Let's Just Go

I’ve woken up in the Regent Hotel Taipei, from a travel day yesterday. It took a while to sleep last night, so I woke up late, and am in danger of missing the hotel breakfast!

This would work out to be a total crime – because the hotel breakfast is *AMAZING*.

Thankfully I throw on some basic clothes and pop downstairs. I need a coffee more than anything – and some kind of food along with it. I am very much not disappointed…

As soon as I sit down, I am brought some piping hot fresh coffee (or tea!) from the waiters, and told that the breakfast area would be closing in 20 minutes. That was still plenty of time. The buffet is an amazing pan-Asian breakfast. On the island to the left in this picture there are Korean, Taiwanese and Japanese items – preserved black bean salad, seaweed, radish kimchi and cabbage kimchi, lotus root, tamago rolled omelette, runner-bean salad, fried tofu, dried tofu, silken tofu in pea sauce… the list was endless. I also picked up some fresh soy milk. On the right-hand side of the picture above, was a more Chinese breakfast, with dough sticks, soy milk, congee, soups, steamed and fried rice of all kinds, curries, freshly made omelettes and pancakes, rice wrapped in banana leaf, and a small selection of dim sum – har gao prawn in crystal wrap, sui mai pork and prawn in wonton wrapper, char siu bao, and some mushroom shaped buns containing just-sweet black sesame paste. What an absolute feast!

There was a hot drink station further on, next door was cold juices and milks, cereal, an entire fruit station for smoothies, smoothie bowls and açai bowls, with breads and some Western items at the entrance – and a huge pastry selection, including ice creams! It was an amazing variety, and I’m sure anyone from anywhere in the world could find something to eat there – no matter their breakfast of choice.

I was supercharged for the day, which was really needed. Before I left on this trip, a cold had been threatening to begin – I managed to avoid the worst of it – however on this day I was feeling very under the weather and needed to visit the pharmacy to see if they had anything to assist in getting rid of the cold and cough I was starting to develop.

I’d also seen that the travel pack of foaming face wash I love had disintegrated whilst on the plane – so I wanted to get some more of a similar cleanser. So this morning was going to be more travel-admin related, finding a pharmacy for cold/cough medicine, finding a similar face cleanser and also potentially looking at some skincare – as it’s way cheaper in Asia than it is in the UK!

Taiwan is also the home of bubble tea, and has a massive range of teas in general, so I decided to add finding a lovely tea shop into the mix.

Upon leaving the hotel I found myself already in a very shopping district – Zhongshan has so much in one small area. There was such an abundance of crazy cute characters everywhere, with posters for cute character events and pop-ups all over the place. This whale perched on top of the MRT entrance was also lovely!

Without walking too far, I found myself at Hechalou tea and felt in the mood for a peach iced black tea – which was refreshing and scrumptious – also totally customisable in what you would like with it – I just had ice and 0% sugar and no boba or toppings. There was a Teletubbies x Hechalou collab going on at the time, which meant that I got a Dipsy cup seal and had to pop the straw into Dipsy’s face. I missed the usual aerial-spot on his face and made him look even more alien. Whoops.

I found a branch of the wonderful Japanese pharmacy, Matsumoto KiYoshi nearby – I had shopped there in Hong Kong before, and had a good look around, finding some good things to help with my possible impending cold/cough – and the best selection of Japanese flavoured Toothpastes I have ever seen.

Most UK toothpaste is a variation on Mint flavour – I sent this picture home to a lot of friends, who found this an entertaining discovery, and then I came back later to pick them up the flavour of toothpaste they were looking for.

Who doesn’t want their teeth to sparkle with fresh Peach Leaves?

I’d just got back to the hotel after a good walk and mooch about, and was imbibing some vitamins and anti-cold medicine, when my phone – and it sounded like everyone else’s phone too – started going noisy and buzzy…

I was super concerned about this – these sorts of things only happen if there is an incident going on, so I opened up Translate…

Yeep. Well, that’s not good. I wasn’t sure what had happened but it made sense to stay put where I was for a while – back at the hote.

However, a curious brain is always looking for answers to all kinds of questions, and a few minutes of furtive googling later…

What I had really neglected to look at in the translation was the word “drill” at the start. There was no marauding attack going on nearby and no safety concern – the government were just testing out the alert system to make sure it worked! Phew. I also didn’t receive an alert in English on my phone – just Chinese – so I felt fairly lucky to be near the phone to have screenshot the warning message, to be able to translate it.

The afternoon/evening’s activity was a walking and food tour, starting a good few MTR stops from me, so I set out for the adventure!

I LOVE taking a walking tour when away – either a history, architecture or a walking food/market tour. They are so interesting and you get to meet fellow people travelling around, as well as meeting local residents and getting to know more about the place they live through their own eyes. The guides are always enthusiastic, kind, chatty, and ready to answer any questions you might have about the country or city you are visiting.

I usually use Viator, Get Your Guide or Klook to look up different kinds of tours or guides in the local area. Many offer a huge range of activities or tickets – from a private guided tour of a city/area for the whole day from a few hundred pounds, to a short guided tour of a castle for an hour for £10 – there’s a whole range of prices and a whole range of different activities!

Today’s tour was a history, culture and food with the wonderful Skyler who has traveled around the world herself and does a wonderful job explaining Taiwanese history and culture. I’ve booked a small group tour, when I’ve done these before, there have been 3-12 others on the tour – today is just me and an American man called Matt – that’s it!

Our first stop in Shida Road is a branch of an amazing skewers shop called Jiao Tang Feng – similar to Yakitori in Japanese cuisine – you pick what skewers you would like from the huge fridge at the front of the shop…

The shop will then grill your chosen skewers over hot coals, and give them back to you on a plate a few minutes afterwards! As you can see, all manner of foods are available – lots of meats, tofu and vegetables and combo skewers. There is a small seating area at this branch – others have more space to sit.

Skyler chooses wisely for Matt and I – we each have a Beancurd Skin skewer and a Beef and Tomato skewer. The Beancurd skin has been marinaded in a spicy BBQ sauce and is dusted with pepper and chilli – it’s so tasty, juicy and a little crispy on the outside. The Beef and Tomato skewers are incredibly thinly sliced beef wrapping some baby tomatoes which explode when you bite into the skewer. The beef is superbly cooked – crispy but also squishy, and dusted with cumin and pepper. It’s absolutely delicious and the tomatoes are some of the most tomatoey ones I have ever tasted. This is going to be an excellent tour.

We take a walk around the University area and are looking at lots of buildings, and make our way into a more touristy and markety area around Jinhua St and Yongkang St. The rain has started!

We wander over to close to Yongkang Park and visit Fucheng Tainan Steam Shrimp Meatball – which isn’t listed on google maps. We try some pork rice and the famous meatballs, which I forgot to take a picture of – but this place is a welcome repreieve from the rain, the hot food is superbly tasty, and Skyler explains about the differences in regional cuisine – this is a more Southern Taiwanese style of food, and the pork rice is more of an emergency meal – made with all of the offcuts, remnants and fat from the pork – imbuing flavour into the rice, without using any expensive meat. It – and the meatballs wrapped in thin dough – are absolutely delicious.

We wander further around and find the main outlet of Shi Yun Taiwanese Fried Chicken store.

This shop has been here since 1984, selling amazing quality Taiwanese Fried Chicken – and also fried anything else you see in this picture – tofu, sausages, chicken necks and feet, thin chicken escalopes, veggies, corn, King Oyster mushrooms, cabbage, beans, meat patties, offal… you name it, they have it and will fry it!

You can choose anything and it will come back to you freshly fried in a few minutes, in a paper bag, with superb seasonings – you can choose how spicy you want it. We went for some popcorn style chicken – small fried chicken meat, fried in spiced flour and with Taiwanese Basil – very similar to Holy/Thai basil, and went for Taiwanese Spicy which is around medium-spice – a little chilli kick but not overpowering and just perfectly tasty.

The chicken was piping hot, crunchy and crispy, but succulent and perfectly cooked meat inside. We strolled further around the market, looking at the stalls, and then made our way over somewhere else for some super interesting dessert – or just a break in the savoury eats!

We popped into a tiny but super friendly cafe called Little Tiger cafe. They serve coffee, tea and drinks but also Ai-Yu Jelly desserts.

Ai-Yu Jelly? This is a yummy delicacy from this part of the world. If you take a small bag of AI Yu (Creeping Fig plant) seeds, soak it in water, and rub the bag of seeds together for a few minutes, a yellowish jelly-like substance emerges from the seeds. If you put this in the fridge for a few hours it sets – this is ai-yu jelly! It’s very cooling and refreshing and is served with ginger, lemon or fruit tea or syrup as a dessert soup – sometimes with peach tree gum too.

The cafe also doubles as a studio/shop for the owner’s needle-felted crafts which are odd and cute – and a bg selection of needle-felted landscapes, all framed!

Next up was something to drink – some milk bubble tea from Jinfa Jia (進發家) tea shop – super reasonably priced and amazingly tasty!

We then crossed the road to watch an amazingly fresh scallion pancake being made – Tian Jin Onion Pancake stall was for us!

The pancake dough is stored in a large bakery tray, and then pulled and stretched out, fried on the hotplate, into a flat and stuffable wrap – we had an Egg and Taiwanese Basil pancake, which was crunchy, tasty, oniony, eggy and a savoury snack delight!

The last stop was at Vigor Kobo for a really lovely fresh cup of hot tea and tasting a range of Pineapple cakes.

There are SO many different kinds of pineapple cake available, and Vigor Kobo sells them all. We have traditional, traditional with chewy pineapple, chocolate, taro, salted egg, egg yolk with mullet roe, and pineapple and banana cake. My favourite is the egg yolk with mullet roe pineapple cake – it’s salty, sweet, and just delicious with the fresh tea!

The tour ends and we all make our separate ways home. Taipei at night is such a vibe.

And then as I wandered back to the MTR, I happened upon Taipei 101 in the shiny rain-soaked pavements, as a cyclist swept by. What a glorious sight!

Now back to the hotel, a few snaps of the area before bed…

Taipei at night, after a rain shower, is a true vibe!