Wandering Fel

Showing posts with label Zhongshan. Show all posts

Taiwan Instagrammable Food: Fish Bay, Taipei

Strawberry pop corn ice cream from Fish Bay Taipei

What’s the best thing about summer? Everyday is an ice cream day. Especially when you are young and does not have to be so concerned about glucose in your blood. But really, I think ice cream is my most favourite dessert unless you count bubble tea as dessert but I will count it as beverages instead. Did you remember last time there was taiyaki ice cream in Singapore? (Taiyaki is the fish-shaped pancake originated from Japan, if you dunno). I recalled there’s one at the basement level of Vivo City but it was gone before I tried it. Boyfriend said the taiyaki ice cream was not as nice and it’s not as good-looking as it looks on the display.

But it seems that nowadays taiyaki ice cream is making a comeback. Although unfortunately, they are not in Singapore, so you probably have to try it while you are flying to Taipei. Hahaha. Fish Bay at Zhongshan sells a higher level of taiyaki ice cream. For a start the taiyaki which is used as the cone is black in color (hmm, charcoal? Sesame? Ok, most likely charcoal). Second, it seems that you can do a lot of mix and match here like the taste of the ice cream and the toppings to go with it. @liyu_foodmap shows that you can still opt for normal cone (but in badass version of black) if you don’t want the taiyaki. Toppings shown on Instagram vary between popcorn, cereal and a piece of waffle. The color of the ice cream offered by Fish Bay are all so pretty, they have purple, green, pink and what’s that...bluish greyish whitish? Gosh, I can’t tell but it looks good.

Price-wise, @_lien.eatingdiary mentions on her caption that her ice cream costs NTD110 but she got it during one-for-one two weeks ago. Oh wow, that must have been a great deal. I wish Fish Bay had the deal going on longer but anyway, since the ice cream + taiyaki cone looks so instagrammable, I would still probably buy 1 at its normal price. Oh gosh, I’m so vain. But it really looks nice on picture, don’t you think?

From the map provided, it seems that you have to walk a bit from Zhongshan MRT though. Make you way to Chifeng Street Lane (which is the street behind the main street where Etude House is located) and you just need to walk straight.

Credits: @_lien.eatingdiary, @liyu_foodmap, @sandy10_21

"Been standing in the corner, studying the lights.

The dreaming of escape will keep you up at night."

The dreaming of escape, huh? I can totally feel it running in my veins. The dream has been so strong recently up to the point that I just feel like do it. You know? JUST DO IT. That kind of Nike's feeling. But then again, there is no point in rushing up certain things and some decisions are not to be taken so lightly without talking to God. So let me ponder upon this "escape-plan" again over the weekend.

Should I escape to Taiwan again? At least if I decide to escape to Taipei, I will be able to eat the super yummy teppanyaki at Chamonix in Zhongshan.

10D9N Taiwan Trip: Chamonix Teppanyaki, Taipei

Teppanyaki is quite popular in Taiwan and you can literally find teppanyaki at every corner of the city. When I visited my aunt the last time before I finished my study in Taipei, she brought me to a neighbourhood teppanyaki restaurant which is just a hole-in-the-wall kind of restaurant but it was so good. This time around actually my travel buddy and I did not put any plan to eat at teppanyaki restaurant because we did not have enough time to do research on where to eat nice teppanyaki. But my colleague happened to tell me about this supposedly-nice-teppanyaki named Chamonix. First time hearing about it and hence, have some doubts about the review. However, my colleague has sworn on it and reservation has proven to be difficult so here we are at Chamonix's entrance trying our luck to dine in without reservation.

Entrance to Chamonix Teppanyaki Taipei Taiwan

Thankfully there is seating area which is specifically reserved for those diners without reservation. We gleefully took our seats at the corner and eagerly anticipated what the chef is about to cook.

Teppanyaki Courses at Chamonix Teppanyaki in Taiwan

The first food that the chef cooked was the prawns. Did you see how juicy and big the prawns are? We literally drooled when we see the chef cooking the prawns.

Cooking prawns at Chamonix Teppanyaki Taiwan

The prawn is served as part of the warm appetiser, together with the mini chawanmushi.

Warm appetiser from Chamonix Teppanyaki Taiwan

Complimentary bread and sauces are also given to each customer so hungry customer will not give the chef deadly stares while he's busy cooking the next course. Kidding, but that does make sense, right?

Complimentary bread and sauce from Chamonix Teppanyaki Taiwan

The next course raised a bit of question in my mind but thankfully my travelling buddy told me that the finishing touch was not yet added to this course.

Inside seafood bisque from Chamonix Teppanyaki

The diners are supposed to see the inside of the seafood bisque before the chef pour the soup over it. Ahh, suddenly I feel kinda embarrassed for not knowing this table manner. Oops.

Seafood bisque from Chamonix Teppanyaki Taiwan

The next course was one of my favourite, the truffle and mushroom salad. It was definitely more interesting than the usual garden salad although there are no greens involved in this dish.

Truffle and mushroom salad from Chamonix Teppanyaki

For the main course, I chose the grilled short ribs because it has been a while since the last time I ate steak. You would have thought that each person only have this amount of steak to eat but you guess wrongly. Apparently the chef will put additional serving to our plate after we made a mess of the first serving while munching. Oh wow. I'm really a happy girl full of steak.

Short ribs from Chamonix Teppanyaki Taiwan

The carb for the day is ebi fried rice which taste so good but at this point of the meal, my tummy was already bulging. This was the last course before dessert thankfully. After we had polished the plate, we were ushered to another seating area to enjoy our dessert and coffee.

Garlic fried rice from teppanyaki set at Chamonix Taipei

For dessert, each of us opted for different kind of dessert so that we could try at least two kind of desserts served in Chamonix Teppanyaki. My choice was the apple cake served with vanilla ice cream.

Vanilla ice cream with apple cake from Chamonix Taipei

While my travel buddy's choice is chocolate ball served with vanilla sauce. The chocolate taste a bit weird not in the negative sense though. It's just...I don't know how to explain the taste of the chocolate really. It tastes different from the normal chocolate. Hmm.

This was my first time trying tiramisu iced coffee and I feel that I really need to burn my calorie off after completing my meal with this sweet and bitter explosion in my mouth. Coffee goes well with tiramisu powder I suppose. The whole teppanyaki course costs us around SGD 50 per person but it was so worth it. At least, when you compare to teppanyaki sold in SG. Hehe.

Chamonix Teppanyaki is located at:

B1F, No. 44, Sec. 2 Zhongshan North Road

Zhongshan District

Taipei, Taiwan

Menu in English is available on Chamonix's website:

http://www.chamonix.com.tw/en/menu.aspx

"I want to love but no one to love, what am I supposed to do?"

Hello! It's finally my favourite time of the week, Friday night. Woots! I was so pissed earlier when discussing about work with someone because well, it's hard to see eye-to-eye with other people sometimes. In time like this, I feel like raising a coup d'état by taking a long break. And guess what, a long break is coming up in the next four days. 4 3 2 1...hahahaha. The thing is taking a break from work needs $$$ and hence, the cycle of work-save-travel-work continues. Oh well, I shall endure this again when I'm back.

But still, despite the spending part, taking a break is really vital for our survival especially when you know you will be exposed to good food during your travelling days. BAKE cheese tart is actually not really new since it has made its way to Singapore as well at Orchard ION. But BAKE cheese tart branch at Zhongshan in Taipei has something different, other than the yummy cheese tart.

10D9N Taiwan Trip: BAKE Cheese Tart, Zhongshan

There is no queue at BAKE cheese tart in Zhongshan and we really love that because the queue at the same outlet at Singapore's ION Orchard used to be so long (up to 3 hours wtf). However, I heard the queue was not that bad nowadays since the hype should have gone down after 1 year later. The BAKE cheese tart in Taiwan costs NTD70 for one piece and NTD390 for 6 pieces. Oh right, did you see the thing displayed under the price display? Oh yeay, BAKE cheese tart in Taiwan sells soft served ice cream. The same is not available in Singapore at the moment.

Hokkaido BAKE cheese tart from Zhongshan Taipei

The size of the soft-served ice cream is pretty big so if you want to save some space in your tummy, you better share the ice cream cone with someone else. It tastes like Hokkaido milk and sadly, there is nothing cheesy about the ice cream. A pure milky soft served ice cream.

Soft served milk ice cream from BAKE at Zhongshan

With a very full stomach, we decided to just move on to our next destination, the shopping district of Wufenpu. In order to reach Wufenpu, you have to take the train to Houshanpi MRT Station. From the MRT station exit, you can follow the sign to the Wufenpu Shopping District. Alternatively, you just have to follow the crowd as there will be many people heading to that direction after 6PM.

There are so many shops at Wufenpu, it will take you a while to browse the store one by one. Not that we mind though because we were very very full and need to walk off whatever we have consumed. Most of the stores at Wufenpu don't allow trying though so you must have a good skill of estimation or measurement. Both skills I don't possess in term of buying clothes. Sadz.

BAKE Cheese Tart is located at:

1F, No. 15, Nanjing W. Road

Zhongshan District

Taipei

Opening hours:

Sunday to Thursday: 11AM - 9.30PM

Friday to Saturday: 11AM - 10PM

Google Maps – BAKE Cheese Tart Taipei

"Under the same sky, at different places."

It has been a great adventure at Kaohsiung but it is now time to say goodbye. We took our last journey with the awesome and comfortable High Speed Rail (HSR) from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Taipei Main Station. The journey from Kaohsiung to Taipei by HSR took us about 90 minutes but it was quite a fun ride because I love taking train trip. I like better than road trip to be honest with you.

10D9N Taiwan Trip: Fei Qian Wu, Zhongshan

Since we reached Taipei around lunch time, obviously the next to-do-thing in our itinerary is to EAT. There is one place that we felt like revisiting in Taipei. Four years ago, I did my research when I was staying in Taipei and brought my travelling buddy came to Fei Qian Wu in Zhongshan area to have a go at their famous unagi-don. Yes, it is a Japanese restaurant and it is very popular with both local and tourists (even Japanese tourists!). There is always a long queue in front of the restaurant but since we came slightly after peak lunch hours, the queue was not so bad. We managed to get in within 10 minutes. Yeay!

There is no English translation for the ordering chit but if you only want to order the unagi rice bowl, you just have to decide between the first two items on the list. The first one with the price of NTD 250 is small portion of unagi-don meanwhile the menu right below it with the price of NTD 480 is big portion of unagi-don. Easy-peasy, no?

Ordering chit at Fei Qian Wu Zhongshan Taipei

Well, that's basically all that we ordered at Fei Qian Wu because we wanted to keep space in our stomach for other stuff. After all, Taipei is a foodie heaven. The restaurant is not big but the restaurant staff ensure that orders are made fast and there are no diners who are allowed to linger for so long after they have finished their meal. Yep, Fei Qian Wu is not the place to linger for a long chat. You have been warned.

Here comes the small portion of unagi-don. The small portion is good enough for a lady I feel. The rice that they use is Japanese white rice which is my favourite. The unagi (grilled eel) is still as good as last time but I recalled that the size of the unagi used to be bigger back then. Hmm. Oh right, please note that Fei Qian Wu only accepts cash. No credit cards accepted here.

Anyway, the smaller unagi worked well for us as well because since we were at Zhongshan area, we wanted to visit the famous tea house, Chun Shui Tang. I have never eaten here before but they have rice and noodle dishes. The tea house was packed up to the point there were no seats at all in the tea house. We had no choice but to take away our drinks.

Chun Shui Tang at Zhongshan Shinkong Mitsukoshi

Chun Shui Tang is tourist-friendly and it displays English translation for its menu. Hahaha.

I came here for one and one thing only, their bubble tea. Do you know that Chun Shui Tang is the creator of bubble tea in Taiwan? I have to buy this bubble tea whenever I am in Taipei despite its higher price tag (if let's say compared to 50lan).

When we bought our bubble tea, we saw a group of Japanese tourists excitedly posed in front of Chun Shui Tang with their drinks. Hmm, since it's apparently a must do for tourists, let me take a shot of my Chun Shui Tang's cup with its restaurant logo. I'm not in the mood for selfie because I look kinda like a hobo after walking for so long. Hahahaha. #vanityissue