Here goes part 3 – finally!

World Soybean Milk Magnate @ Yonghe District (世界豆漿大王 @ 永和區)

Funny story with this one: we thought this place was totally out of the way initially, but then we found out that it was just a short walk from the Dingxi Station. The hostel offers (free) breakfast to us and we gave it up AND woke up super early to get to this place!

But surprisingly when we got there, there was no line. We ended up ordering a cold sweet soymilk, a salty soymilk (only comes hot), and a sesame seed bread with Chinese donut and egg inside.

For whatever reason I don’t have any pictures of the sweet soymilk or the sesame seed bread thing. I originally don’t really like soymilk anyways, but I still gave it a try.. and I still don’t like it. Stefanie thought it was good, but she also thought that the salty and sweet ones tasted the same. Back in Vancouver, the salty ones have things like pickled veggies and pork floss inside but this one was just plain soymilk! Since I don’t like soymilk Stef said she would drink all of it. And she did.

The sesame thing was really good though. Really good.

Spring Onion Pancake @ Yong Kang Street (葱抓餠 @ 永康街) 

Yong Kang street is a street known for good food near Dongmen MRT station. We were going to go to the Din Tai Fung there, but upon finding out that there would be a 50 minute wait we decided to go walk around while waiting for our table.

We found this little stall which had a line of around 15 people, and when you see something with a line you know it should be pretty good.

This was literally the most delicious thing I ate in the entire trip. And Stef agrees with me too. 

There’s different toppings you can get but since we still had to go eat at Din Tai Fung we just opted to get the normal one. (Pro Tip: share everything you eat so you can eat more things)

It was piping hot and flaky and full of spring onion goodness. I don’t even like spring onions but this was so delicious, words can’t even describe it.

Croissant Taiyaki @ Yong Kang Street (可頌鯛魚燒 @ 永康街)

I’ve had taiyaki before (Japanese bun with red bean or other filling inside) but never with croissant before. There were different flavours but we opted to get the custard one.

It was good! Obviously not as good as the spring onion pancake.. but still good. I can’t really remember if it was hot or not, but while I was looking for the Chinese name of this place I saw a lot of reviews saying that the service was quite poor. But I can’t really remember (if our service was poor I would be pretty angry and would remember it…)

Din Tai Fung @ Yong Kang Street (鼎泰豐 @ 永康街)

When we got there we got skipped by one number T.T Thankfully the turnover is really fast, and the hostesses were nice so they let us in right away, basically. The turnover was fast, but there were also around 70 tables of 2 people and then more of 3 and 4 and 5 people in front of us… which explains the 50 minute wait. Din Tai Fung has restaurants all over the world, and they originated in Taiwan as well, so it doesn’t make sense to go to Taiwan and not try their xiaolongbao (小籠包)!

For whatever reason I don’t have a picture of the xiaolongbao so I’ll upload another one when I find one. But we also ordered 紅油抄手, dumplings in red chili oil.

Maybe it’s just been so hyped up but I didn’t think it was that good; good but not that good.

They have an open kitchen downstairs, and then they tell you which floor to go to and then you get seated. It’s a very small place but also very tall. And, they have stamps at the front so you can stamp a paper to prove that you’ve gone to eat here! The entire Taiwan is pretty much obsessed with stamps so if you ever go make sure you bring a notebook around to contain all your stamps.

Yong Kang Beef Noodles @ Yong Kang Street (永康牛肉麺館 @ 永康街)

Taiwan is famous for their beef noodles, and when we decided to come to the street of food I knew I had to find the best beef noodle house on the street. Originally we were going to come here while waiting for Din Tai Fung, but there was a long line in front as well (a sign!). So we ended up going after Din Tai Fung, and we were lucky – we got there at around 3pm and while we were waiting for a table they put out a sign saying that they were closing for an hour to prepare for the nighttime!

We just ordered a signature beef noodle soup to share. And it was delicious. The noodles were the type that I liked, and the beef was so much better than the ones back in Vancouver. The real deal!

Plum Popsicle @ Songshan Cultural and Creative Park (酸梅棒冰 @ 松山文創園區)

We decided to get a snack while walking through the creative park. There were a lot of flavours, like passionfruit and melon but we wanted to try something we’d never had before so we went with the plum one. Stefanie loves 酸梅湯, sour plum juice which you drink when you have hot pot to help cool you down, but I really don’t like it. So she had the rest of it.

Pearl Milk Tea @ Chun Shui Tang (珍珠奶茶 @ 春水堂)

Chun Shui Tang is one of the most famous pearl milk tea places in Taiwan, so there’s no way we couldn’t give it a try. It was a lot less sweeter than the ones I’m used to, so I didn’t like it at first but it got pretty good as I kept drinking it. The ice they used wasn’t the big cubes but rather crushed ice, and their pearls were smaller than usual. They also had a sale for buying the big size for takeout (lucky us!)

Voodoo Donut @ Zhongxiao E. Road (巫毒甜甜圈 @ 忠孝東路)

I’ve heard of Voodoo Donut back in Vancouver, they originated in Portland. Stef and I were surprised to see one here, and we’d never had one before so we decided to try (even though it’s definitely not Taiwanese food).

We just got the voodoo doll shaped one and shared it between us, it was dipped in dark chocolate and filled with jam. Not too sweet and not too oily, I can definitely see why they’re famous!