While at 羅東 Luodong, we must definitely make a visit to the famous 羅東夜市 Luodong Night Market!
There was a free shuttle service 羅東社區免費觀光巴士 that ran between our minsu, the night market and the train/bus stations, so this was what we took to the night market. We got off at the Police Station stop, and it was just a short walk to the night market.
We have not been to 士林夜市 Shilin Night Market ever since we first visited Taiwan in 2009, so we thought why not revisit it since it was renovated some years back.
士林夜市 Shilin Night Market was set up way back in the early 1900s and remained at the same location for many years until it had to be demolished and rebuilt in 2002 because of sanitation, electricity and safety considerations. It took the government a long 10 years to rebuilt the night market and the new market officially opened on Christmas Day in 2011. It remains the most popular night market for tourists and you can find so many tourists walking towards it the moment you exit from 捷運劍潭站 Jiantan Station. The market has now divided itself into the street level stalls and the basement food stalls (although some food stalls are still found on the street level).
After a most satisfying big feast, we definitely needed to walk the calories off.
So we just walked along the area and chanced upon 晴光市場 Qingguan Market. This is a local market with food stalls in the open and daily necessities in the shops in the alleys, and I somewhat found it to be strikingly familiar to the one which we went in 2009 when we were in Taipei to shoot for our wedding.
We were walking and shopping along the many alleys when we past by this red bean biscuit stall. I didn’t notice the queue until wifey pointed to me that the queue had snaked into a small alley! 排隊美食 famous queue-ing snacks alert (although I must admit at that time, I had totally no idea this was famous)!
We didn’t join the queue because we were still very full from the big lunch earlier on, so we just walked on to other parts of the market. After a few turns (and a visit to the washroom), our stomachs were sufficiently emptied to share a piece of biscuit!
Wifey queued while I went to the front to observe and snap pictures. There were 3 flavours, 紅豆 Red Bean, 奶油 Custard and 蘿蔔絲 Raddish (which was already ran-out). We got ourselves a freshly-made 奶油紅豆餅 Custard Biscuit for only NT10 (~S$0.42)!
The filling was incredibly overflowing and not overly sweet. We do not like overly sweet stuff so this was just nice for us. The skin was crispy and the combination was just heavenly. We left the stall fully satisfied!
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XY highly recommended this place and we skipped breakfast to make a special trip here for lunch 🙂
At first, we ended up at the 三井選品 Mitsui Supermarket across the street, but quickly found out that the actual restaurant was opposite 🙂
The restaurant was at 2 locations and the menu is the same, just that the decorations were different. We were led to the second site 上乘三井 a few shops away, as it appears that the first site 三井本館 required reservations.
三井 Mitsui started off as a small eatery 三井小吃店 in 1992, and expanded to seven restaurants with slightly different concepts but each still serving fresh seafood and delightful Japanese cuisine to customers. We also got to know that 上引水產 Addiction Aquatic Development (which we visited in 2013) is also managed under them.
We woke up late this morning (we wanted to sleep till we wake up naturally 睡到自然醒) and naturally skipped breakfast because we intended to go for a big Japanese feast early!
So we were on our way to 捷運台北站 MRT Taipei station, and we passed by this little cafe which was not there the last time we were in Taipei (which was not all that long ago). The brightly-coloured cafe attracted us and of course I also needed my morning coffee so we stopped by for a cuppa.
I ordered my usual 拿鐵 Latte (NT60) and wifey had a 威士忌巧克力奶昔 Whisky Chocolate (NT65).
We were quite satisfied with our drinks and started Googling about this new addition to the neighbourhood. So cama 現烘咖啡專門店 cama cafe started with just one shop in 2004 and now has franchisees all over Taiwan. They pride themselves as using premium coffee beans and performing the entire Bean-To-Cup process in the shop, from selecting beans, roasting beans, grinding beans to brewing the fresh coffee.
The result was not bad at all – I enjoyed the latte which provided much boost for a great day (of eating) ahead!
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Our first night in Taipei in 2016, and we decided to visit this little local night market (because this was one of two night markets in Taipei that we have not yet been to)!
We have read many blogs and reviews of this night market and had more or less decided on what to try. Nevertheless, we took our time and strolled along. Our first impression was that this night market was not as crowded as the rest and there were plenty of walking space for everyone! We liked that there was a slight breeze and that the weather was not too hot or humid, thanks to a passing shower which provided much of the coolness.
This location is called 南機場 Nanjichang or South Airport because this area used to be an airport used by the Japanese during the Japanese Occupation. Because this was situated on the south of the main 松山機場 Songshan Airport, locals called it South Airport. 🙂
We were back in Taiwan again!!
This trip was planned, or rather the air tickets were bought, as part of our crazy planning when budget airlines were having sale. Haha… But Jetstar had to change their flight details and we ended up landing in Taipei only in the afternoon. So we took our time (and rest) and only wandered out in the evening to a local night market 南機場夜市 Nanjichang Night Market. En route to the night market, we chanced upon this very interesting coffee and roaster cafe just along the road. The cafe front was nondescript, the kind that you would missed and just walked past it without even realizing. But it so happened that someone just walked out with a paper cup in hand and I turned my head, and the signboard attracted me – 無名 Nameless. It’s like a certain No Signboard seafood in Singapore! Haha…
Another cafe in the heartlands with non-oily batter Fish and Chips as its signature.
Well, we were here for tea break (though everyone else appeared to be having lunch at 3pm).
We liked the ambience of this little cafe, and spent the hour or so theorising who might be the parents of Rey… Hahaha!
Note: Water is freely available by the side, and there is no service charge or GST.
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We were here for another movie date, and were looking for something new to try. Nene Chicken looked like a option tucked away in a quiet corner. It was just past 12 noon when we got here, but there were only 2 other dine-in customers in this place that could seat around 5o people. However, there were quite a few customers who ordered take-aways.
We decided to share a set of 6 Pieces Wings and Sticks ($9.95) with swicy (sweet & spicy) sauce, coleslaw, and Nenepop (additional $1.90), mainly because 2 of the 4 posters showed “discontinued” items, and shaking our confidence just a tiny weeny bit 😛 There were only cold drinks available for the set, so we just took bottled water.
The ordering process was quite slow, but we only waited about 5 minutes for our food after ordering.
While we were impressed with the tiny size of the coleslaw, the chicken definitely made us feel that we made the right choice. All were crispy on the outside, while tender and juicy inside. We wiped out the food in mere minutes 😀
It was also quite thoughtful of them to serve the meal with wet towel and disposable gloves.
Overall, quite a satisfying lunch 🙂
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Since we were seldom in this area, we decided to have our lunch here too… And of the many places that G suggested, we thought that Zaffron Kitchen looked pretty interesting.
We ordered a Zaffron Tandoori Platter ($39.50) and Garlic Naan ($4.50) to share… Wanted to try the Masala Tea, but had no idea how to enter it using the tablet menu… Seemed like it was not available.
It was a rather slow wait of close to 25 minutes for our food to arrive… We were hopeful that the food was worth the wait.
We were not disappointed!
The chicken items were tender and not at all dry. The lamb was just mildly gamey, and the fish was tender. The garlic naan was quite fragrant. We were happy with our lunch 🙂
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