As the Eid holiday was approaching and my family are abroad and busy packing their stuff to move to a new apartment. Tim suggested lets go to Taiwan, for the Eid holiday. I was a bit hesitant at first because of the Typhoon but we said let us just book the flights.
Luckily, the wind redirected to other areas and we had sunshine during our stay. Since it was a last minute trip, we did not have a plan nor an idea of what to discover but I was adamant to have a meal at Din Tai Fung and try Taiwanese cuisine. Click Here to read about Din Tai Fung restaurant in Dubai.
Din Tai Fung is the only Taiwanese restaurant we know of in UAE, as I mentioned in my Dubai blog, the waiting time to get a table is long and so is the waiting time in Taiwan. Although they do have several branches of the restaurant, it is always full. Nevertheless, it is worth the wait and so we did wait for 70 minutes. The restaurant has more options, is much cheaper than the one in Dubai, and has many pork dishes in the menu. Now, I do not eat pork so they customised my dishes and I loved it.
Before heading to Taiwan, a friend of ours suggested to try the famous stinky Tofu, which apparently smells worse than Durian. I agree; it smells DISGUSTING but guess what? We tried it. Once you have it, for some reason you become immune to the smell. Tim and I enjoyed some of the street food at the night market but I did not have the courage to try intestines, organs, and all that so I just tried the basics.
One thing that amused us about Taiwan was its history. The natives of the land are actually Filipino and during the Chairman Mao, many Chinese people fled to Taiwan and started a new life on that tiny island and afterwards Japanese people moved to Taiwan and settled there for 50 – 60 years so the Taiwanese cuisine is a blend of Japanese, Filipino and mainly Chinese. Tim and I went to two Taiwanese/Japanese restaurants that were artistically prepared and served. It was delicious and I would love to go back just to eat there again.
I have a sweet tooth and if you love desserts, I highly recommend the sun cakes and the green tea cakes made of beans and matcha. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE THEIR CAKES. I bought five boxes of cakes just for myself to have with my Chinese tea.
Anyway, I will blog separately about our Taiwan travel itinerary and places we visited but I must admit Taiwanese food needs a blog dedicated to their delicacies and delicious cuisine.
