Tainan Surprises

Family Reunion Cruise -- Roundtrip Keelung, Taiwan on Diamond Princess

Pre-cruise Tainan, November 15, 2018

I have watched a TV program before leaving home about this dim-sum place in Tainan, Taiwan and wanted to try it out. BIL was willing to take us there for lunch so we left at 10:00 to take a drive down to Tainan. Dim sum is a Cantonese tea-cake meal and I was a little skeptical about the authenticity of dim sum here. What a pleasant surprise when we got to this little restaurant with only seven tables and enjoyed such a delicious meal at the small town of Yongkang. Apparently, this establishment is owned by a Cantonese chef from Hong Kong who married a Taiwanese wife and settled here. 

Just a tiny restaurant on a busy street. We were there early, before they even opened for the day.

Only seven tables inside this restaurant.

Busy kitchen right outside the restaurant.

Self-service complimentary tea and condiments.

Their famous crispy BBQ pork buns, just like the 1-star Michelin dim sum restaurant Tim Ho Wan in Hong Kong.

Good shiu mai

steamed spare ribs

crispy BBQ pork buns, excellent!

order form

steamed sausage and chicken rice

Yum!

flavorful chicken feet

deep fried carrot dumplings

won ton noodle, OK

rice rolls with fried cruellers

deep fried pork dumplings

This was great! French toast with cheese.

Huge parking lot for a little restaurant.

Their small shop across the street selling the famous buttered Bo Lo Bao. Unfortunately they do not open until 2:00PM. So we did not get a chance to try them out.

It was indeed a fantastic dim sum lunch, as authentic as can be in this part of Taiwan. I was totally surprised.

Chi Mei Museum

My second surprise in Tainan was the Chi Mei Museum. I am not the museum type but found this to be totally awesome and worth visiting. After our delicious lunch BIL thought that it would be a good idea to visit this museum since it's not that far away. I was really shocked by the size and the collections of this place.  

You would think that we were somewhere in Europe.

The huge, park-like surrounding.

Instead of walking to the museum building, we decided to pay for a ride on this 'tram'.

Part of the museum ground.

main building

Entrance

Sculpture covered with gold leaves.

Ceiling of the entry way.

The Animal section was the only place where photography was allowed inside this museum.

I believe they were having some kind of photo competition with the polar bear but not sure what it was about.

They have huge collections of arts, sculptures, weapons, paintings and musical instruments throughout this museum that could capture anyone's attention for a few hours. I particularly enjoyed the musical instruments section where they had a synchronized video performance which was very unique and impressive. This museum is a must-see in Tainan!

For dinner that evening, we went back to Yenshui where we had the famous local E-noodle.

A mix of appetizers.

boiled pork

E-noodle with braised minced pork.

soup with meat balls

MOR wanted some stinky tofu after dinner.

Stinky tofu

Yep, he was the only one enjoying the tofu.