2010 Taiwan Trip - Day 4

Staying a night at the Hot Spring Resort at Chipen - 知本 was another kind of experience for us who come from a modern city where we used to stay in Flats which is so different from them. Today we will bypass "Kaohsiung - 高雄" to "Jiayi - 嘉义" where we will stay for the night since we are not going to "Alishan - 阿里山" due to the closure and repairing of the certain road towards the mountain.

After breakfast we travel our way down to "Kaohsiung - 高雄" where we stop by a town at "Fangshan - 枋山" which is famous for its' Taiwan Egg-Shape Mango(鸡蛋芒果) and Rose Apple(莲雾) plantation . The Mango that they have over there is smaller then the usual one that we have and it's very sweet and juice. You can see the crowds queuing up to buy the freshly made "Mango Ice - 芒果冰沙" which is so cooling and refreshing. At this little rest area, we can sample some of their freshly cut-fruit before buying and I must admit their Rose Apple taste so crunchy and sweet which makes you crave for more.

Lunch was at one of the restaurant known as Man Xiang Yuan - 满香园 at the foot of "Fo Guang Shan - 佛光山". There is a special dish called "Bitter gourd and Pineapple Soup" which most of us like because this soup is not bitter gourd like what we thought but rather sweet and sour due to the adding of pineapple. According to them, this is a very good summer soup that can quench your thirst. If you are interested in this soup, then you must stay tune on my food blog for upcoming recipe which I will replicate this soup soon...

The headquarters of Fo Guang Shan, located in Kaohsiung, is the largest Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. At this place it is filled with wondrous attraction of the monastery with hundreds of gilded Buddha images stand in line. The educational programs of Fo Guang Shan include four Buddhist colleges, three regular college, and various community colleges.

During the days in Taiwan, we agreed that this is the most delicious Baked Golden Sweet Potato among those that we have tried. As you can see, the colour is so bright and golden which make is taste so naturally sweet and fragrant. And I know there is a stall at Suntec near Carrefour known as "Sweet Potato Place - 地瓜村" also selling this kind of sweet potato which they franchise from Taiwan as well as some other special products.

Bread!!! All kind delicious look bread from a bakery called Shinn Bin Bakery which is opposite the "Spring and Autumn Pavilions - 春秋阁". It is a Taoist temple complex located on Lotus Lake in Kaohsiung, Taiwan where you will be amused by gigantic statues of Dragon and Tiger Pagodas. For us who loves Bread it is a great joy to discover a bakery along the journey as there don't seems to have as many bakery shops as what we do in Singapore. So upon spotting this one, almost half of our tour mates went in and grab a big bag of goodies each.

Next we arrived in Tainan - 台南 to take a look at the "Anping Gu Bao - 安平古堡" which is located between Guosheng Road and Castle Street. It is built during Dutch occupation of Taiwan in 1624.

After exploring around the fort, we went down to the food street near it which is known as the "Gubau Street - 古堡街" where there are a lot of night market food stalls selling Anping local delights. One of the special item that we try is this "Deep-fried Toast" which is known as "棺财板". It is a kind of deep-fried hollow thick toast which filled with mixed vegetable, chicken and white sauce dressing.

Along the street, there is a stall selling all kinds of handmade biscuits and pastries. One of it is known as "Soft Tongue Cake - 软牛舌饼" which is something like a thin crispy cracker that makes in different shapes like round, oblong and etc and it wrapped with some black sugar(黑糖).

After the night market, we travel about 30 minutes to reach "Zhen Bei Ping Restaurant - 真北平餐厅" to try their Chinese cuisine and famous "Bei Ping Roast Duck - 北平烤鸭". There are about 8 dishes, 1 soup and 2 desserts for our dinner and most of the dishes are up to our expectation. Personally I love the Handmade Noodle Soup which is tasty and the noodle is very Q. Their Caramel Sweet Potato is also one of the special dessert which I like most. They deep-fried the sweet potato pieces into golden brown then coat it with caramel sugar, and according to the tour guide we need to dip the sweet potato into cold water before eating so that the sugar will not be harden.

After dinner we were arranged to stay a night in "Jiayi - 嘉义" before we start off for another day of excitement. Upon settle down at the hotel, most of the tour mates still went out to the night market along the street near our hotel. Whereas we are all too tired to move around especially Rey wanted to sleep early as he was very tired after the whole day program.




p/s: Sorry I knew, I am kind of slow in updating the Taiwan trip posts for those who is interested to read more. Please give me sometime to sort out the photos and I will try to update the rest of the 5 posts as soon as possible. Thanks a lot :)

Ramen @ Men-IChi

Our Mother's Day lunch was a simple one at the newly open Men-Ichi near our area. This shop was always crowded with people and long queue waiting to eat their Ramen and Gyoza. So today after our church sermon, we decided to drop by before the weekend lunch queue begins........

This newly open Men-Ichi replaced the old Délifrance shop that used to be there for more than 10 years. The layout and renovation of the shop looks very Japanese Noodle stall style with it's wooden roof top and white paper lanterns.

Upon searching through the menu on what to order, we saw some Mother's Day set meal which cost around S$25.00 for salmon seafood set, rice, vegetable and etc. But mum prefer to have Japanese Curry rice while I settle for one of their chef recommended Ramen on the list. While waiting for the food to be served, we tried their salted vegetable pickles which taste good with it's light fragrance that is mixed with some white sesame seeds which brings out some extra flavour.

And another surprised while waiting, mum saw one of my best friend Vivian and her boy. We have not met each other for a very long time and since they are alone we invited them to join us for the Mother's Day lunch too. Everyone of us enjoy our chat and updates in life while the two kids enjoying playing and drawing while waiting for the adults to enjoy our lunch.

Both Mum and Vivian ordered this Tempura Curry Set which served with miso soup and cut fruit. I love the presentation of this Tempura Curry and from the look at the curry sauce you know that you will fall in love with it. The prawns and vegetables are coated with a layer of batter and fried till crispy and golden brown. One good point about this dish is, both mum and Vivian agreed that the items are not oily like some of those served in other restaurants. Overall they are very satisfied with this dish but a little setback is their serving speed are kind of slow maybe good things have to wait slightly longer... :p

Finally here comes my Kyofu Tonkotsu Shio Ramen. According to menu, their Kyoto-style ramen soup is light and shoyu based but rich with collagen and kotteri from the long hours of boiling. In Singapore, there are about four popular types of ramen which are shio(salt based), sho-yu(soya sauce), tonkotsu(pork bones) and miso(fermented soy beans). The one that I am having today is a combination of Tonkotsu and Shio which is the salty pork bones soup broth giving tonkotsu ramen its characteristic richness.

I am sure by looking at the photo above, you are already tempted by it's presentation and wonderful flavour of the soup broth and wish to have bowl of Ramen now. Although I am not an expert in eating Ramen but I am sure this is a good choice to try out their wonder soup broth as well as the handmade noodles. A bowl of this Kyofu Tonkotsu Shio Ramen cost around S$16.90.

Men-IChi has two branches @:
Jurong Point #B1-54
1 Jurong West Central 2
Tel: 6794 5125
Daily: 11.30am -10.00pm

930 Yishun Avenue 2
#01-22/23 Northpoint
Singapore769098
Tel: 6755 5719
Daily: 11.30am -10.00pm

Fruit Paradise's Fruit Tart

I am sure some of you have heard about this "Fruit Paradise" tart shop which has a few branches in Singapore with it's very first at Manpuku located at Tampines 1. They also have other branches at Orchard Central and Raffles Place MRT.

Their tarts are decorated with fresh fruit that are selected and handpicked carefully by experienced Japanese Pastry chefs. And the tarts come with 3 kinds of base – custard cream, cheese cream and fresh cream. The tarts range from Chocolate Banana, Mango Fruit Tart, Blueberry Fruit Tart, Orange and Grapefruit Tart and etc. So this is our this year Mother's Day special dessert "Assorted Fruit Tart" is bought by my brother's friend. The fruits are so fresh and appetising to look and taste together with it's colourful combination. According to my brother if you will to buy a slice of each flavour it cost around S$8.00 per slice..... Em... are you willing to spend that amount for a slice of fruit tart?

Here I wish all mummies and mum to be a Happy Mother's Day!!!!!! 3 Cheers!!! for all mummies in the world..... :)

Zhou's Kitchen @ Far East Square

This year Mother's Day celebration as usual was organised by my brother at Zhou's Kitchen, Far East Square branch. As most of us are working and also to avoid the weekend crowds we decided to settle the dinner on Friday night.

Zhou's Kitchen provide casual Chinese dining concept and it has about four branches located in different parts of Singapore such as Square 2(novena), Anchorpoint and Jurong Point. Besides serving a tempting variety of A-La Carte dishes, there are set meals offering value and convenience too.

For today we are having their A-La Carte Dinner Buffet which cost about $29.80++ per Adult where you can pick your choice from "Cold Cuts and Appetizers", "Meat", "Seafood", "Vegetables", "Rice/Noodle" and "Dessert".

For Appetizers we have Century Egg and Cucumber cubes - 青瓜皮蛋 which is light and refreshing. Salad Prawns with Mixed Fruits in Thousand Island sauce and Deep-fried Fritter were rather kind of average standard. While "Fujian style Meat Roll that comes in 5 thin slices was kind of to our liking with it special ingredients.

Talk about their soup, it was rather disappointing. The 2nd soup shown in the above photo supposed to be their limited one serving dish known as "Braised Shark's Fin Broth with Crab Stick and Shredded Chicken - 红烧蟹柳鸡丝翅" but it ends up to be just like a normal bowl of diluted soup with some shredded chicken which mum hint to the waitress on her dismay. On the other hand we all agreed that the normal "Braised Beancurd Broth with Diced Seafood - 海鲜豆腐羹" taste even much better than the Shark's Fin broth.

For the Meat dishes, each of us select our favourite items such as "Pan-fried Beef Tenderloin with Black Pepper - 黑椒牛柳烧" which is fragrant and tender to taste, "Pi Pa Duck - 琵琶鸭" where the meat is soft and goes well with the topping sauce but their "Deep-fried Pork Ribs With Chef's Special Sauce - 京都排骨" is quiet a disappointment due to the presentation and the sauce taste so sour and the pork ribs are so tough. "Sweet and Sour Pork - 咕噜肉" on the other hand was much better with it's tasty sauce and overall combination, so end up we have two serving plates of that instead. As you can see from the photo, their "Deep-fried Chicken with Prawn Paste - 虾酱鸡" was just like some deep-fried chicken strips instead nothing fancy.

Beijing Roast Duck - 京式片皮鸭 is also one of the Limited to 2 Slices per Person items on the list. This dish is kind of different from the usual Peking Duck that use the outer crispy duck skin to wrap with the pancake wrapper. Rey enjoy himself on serving us this dish by assemble the spring onion, cucumber and sweet sauce with the duck and wrapper while we are busying with other dishes.

On the Seafood list, we tried their "Chilli Crab A-La Tung Lok - 辣椒螃蟹" other than the presentable look the taste wise was rather average or not suitable for our liking. The Chilli Crab sauce was too sour rather than those usual hot and spicy chilli crab sauce that we have patronised from some of the famous crab restaurant. "Poached Live Prawns - 白灼虾" was rather better with its look, taste and freshness. "Deep-fried Prawns with Crispy Oats - 香酥麦片虾" and Sauteed Shrimp with Long Bean in Sambal Sauce are another two prawn dishes that we ordered too.

We also tried two of their fish dishes such as "Thai Style Soon Hock Fish - 泰式炸笋壳鱼" and "Steamed Red Tilapia in Black Bean Sauce - 豉汁酱蒸红鱼". I also ordered brother's favourite "Stewed Ee-fu Noodles - 干烧伊面" and mum's favourite "Fried Rice with Chicken and Salted Fish - 咸鱼鸡粒炒饭".

Finally, the moment that I am waiting for is here. Dessert menu/items is always one of the main thing I look for when I scan through the menu. So when it comes to the end of the meal, I will always reserved extra space for my favourite dessert. Today we are having "Chilled Herbal Jelly With Honey - 龟苓膏", "Sweetened Almond Cream with White Fungus - 雪耳白果杏仁露", "Sesame Cream - 芝麻糊", "Glutinous Rice Balls with Peanut Crumbs - 擂沙汤丸" and lastly "Ice Cream Puff - 雪糕酥点".