - 230PM, 530-830PM
Close on Sundays

[Taiwan] Sun Moon Lake 日月潭 Sights and Eats Part 1

First maiden visit to Sun Moon Lake and it was a great decision to get the hotel with lakeview.  The area of our stay was at Ita Thao (伊達邵). Stayed for one night at Hu Yue Lakeview B&B and the per night cost was about $172 per room. The size of the room was huge and pretty comfortable.

view from room

living room

bed

bathroom

The room came with complimentary boat ride (2 tickets) as well as breakfast for the next morning. As our time at Sun Moon Lake was rather limited, we decided on the last boat ride (no-disembarkation round trip) from Ita Tao pier to Shuishe and back.

boat tickets

We went down to Ita Thao pier (伊達邵碼頭) soon after check-in, in order to catch the boat. But since the ticket did not indicate the boat company nor number, we were unsure of which boat was ours. Am guessing that it is any boat as long as the captain is around. Just ask around. The captain asked if we would like to get any of those famed grandma's tea eggs and he could order it ahead of time so that we could get some of those without having to leave the boat. Didn't take up his offer as we were too stuffed and wanted to save stomach space for dinner.

boats awaiting

captain's view

reaching the end of half the trip (this was the place for grandma's tea leaves egg)

The boat puttered along the lake gently and the captain would introduce some nuggets of information in Mandarin. He would also point out some of the spots along the way but most of the time, I couldn't catch where he was indicating to.

The boat stops for about 5 minutes while the rest of the passengers who would like to roam the other side, were free to disembark. For us who would like to return to Ita Thao pier, need to take the same boat back as this was the last ride for the day.

captain having his smoke break

sun is setting, time to head back

lighthouse with 3 lights

The round trip boat ride was done within 45 minutes. We were in time for some snacks before dinner!

to measure the lake water level

panoramic view of Ita Thao Pier

have you heard about the legend of the white deer?

We scouted around the area near our B&B to see what we could find. Most eateries were not open and the area has few visitors during our time of visit.

alley near our hotel

snack time!

We spotted a shop selling xiao long bao (小笼包) and decided to give it a try. Friends ordered a lu rou fan (卤肉贩) and chilled bamboo shoots too. It was the season for bamboo shoots during the May period.

boiled and chilled bamboo shoots

It was novel, eating the boiled chilled bamboo shoots. The shopkeeper showed us how to peel off the outer layers and just eat the inner shoots with mayonaise. Who would've thought simple chilled bamboo shoots matched so well with mayo? Yums!

braised pork rice 卤肉贩

pork dumplings 小笼包

sour spicy soup with dumplings 酸辣汤

The xiao long bao was nice and served piping hot. The sour spicy soup wasn't really spicy but it has the right tanginess. The shopkeeper advised us to add a tiny bit of the chili oil on the table to lift up the flavours. We did and it was like super hot! Just one tiny bit will have your tongue burning but it was a good burn. Goes off after a short while.

Was really amazed by how we could do dinner after this snack. There were 5 of us and we ordered enough for at least 3 pax full meal. That meant, our stomach was supposed to be half-full.

Dinner venue was at Lu Si An 鹿司岸餐坊 which one had to make reservation first. We didn't pre-reserve but we did drop by to inform the restaurant staff. She suggested we come early for dinner as the other slots are all reserved.

[Taiwan] Daytime Exploration of Taichung - Colourful Rainbow Village 彩虹眷村, Miyahara 宮原眼科 and 福伯黃金雞 Fu Bo Golden Chicken

As we only had one night and half of the next day to explore Taichung, the areas of exploration were minimal. We did Fengjia Night Market on our first night in Taichung, and the next morning, we packed our bags and loaded into the van, and we were ready to explore some more of Taichung during the day time before spending the night at Sun Moon Lake.

Rainbow Village 彩虹眷村 for its colourful walls and was fortunate enough to meet with Grandpa Huang Yung-Fu (黃永阜), the creator of Rainbow Village. Thanks to him, a desolated area is now visited by many to enjoy the colourful murals. There is a small souvenir shop there for visitors to purchase a piece of the artwork of Huang Yung-Fu. The caps and umbrella are nice.

Rainbow Village

let's explore!

souvenir shop

the talented Mr Huang Yung-Fu

The rainbow village is quite small and easy to explore. Not many visitors before 10am. The temperature in Taichung was about 32 degrees celcius and the sun was starting to beat down on us, so we went in search of ice (cream).

Our guide, Sam said that Miyahara (宮原眼科) is a popular snack shop in Taichung. For me, am just puzzled why a name that sounded like eye specialist is a snack shop. Apparently, it was an opthalmology hospital previously. Oooh, I see.

Miyahara Building from across the street

at its entrance floor

felt like a step into history

Once you step into Miyahara, it has that grand majestic feel. High ceiling, sturdy furniture and knowledgeable staff at each turn. There are chocolate counters, cake counters, snacks/biscuits counters tea counters etc. Must say that their packaging for the biscuits are quite cool. They have a restaurant at the Miyahara Pavillion but it wasn't opened yet when we were there at about 10.40am.

to Miyahara Pavillion

Nevertheless, we were there for the ice-cream and that's a separate kiosk so out we went and towards the ice-cream take-away area.

Miyahara Milk Tea

expectations

The queue for the ice-cream was pretty long. The queue to order and to make payment was about half hour to 40 minutes and another 10 to 15 minutes before your number is called.

choose your toppings

Miyahara Ice-Cream

Many customers would eat their ice-cream just outside of the ice-cream parlour. No seats but one could squeeze butts near the plants. Lucky us, we have a van to squeeze into and to enjoy our ice-cream. 5 scoops of ice-cream with toppings for about NT$620. Two of it came in crispy cone bowl with free one scoop of yoghurt ice-cream. Yums!

Miyahara Ice-Cream bowl (recommended)

Thank you Ivan for helping us to queue for the ice-cream!

Final stop before heading to Sun Moon Lake was to have proper lunch. Well, the definition of 'proper' after all the ice-cream, was to have some meat. Haha!

Ok, so Sam (our guide) said that there is this area famous for chicken which happened to be on our way to the lake thus suggested that we stop there for food. Local rustic lunch of golden chicken.

Fu Bo Crispy Skin Golden Chicken

using wood to burn

It was a roadside restaurant and looks dingy. There were stacks of firewood outside the restaurant and they are using this method to cook the chicken in huge huge pots. Looks similar to how char siew is roasted.

The place uses disposable utensils, so things were flying away when the strong wind blew to our side or flies attempting to have a taste of our food.

interior

menu

The most expensive item on the menu is the whole chicken at NT$550 (SGD25) per chicken. The rest of the dishes are priced between NT$50 to NT$150.

The food is rustic and no-frills. For every order of the chicken, they will serve a bowl of 'soup' which are the drippings from the roasted chicken. Flavoured salt (with pepper) is served along with the chicken. Careful as these can fly away when the wind blows.

our unglam looking lunch

We ordered a few side dishes to go along with the chicken. Bamboo rice, stir-fried mountain vegetables, and deep fried intestines.

bamboo rice

stir-fried greens with anchovies and black bean

deep fried intestines

The bamboo rice has mild flavours and a tad dry for me. The deep fried intestines were good and sliced thinly. Loved the stir-fried vegetables as it had stronger flavours and a good refreshing crunch. The roasted chicken, remained the star. Chunky, moist and well-seasoned meat.

福伯黃金雞 Fu Bo Golden Chicken

The skin of the chicken was indeed an attractive golden brown hue and so thin! Was impressed. The meat was flavourful and good on its own. Best eaten while warm. Even its breast meat was so good and tender. This is as rustic as it gets. Recommended.

Rainbow Village 彩虹眷村

Address: No. 56巷, Chunan Road, Nantun District, Taichung City, Taiwan 408

Contact: +886 4 2380 2351

Business Hours:

Daily: 830am to 6pm

宮原眼科

Address: No. 20號, Zhongshan Road, Central District, Taichung City, Taiwan 400
Contact: +886 4 2227 1927
Website: http://www.miyahara.com.tw/
Business Hours:
Daily: 10am to 10pm

福伯黃金雞

Address: No. 1808, Section 1, Jishan Road, Zhushan Township, Nantou County, Taiwan 557
Contact: +886 4 9262 4767
Business Hours:
Daily 9am to 7pm