taan 炭 @ 30 Liang Seah Street

炭 means charcoal. Not sure if they really are using charcoal to grill the skewers but this place is quite happening! The shop itself is smallish but come weekends, when evening falls, taan's staff will setup more tables and chairs along the road. Streetside dining, in essence. The shop gets busy as early as 6pm and if you're any later, the wait time for a table will be depending on luck. Reservations are encouraged.

shopfront

Staff are young and the place has a lively vibe. Plates after plates of skewer mountain could be seen emerging from the kitchen and landing on tables after tables. Never ending. Expect a table to be seated for at least 2 hours.

There is an on-going promo where skewers goes for $1 before 8pm. Price ranges from $1.50 to $3 per skewer and mininum of 2 skewers per flavour. The flavours or rather the seasoning on the skewers are original, chinese spice, spiced salt, teriyaki and spicy miso kimchi. Chinese spice tasted like the xinjiang grill seasoning with cumin. 

menu with pictures

order skewers via this sheet

flavoured Kirin beer

If you're new to the place, the staff will take about less than 2 minutes to explain the ordering system. Which is just to indicate on the order sheet the skewers that you wish to have. There is buffet option as well. One would have to eat about 20 skewers in order for the buffet to be worthwhile. Hence, we decided on ala-carte.

buffet option and reservation number

There's non-alcoholic drinks as well as alcoholic beverages. My friends ordered fruit juice and green tea while some of us had beer. The drinks are served prettily.

non-alcoholic drinks; green tea and watermelon juice

Nothing beats ice-cold beer on a hot and humid evening. The Kirin here is the frozen foam top version and surprisingly, it has about 5 flavours to choose from: cranberry, yuzu, original, lychee and apple. I had the lychee version which is sweet (just as I liked it) while Ivan had the apple beer which is veering towards the tangy saltish.

Kirin beer

Let's start with satay! We had beef and chicken satays. Even for promo of $1 per stick, these would come across as pricey. Normal satay that one could get anywhere else. The chicken ones are better. The ends of the satay stick would be coloured differently to differentiate the meats.

chicken and beef satay (5 sticks each) @$10

Next up was selections under the Meat category. We got beef, chicken gizzard, chicken wings in special sauce, house special chicken ball, fresh prawns and shishamo and quail eggs. Some of the items such as shishamo, prawns and chicken wings in special sauce, it is better to order at least one stick per pax as these are single items and not quite shareable unless it is you one bite, I one bite that type. Hahaa!

pork, beef, gizzard, prawns and shishamo

I'd recommend the gizzard in spicy miso sauce. Nice chewy crunchy texture that's not overcooked. The spice level here was pretty mild so no worries even if you can't take spice. The beef and pork were generally rather tough.

chicken wing in special sauce

oyster mushrooms

broccoli

Enjoyed the broccoli and oyster mushrooms. Very likeable! The chicken balls were peppery and has a crunchy cartilage in it.

quails egg

chicken balls

There are non-skewer items as well and we ordered the eel rice and also non-buffet items such as the Yunan grilled pork neck and teriyaki cuttlefish. I'd say skip the teriyaki cuttlefish unless you wanted a jaw workout.

Yunan Grilled Pork Neck @$10.80

The pork neck was rather lean and sliced thinly. The sauce was a mixture of tangy, salty with a slight spicy kick towards the end. Lovely. Oh, not forgetting the salad that was served along with this dish. That was yummy as well.

teriyaki cuttlefish @$6.80

Best dish of the night were the eel fried rice and the fresh grilled oyster with minced garlic. The fried rice was of a single-pax main portion or sharing portion for two-pax. The oyster was served piping hot and the combo was similar to the chinese restaurant type of seafood.

Eel fried rice @$8.80

fresh grilled oyster with minced garlic (1 piece) @$5.80

If you would like to know how much would feed a 5-pax party, here's what we ordered:

food to feed 5 pax (2 guys and 3 gals)

Overall, we spent about $32 per pax for this meal. Thank you Ivan for the recommendation. Dinner with Kris, Shermaine, Alvin and Ivan. TGIF!

Koffee Art (Coffee Nowhere) @ West Coast Plaza

First time to this cafe. This is a self-service joint, so simply walk-in to the cafe, grab a menu and be seated. Once you've made up your mind, one has to order at the cashier, make payment and collect the drinks. Ice-water, cutlery and plates are self-service. There are some small steps from the cashier to the table, hence need to balance as not to topple any food or drinks.

If the shop is not busy, the staff will bring the hot food / waffles to your table.

smoked duck pasta with poached egg @$8.90

Ordered a savoury main of smoked duck pasta. The cream based sauce was a tad watery and overall, the pasta dish was a tad bland. Otherwise, there's a hint of truffle oil in this concoction.

close-up view of runny yolk

Ordered a lungo and an ondeh-ondeh cake to go along with it. A lungo coffee is basically hot water with espresso. Served with sugar gem biscuits.

lungo @$4.90

The cake was likeable and not too sweet. Goes well with the black coffee.

ondeh-ondeh cake @$4.50

The biggest disappointment was the waffles. The waffles itself was alright, just a tad sweeter than expected. But the berries that came with the waffles, especially the raspberry was actually bad. Soggy and not fresh. The pistachio ice-cream had a rather artificial taste. Our mistake as we did not try the ice-cream prior to ordering.

berries waffles with pistachio (premium) and strawberry @$17.50

Spent about $43 for 3 pax. The promo for students looked quite good. The savoury food seemed better than its dessert.

[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

Anzu @ Japan Food Town Wisma Atria

Have I tried all the restaurants in Japan Food Town? Not yet, but have tried many. I've done Rang Mang Shokudo, Nabe Seizan, Yomoda Soba, Yakiniku Heijoen, Inaniwa Yosuke, Hokkaido Izakaya, Sabar, Kyoto Grill Taki and Bar Nippon.

Let's add one more and that's Anzu. Visited on a Thursday evening, and decided on Thick Katsu Pork Loin Set which was reasonably priced at $25 nett. Staff were non-Japanese but that's alright.

kitchen view

menu

Hot green tea was served immediately upon seated. It is always nice to have complimentary green tea/water in a restaurant. For the set, there was a choice of miso or clam soup, and white rice/black glutinous rice. Though we didn't order any alcohol, there was a plate of appetiser served. Tasty, slightly sweet salty and would be a good accompaniment for the beer.

otoshi (お通し) appetiser (complimentary)

The first item served after one had ordered, was the salad. Sliced cabbage and some lettuce. Yuzu-soy dressing was provided and there is a white 'herb' dressing available on each table.

large salad (shared) with yuzu-soy dressing, toasted sesame and chawanmushi

'herb' dressing for salads

I actually liked the white 'herb' dressing which tasted of perilla leaves as compared to the yuzu-soy dressing which is slightly leaning towards the salty side.

grind the sesame

Chawanmushi was smooth and not too sweet. Pretty good with the shitake mushrooms. Was beginning to feel full after having just the salad and chawanmushi, haha! But, one must eat meat!

thick pork loin katsu set

Can't say I wasn't impressed when the thick pork loin katsu was served. Gorgeous golden brown battered meat cutlet, a small bowl of Japanese grains, clam miso soup (which tasted like regular miso btw) and small plate of pickles. There were two types of tonkatsu sauce. Existing on the table is the original version and the one that was brought to the table, is a sweeter version. I preferred the sweeter version as it was more flavourful.

'sweet' tonkatsu sauce

look at that thickness

Joshu pork from Gunma Prefecture is used for this set and the more premium version would be the Ginjo pork. Joshu pork has a rich taste and a gentle velvety texture especially if that part has some fats. The meat is predominantly lean and solid to bite but yet, tender. As advertised, it was a good thick cut of pork. Lovely! Drench it in tonkatsu sauce, add those fragrant toasted grounded sesame and a dab of yellow mustard for a satisfying taste.

flavourful

Not sure why, but some of the meat was a tad bland, so the sauce became a necessity. The clam soup tasted like regular miso soup and mine only had a single clam shell in it. The pickled radish helped to refresh the tastebuds.

For JPassport users, one could redeem a free ice-cream during this promo period, so I did.

matcha ice-cream (redeemed via JPassport)

Overall, the meal was enjoyable and satisfying. Liked the nett pricing and quality obtained. Value for money.

Thank you Anzu. ごちそうさまでした!