We decided to go for a healthier meal today, since we were both sick 😦 We vaguely recalled that there was a new vegetarian restaurant at Thomson Plaza, and made our way down.
As it was the Lunar New Year period, there was a festive set available, and being rather lazy people, we went ahead with the 8-course Abundance Menu 元素丰年套餐 ($88.80++ for 2 pax), which consisted of…
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[Update: Nunsongyee Korean Dessert Cafe was closed and replaced by Hello Arigato.]
Another new kid on the block, Nunsongyee (눈송이) Korean Dessert Cafe has replaced Rida La Cuisine and started operations only from 26 Jan 2016. We were searching for coffee after dinner, and were almost ready to go into SMORES (another new kid on the block), when we overheard someone walking by in her group and saying that the food was just alright… And so we headed to Nunsongyee instead. Haha…
It was our first time trying bingsu, and we had no idea that shaved ice could be so pricey 😮 We decided to share a Cheesecake Bingsu ($14.90) and a Cafe Latte ($5.80). We were given 2 cute pens as gift upon our order 🙂
A short wait later, our food was ready!
Bingsu is a popular Korean dessert, made up of mainly finely shaved milk ice, with a variety of toppings. The shaved ice here reminded us of grated coconut!
The cheesecake crust went quite well with the shaved ice, and was not at all sweet. There was a cup of condensed milk blend/watery condensed milk by the side, but we did not use it.
When we dug in further into the bingsu, we discovered the hidden pool of condensed milk blend inside it. The scoop of ice cream topping also added to the sweetness. The coffee was just alright, but it served to keep us warm after eating so much ice, haha!
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We were back here today, now that Sparks has started serving mains 🙂
We were at Sparks several months back (when we visited Five by Five who is their neighbour) and had their signature sugee cake. We were told then that they were preparing to begin serving mains. Given their standard of sugee cake, we were quite anticipating what they could come up with and they finally started!
So we tried an Oven Baked Duck ($16.90), and Rosemary Chicken ($15.90).
The duck leg was juicy and fragrant, and the homemade cranberry sauce was quite sweet and fruity. The half spring chicken was a bit dry, but the generous amount of rosemary made it quite fragrant too.
Both mains were served with mash potato and salad. The mash potato was deliberately served cold to balance the dish, and we felt that it was delicious with the bacon bits all mixed in to provide the texture and crunch.
There’s no service charge or GST.
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This seemed to be a relatively new restaurant, and the January promotion of a Deluxe Don Special caught our attention.
We entered the restaurant around 6.45pm, and the waitress very enthusiastically informed us that all food orders (excluding drinks), were entitled to 20% discount, if we ordered before 7pm. Hence, we just quickly browse through the first page of specials and placed our orders, plus an additional sashimi platter. After our orders had gone through, another waitress came to inform us that specials on the first page were not entitled to discounts… Well done! Truth to be told, now that we had a chance to slowly browse through the menu, there was indeed very fine print on that specials page indicating that there was no discount available. We guessed that the waitresses just needed more training.
Wifey was at a meeting nearby so we decided to drop by The Populus for dinner. We had walked past on Tuesday but it was closed. We had wanted to try out this place since it opened in Oct 2015 but had not been able to. Lucky for us, it was a Thursday today and they closed at 10:30pm!
The Populus is just a few shops away from The Lokal along the same Neil Road. It has quite a large seating area with a simple, modern deco. Warm lights on a high ceiling creates a homely atmosphere where friends can just gather and chit-chat over food and coffee.
Plain water is self-serviced and they accept credit card payments for totals above $50, which is quite steep in my opinion. Lower than that, you can pay by cash or NETS.
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Yes we were in Taiwan again! Haha… This trip was the last of the 7 whirlwind trips that we had planned for last year, haha…
This was also our first time arriving at 桃園國際機場 Taoyuan International Airport where all the shops are opened. Before we even reached immigration, we were greeted by 3 Telco shops lined up side by side, so we got our 7 day unlimited data with NT150 worth of airtime, for NT500, at 中華電信 Chunghwa Telecom.
We took about 25 minutes to clear customs, but the luggage was already out by the time we were done, so we were out of the airport by 12.30pm to hunt for the bus.
We bought tickets for 國光客運 Guoguang Bus 1819 to 台北車站 Taipei Train Station (NT125 per person, buy tickets at the first counter, then queue for bus at Berth 5), but were unable to get up the bus as there were too many people in the queue. Nothing to worry about though, since there is a bus departing every 10 to 15 minutes during peak hours, and 10 to 20 minutes during off peak hours, and almost 24 hours a day 🙂
While waiting for the next bus to arrive, the staff would come by to paste the luggage sticker first, very efficient 🙂 The bus left on the dot at 12.50pm, and we were ready for our first trip in 2016! Did we mention our New Year resolution to continue to eat eat walk walk? 😛
I wanted to try out this cafe as there was this supposedly very yummy blueberry tart (limited to 6 per day).
When we arrived here after lunch, the tart was sold out already. 😦
Nonetheless, the cafe indicated that their cakes were all handmade, so we got ourselves a slice of 提拉米蘇 Tiramisu (NT90) to share.
It was light and not overly intense, and we rather enjoyed it with our 拿鐵 Latte (NT110) and 唐寧伯爵鮮奶茶 Earl Grey Milk Tea (NT110, additional NT10 for hot version).
The food and drinks presentation were really pretty! Coffee was pretty good (hubby said all the coffee he has tried during this trip were similarly good), but I thought that the tea was a bit too mild.
We loved the ambience here, and were most impressed that it was a single staff who was managing the entire place. Next time, I will call in advance to reserve the blueberry tart!
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Since we were going to Hoto Cafe later in the day, we figured that we should check out the area near it for lunch. There was only one small eatery nearby, but we figured it should not be too bad as there were consistently customers going in and out of the place.
We tried the 肉丝炒米粉 Beehoon Stir-fried with Sliced Pork (NT70), and a plate of 炒花枝 Stir-fried Squid (NT150). The bee hoon tasted like 新竹米粉, which we like, and the celery with squid had a lovely wok hei to it. This was a simple, homely, and delicious meal 🙂
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A cafe spanning 4 floors, this was a generous place in terms of space and free wifi and charging points. The minimum spending is 1 drink, and some tables have minimum pax rules. You can spend the entire day here, as evidenced by plenty of people studying, working, or in discussion with their laptops.
The 拿鐵 Latte (NT80) here was not bad, and I found the hot 南法莊園 Lavender and Grape Tea (NT70) quite nice, though I thought that some syrup might have been used. The sweetness of grapes was very distinct and not too artificially sweet, and as one sips the tea, the lavender fragrance fills up the entire mouth, very nice!
Despite the crowd, it was not a noisy cafe, and it was lovely to just laze around. When we were done, we only had to leave our cups at the collection point, leaving the space free for others to use.
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Back in 2013, we were utterly lost trying to find 公館夜市 Gongguan Night Market, and ended up rather disappointed. This year, we decided to try again 🙂
The maps in the subway station still did not show where 公館夜市 was, but we just followed the instructions online, and got out of Exit 1.
We then realized that as this was more of an area with many shop fronts, it is known as 公館商圈 Gongguan Shopping District. And this time, we were at the correct starting point, and the push cart food stalls were actually spread out across 4 lanes, including that one lane which we went to previously.
Eat.Eat.Walk.Walk . 吃吃走走 