Places to Eat in Taipei

Places to Eat 

August 24~26, 2016

Our days in Taipei were mostly occupied with food and short excursions around the city. As I have mentioned before, we did not feel like spending a lot of time under the hot sun. Basically, we only went out for lunch and dinner but stayed inside most of the days. Here are some of the places where we got our meals taken care of.

Admiralty, Hong Kong--No. 1, Hengyang Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei, Taiwan 

One evening, we walked a couple of blocks from the hotel to a Hong Kong style cafe just to get something to-go for dinner. This restaurant is called Admiralty, right across from the 228 Memorial Park. 

As we were waiting for our orders, I saw this bucket at the top of the stairs and thought it was kind of funny. "I am an umbrella container, not a trash can!"

My order of a club sandwich to-go which was quite OK.

Northsea Fishing Village--No. 8, Section 1, Hangzhou S Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei, Taiwan                                             +886 22357 6188

Coming back to Northsea for a seafood dinner was something that we all enjoyed. 

MOR's best friend, Lin, brought us here last March for a spectacular seafood dinner. He thought it would be nice if we can have another dinner here before we leave for southern Taiwan. It's always nice to enjoy a delicious meal with old friends whenever possible.

Sashimi and abalone

cuttlefish

lobster

fish soup

seafood rolls and sausages

seafood rolls

vegetables

another fish soup

squid

desserts

Fuhang Soy Milk--108 Zhongxiao E Road, Section 2, Zhongzheng District, Taipei, Taiwan
We always try to come to this place at least once whenever we visit Taipei. This is a very popular breakfast shop which only opens between 5:30am to 12:30pm, or whenever they are sold out if earlier. The menu is very simple, basically fried dough fritters, thin/thick baked sesame bread, sticky rice rolls, etc. with soy milk (sweet or savory). It is on the second floor of the Hua San Market, right off exit 5 of the Shan Tao Temple subway station. When you see the long line snaking up the stairways, join in for the 20-45 minutes wait to get your breakfast. I have to say that this is one of the best places for Chinese style breakfast. There are a couple of places in San Gabriel Valley that come pretty close to this but still not quite. It seemed that the line gets longer and longer each time we came here. Apparently, it has gotten a lot of publicity and there were plenty of tourists on the morning we were there this time. Mind you that this was a weekday and the line was ridiculously long. I hate to think of going there on the weekends! By the way, they close on Mondays.

This is like a food court type set up.

Look at that line! It went all the way downstairs to the street.

Public notices on the tables.

Almost there!

Ordering our breakfast.

Savory soy milk in the front and the plain sweet soy milk in the back.

Fried dough fritters and egg stuffed inside the baked sesame bread. This was a thick bread.

I think the thick bread and the egg took the crispiness out of the whole ensemble. Next time, I will switch back to thin bread without egg for the flaky and crunchy texture.

One good breakfast!

Dongmen Station (Yongkang Street) Area

Yongkang Street right off the Dongmen Station (exit 5) is a narrow street filled with all kinds of restaurants and eateries. We decided to explore that area on the last full day we had in Taipei even though we were not that hungry after that big breakfast at Fuhang but a huge bowl of mango ice really sounded good on a hot day like this.

Right off the subway exit is the Din Tai Fung original Xinyi store (No. 194, Section 2, Xinyi Road, Da'an District, Taipei, Taiwan) Look at all these people waiting for their tables, in the heat! We ate there once a few years back at around 2:30pm and there was no wait. Some people swear that this original store serves the best xiao lung bao but I find both locations have the same excellent food. At least the one at Taipei 101 we waited inside the air-conditioned building. 

Smoothie House Mango Snowflake Ice Shop--No. 15, Yongkang Street, Da'an District, Taipei,                                                                                      Taiwan (http://www.smoothiehouse.com/)

Walking out from the subway station, we noticed the walls leading up to the street level were all covered with the brown and yellow advertisements of the Smoothie House. We immediately knew that we found the right place.

I suppose we were just a bit too early, and when we got to the main store of Smoothie House, we were told that all they had was outdoor seating at that time and we have to wait another 30 minutes before they would open up the indoor/upstairs area. They then directed us to their branch store which is about a block away at the corner of Lishui Street. It was not particularly busy but the place filled up rather quickly. Simple and sleek decor, clean and comfortable environment with strong air conditioning.

Looking out to the outdoor seating area. Not a good idea to be out there on a hot day.

Yummy mango ice, so refreshing with the fresh mango cubes, snowflake ice (better than shaved ice), and a huge scoop of mango ice cream on top. It was drizzled with some condensed milk also, I believe.

Apparently, CNN had done a report on the Smoothie House a while back which definitely boosted their sales.

Tian Jin Onion Pancake--No. 1, Lane 6, Yongkang Street, Da'an District, Taipei, Taiwan

ChC wanted to try the green onion pancakes from the stall which he said was really good.

Back to the Dongmen Station. We just have to come back to Yongkang Street in the future, when we are a little hungrier. There are so many places here that I want to try.

Food Court--Mitsukoshi Department Store

For our final dinner in Taipei, we just went over to the Mitsukoshi Department Store across from the Taipei Train Station for a simple and quick dinner at their food court in the basement. This place is always packed whenever we came here. The whole place seemed confined and cramped. We just ate and got out of there fast.

ChC's Japanese rice dish. I don't even remember what I had without a photo showing it.

That's where ChC's got his food from.

Finally, I got a picture of the breakfast buffet at the basement of our hotel before checking out.