Helen Keller sunglasses

Spotted in Taipei - a ginormous ad for Helen Keller sunglasses. Oh my...

Chen San Ding, KiKi, and Japanese Eats

Chen San Ding in Taiwan is known for their bubble milk, which consists of tapioca and brown sugar in milk. It's a twist on the usual bubble tea since it contains no tea - I'm not usually a milk lover but I love this drink! There is typically a line of people waiting but it tends to move quickly.

 

KiKi is one of my favorite restaurant chains in Taipei - I managed to eat here twice during this trip! They are known for their spicy dishes but they also have delicious non-spicy options. Two of my favorites pictured below: crispy deep fried tofu and pork slices with garlic sauce. Other amazing dishes I greedily gobbled up before I remembered to take pictures: braised chili fish, pan fried eggs, minced pork with chives and black beans, spicy fried chicken...I could go on and on.

My in-laws treated the whole family to a fancy dinner at a trendy Japanese restaurant in Zhu Bei (about a 30 minute ride from Taipei via High Speed Rail). They had delicious shrimp tempura, uni hand rolls, and seared salmon sashimi.

 

Looking at all these food pictures is making me feel so sluggish and fat...time to hit the gym!

Maokong Gondola and Rao He Night Market

I've been meaning to make a trip out on the Maokong Gondola in Taipei for awhile now - I finally got the opportunity to go with my grandma in December. This excursion is definitely about the journey rather than the destination. The ride is about 25 minutes each way and the view along the way is lovely - particularly cool if you are in a glass floor gondola. On the other hand, the view at the top is partially obstructed and the food is not impressive by Taipei standards. I had heard there were a lot of great teahouses at the top so I was pretty disappointed to find only one teahouse close to the last gondola stop that was open - and a serving of tea was 180NT! That might not seem like very much since it translates to approximately $5 USD but that's a lot for Taipei. Grandma and I skipped out on tea here and headed to Ba Fang Yun Ji, where we had a meal of dumplings, potstickers, wontons, and vegetables for a total of 180NT.

A fuzzy silhouette of Taipei 101 on the right

Hello Kitty branding everywhere!

A lackluster ice cream crepe with peanut powder and cilantro

Jeff and I had a chance to catch up with friends over a visit to the Rao He Night Market this time around. The older I am, the less I am enticed by the cheap wares they offer. Even still, I can't always resist a great deal! Between the four of us, we got a selfie stick, an iPhone case ($3 USD), a cute top ($5 USD), and some tasty snacks.

Grilled mochi

Ippudo Ramen, Ba Fang Yun Ji (八方雲集), and 1010 Xiang

My trips to Taiwan are about the three Fs - family, food, and fashion - with an emphasis on the first two. Luckily, it is easy to kill two birds with one stone by combining the first two. :)

I spend a lot of my time in Taipei at Taipei Main Station, since there's so much eating and shopping to be done here. This time, I checked out Ippudo in the Breeze Food Court upstairs, as the wait was only 15 minutes. The noodles were great - I love that you can grind up your own sesame and mince your own garlic to flavor the broth. But no pork buns available? That's half the fun of an Ippudo meal! 

I'm a bad blogger so I can't remember the name of this ramen - sorry!

My adorable grandma adding garlic to her spicy broth

We also ate at Ba Fang Yun Ji (八方雲集) in the Eslite shopping area of Taipei Main Station. They have amazing dumplings and potstickers. This branch also happens to make wontons - not as good as my favorite wontons here but still pretty tasty. 

I'm a huge fan of spicy food so the Hunan cuisine at 1010 Xiang is right up my alley. Their dishes are a notch less spicy than Szechuan cuisine and they have non-spicy dishes as well. They have a couple of restaurants scattered through Taiwan but I've only been to the one on Fuxing North Road. There are so many more dishes that I didn't have a chance to photograph! Jeff also raved about a spicy fried chicken dish that he had during another visit to 1010 Xiang with his family.

Beef with pine nuts and rice cake

Spicy ribs (served with gloves so that your hands stay clean) 

Sigh...this post is making me hungry so I'll have to stop here!

Happy New Year!

I was lucky enough to spend the holidays in Taiwan, indulging in delicious eats with loved ones. I only brought a small carry-on suitcase so I couldn't bring too much back but I did manage to bring home my favorite fruit pastries from Chia Te bakery. It's much easier to get to these days now that the MRT green line has been extended along Nanjing East Road - the bakery is a block away from the Nanjing Sanmin stop.

Since this bakery is uber popular, there is always a long line of Asian tourists outside with a bouncer managing crowd control. I dragged my poor grandma along to keep me company as we waited about 30 minutes to get in. They have a lot of other baked goods here but I focus on their flagship pastries - Taiwanese pineapple cakes. Jeff is pretty adventurous so he likes some of the other fruit flavors as well but in my humble opinion, none compare to pineapple!

Currently addicted to...

1. Serial - I know I'm late to the party here but I'm all caught up now and eagerly awaiting episode 10. I just started listening on Wednesday so I haven't had enough time to ruminate and figure it all out yet (ha!). It's definitely made my workouts more interesting.

2. Warriors - People are always surprised that I'm an NBA fan. Basketball was huge when I was growing up in New York - I will always love the Knicks but I've really become a Warriors fan over the years. We got to catch Game 6 of the playoff series between the Warriors and the Clippers in May and we had a blast. Even though the tickets were so expensive and the seats were so bad, we had an awesome time. The intensity and energy are insane during the playoffs! I'm excited that they're playing so well this year.

Oracle Arena, Oakland, May 2014

3. 巧虎 (Qiaohu Tiger)- My friend Tzui managed to track these Qiaohu dolls online - reasonably priced ones are hard to come by for some reason. While a part of me wants to keep these adorable dolls for myself, they're actually for my nephew. 

Jeff saw this picture and exclaimed "oh no, they're suffocating!" 

How I find great travel deals

Friends are always asking me how I find such great travel deals. While I don't always get great deals (domestic airfare is impossibly pricey during the holidays!), I'm always scouring the internet to find them. These travel deals tend to require flexible timing, which is easier for us to manage as DINKs  - I will miss that about DINK life if/when we have kids.

Here are some of the deals we've travelled on recently:

Positano, Italy, September 2014

• Deal: $685 per person for roundtrip airfare from JFK to Naples 
• Found through: Kayak

Hakodate, Japan, May 2014

• Deal: $1,075 per person for roundtrip airfare from Taipei to Hokkaido, 5 day guided tour through 3 cities within Hokkaido, and four nights of hotel accommodation
• Found through: Lion Travel

Moorea, French Polynesia, November 2013

• Deal: $1598 per person for roundtrip airfare from LA to Auckland, including a 3 day stopover in Tahiti, one night in a standard room at the Intercontinental Tahiti, and two nights in an overwater bungalow at the Intercontinental Moorea
• Found through: Travelzoo Top 20 deals (expired link here for your reference). 

Tips on getting good deals

Kayak: Whenever I find a great fare on Kayak, I always check the fare for the same flight on the airline's own website, as it doesn't always match the lowest fare on Kayak. This is particularly true with flights on EVA Air - I have no idea why. The limitation to Kayak is that it doesn't include certain airlines, so it's not a one stop shop.

Lion Travel: Lion Travel tours start in Taipei and only offer Mandarin language tours, so they probably aren't a convenient option for most people. However, if you can make it work, Lion Travel puts together some great packages. I always price out a package to see if I can get it cheaper on my own - just the roundtrip airfare from Taipei to Hokkaido would have been $700 per person, so their Hokkaido package was definitely legit.

Travelzoo: Travelzoo is where I find a majority of my combo (flight & hotel) deals, so I'm very diligent about checking the new deals of the week every Wednesday morning. You have to be patient though, because weeks or months will go by where I am not interested in any of the deals. Keep your eyes peeled for the combo deals to the intriguing destinations abroad - that's where I've found the best deals. Just like with the Lion Travel package to Hokkaido, I always price out the deal separately to see if it really is a good deal. With the New Zealand/Tahiti package, I knew that it was a good deal since one night in the overwater bungalow at the Intercontinental Moorea is close to $1,000/night!

Hope that helps! In the meantime, I'm daydreaming about this deal for a week long vacation in Japan...

Food recap: Taipei eats

I was scrolling through my posts the other day and realized that I didn't have a single post dedicated to the delicious eats in Taiwan. How could I have neglected such an important category in my life? I predict this will be the first of many Taiwan food posts to come. :)

I first discovered Uncle Tetsu's Cheesecake when I noticed long lines at Taipei Main Station. The lines are the worst during rush hour but if you go in the middle of the day, the lines are relatively manageable. I personally prefer the ones that are straight out of the oven because I am a pig that brings them upstairs to the Breeze Food Court to eat right away - but there are ways to avoid the line if you are okay with cheesecake that was made earlier in the day.

Cafe Melange is known for their waffles. Last time I was here, waffles were only served Friday - Sunday so make sure you check for availability if you have your heart set on them. This place is pretty popular so you may have to wait for a table. 

Tung Hakka cuisine has amazing Hakka dishes and even more amazing desserts. Their chocolate souffles are impeccably beautiful and taste even better than they look. Their yam cake is also delicious.

In case all these sweets are starting to make your tooth ache, I decided to add in a savory item here. The food court in the basement of the Ding Hao mall in Taipei has a tiny little shop that makes the best spicy wontons. I typically eat multiple bowls when I make the trip here.