You can see pictures from our trip here.
The second day in Taipei we slept in a bit, and then met Yoshi and family in the lobby to head out to their favorite breakfast diner. We emerged from the train station and found a line of several hundred people already waiting for breakfast. Wow.
We got in line, and ended up waiting about 40 minutes until we got a seat. Thankfully, the breakfast was worth the wait. It was hard to describe the dishes, but we several bowls of soup – one was a sweetened soy milk and the other was a salty version with fried bread and spices mixed in. There was also an egg crepe, a clump of rice that turned out to be surrounding a mixture of dried pork and spices, and then there were some buns that contained meat substitutes, like dried radish and peppers. It was very, very good. I was thankful that Mamiko knew how to order all of the foods – I’m sure I couldn’t have gotten them correctly.
After breakfast it was on to the other side of town to try her favorite shorompo restaurant. This was also a home run. The restaurant looked like a hole in the wall, and it reminded me a lot of the style of restaurants that you see so often in Asian countries. The staff recognized Mamiko and set us up at two tables. There we ate a big plate of shorompo and also an egg spiced sandwich that had some pretty unusual flavors. It was fun to watch the locals gather in front of the restaurant, and I could tell that this place wasn’t in any guidebook.
Next stop for us was the inside of Taipei 101, a huge skyscraper in the downtown area that houses lots of shopping as well as offices. We went inside and – what else – decided to eat at the food court. We ended up choosing some Chinese dishes from a fast food place, but I wasn’t very impressed. It is definitely better to eat at the shops on the street. We also did some shopping in the afternoon in the building and at a local bookstore.
The next stop on our gourmet tour was another shaved ice place. This one was somewhat famous, called “Ice Monster”, and it had a line formed up in front of it. We were able to get a table after ten minutes or so, and it was interesting to note that they had a minimum order for seating inside the restaurant. We ended up getting three flavors of shaved ice to share between five people, which was pushing our envelope but we managed to do it. The three flavors were Milk tea with tapioca, jasmine tea with lime sorbet, and peanuts with milk. All three were really good, but my favorite was the peanut one. The nice thing about the shaved ice was that it didn’t seem to fill us up that much, so after eating we were ready to go get dinner somewhere.
We were aiming for a brewpub nearby, and when we arrived we knew we had the right location because of all the beer kegs decorating the street. We went inside, but there were just a few people sitting around on picnic tables drinking beer, and didn’t look anything like the picture we had from the internet. We walked around the building thinking we had made a wrong turn, but after taking 15 minutes to walk completely around the block we decided that it must be the right place. We went inside, and only then did we hear from the staff that they lost the contract for the restaurant, and now all they had was a beer tap and some alcohol for sale on the floor. We took it in stride, however, and ordered some beer to drink on the patio while we planned our next move.
Since we had such great luck with the night market the previous night, we decided to try another one near our hotel. After a quick break at our hotel room we went back out on the road, and after walking for about 20 minutes we found a big city street completely closed off and filled with food stands. We walked through the packed stands, and were quickly overwhelmed by all the options. We ended up starting with a sit down food stand that had some tables off to the side, where we ordered a variety of local dishes from a menu that even had Japanese on it. We had bought our own beers at the local 7-11, so it worked out quite well. Mamiko was even carrying some coupons that she had received from the Taipei Tourist Commision. They were worth 50 Taiwan dollars each, but if you used them you couldn’t get any change back. We soon realized that the shop owners were coveting those coupons (maybe they got paid even more when they turned them in?) and so we ate for free thanks to Mamiko that night. Even without eating free the prices everywhere were so low. The hotel and food was about 1/3 what I would expect to pay in Japan, so life was pretty good.
We ate and ate and ate, and spent probably two hours walking around the market stalking our next meal. It was fun to buy whatever you wanted without worrying about the price, and Mamiko always had something else that we had to try. Yoshi and Akira were very patient, and helped us eat everything that Mamiko suggested. It was a great time. Finally we decided that it was time to head on back, so we said our goodnights and goodbyes in the lobby of our hotel, and then went to bed with very full stomachs.
The next morning we got up around 7 am, and then caught a cab on our own to the airport. The Ono family was staying until later that afternoon, so we got a head start back to Japan. We arrived at the airport a little early, so we had breakfast there, and it turned out to be a very delicious breakfast of rice gruel with fried bread and peppers, and also a steamed bum with egg and teriyaki sauce. Even at the restaurant we were able to eat delicious (and cheap) food. From there it was a pretty simple trip back to Japan, and we were back home by about 5 pm.
It was a great trip, and I think that we will probably be back in the future. Taiwan is a tropical country, so we have to be very aware of the timing when we go, because it may be too hot or too wet, but we may add it to our list of winter destinations based on how fun, cheap and warm it was. All in all, thanks to the Ono family, it was one of our best trips ever.
