Taiwan2014之梅雨的季节-Breakfast in Hsinchu/ Around 鹿港(Lukang)

We woke up late @10am today since our hosts went for their Sunday service. Since both of us were hungry, decided to check out the neighbourhood and look for a breakfast joint.

Spotted a breakfast cafe at the corner and went over happily. It was a small cafe, not much of a crowd but still it is full house.

Menu of the breakfast joint

Mr Love took a pretty long time reading the menu, end up I decided it is faster for me to read for him and he can decide what to eat while listening to my tranlations. This what you get when you don't read chinese words anymore after secondary 4. You struggle even with the menu. Hurhur.

Taiwanese breakfast don't serve coffee it seems and I am seriously in need of one. End up we ordered 1 red tea and soy bean to share while making a mental note to drop by 7-11 to buy my coffee fix later.

Drinks

Mr Love decided on a grilled chicken burger while I settled on a bacon burger. We then decided to order 1 onion pancake to share. Gluttons.

Grilled chicken burger

Onion pancake

We ate to our heart's filling and was contended with the food served. But later we found out from our hosts' that there is a better cafe on the other side of the street. Oh well, we will leave to next time then. Hehe.

Bacon burger

Apartments in Taiwan

We set off at 11:30am for Lukang(鹿港) which is a township in Changhua(彰化)county. It is a near 2 hour drive away from Hsinchu via expressway. On our way there we got caught in a heavy downpour and it didn't stop till late evening. Thus, we didn't managed to do much in this town which is a pity.

Since it was raining heavily when we reached Lukang, we ducked into the 1st eatery we saw (王罔面线糊） Wang's Mee Sua. It was very crowded and we managed to grab seats and shared a table with others. They only served 1 kind of food here, that is mee sua.

This is not the typical oyster or pig inards mee sua we had in Northern Taiwan, instead its cooked with minced pork and egg only. 1st time we tried this in Taiwan and I loved it. The chilli that was provided in a container for you to add was superb. I mean really superb, just like our South East Asia style, spicy and fragrant a bit like belachan.

Its especially warming to glup down a bowl of this in the cold weather.

Lukang mee sua

Since it was raining heavily, we decided to walk along the shops while waiting for 姗姗姐's friends to arrive from Taichung. We came across a 7-11 and I went crazy buying the Rilakumar bear pens while getting everyone to drink coffee with me. Hehe

Lukang map

An intersection in Lukang

Road signs

While standing outside the 7-11 waiting for the others to arrive, I realised some things about Lukang. 1stly it is a pretty small town, I was told that the few streets like practically makes up the whole town.  2ndly, its a pretty quiet town with little foreign tourists.

Of the 20min we stood there, all who passes us are Taiwanese although I am not sure whether they are from which part. 3rdly, judging from the tourist map there is nothing much to see and do here unless you are here for the temples.

Still, we are excited to be in a new place in Taiwan.

Tourist map

Welcome to Lukang

After meeting up with 姗姗姐's friends, we went to walking around to find a place to settle lunch. It was raining pretty heavily and doesn't help that we have 3 little kids in the group. Therefore the priority is to treat all the hungry stomaches first. The kids were well behave though, didn't give any trouble while we walked around the rain looking for something to eat.

We decided on a small shop selling all kinds of deep fried seafood. I guess being near the port, seafood were aplenty here though I am not sure whether the port is still in use or not. Hehe

The boss of the shop did some recommendations of the various dishes and we ordered quite a few.

1). 炸虾猴( Deep Fried Monkey prawn)

Don't ask me why the name for I didn't ask too. Haha. It looks like mini clayfish to us and I am guess it is just the local way of naming this dish. The Taiwanese pronunciation and ours in Hokkien were pretty similar. 

This is deep fried with a kind of veggies that is found commonly with deep fried food in Taiwan and added salt and pepper to taste. When served hot, its' pretty addictive. The kids even brought 1 more packed after lunch as they love it too much. 

Fried monkey prawn 炸虾猴

2). 虾面(Prawn mee)

It looks pretty similar to our Hokkien mee in Singapore. I just took a little of this as am still pretty full from the mee sua earlier. 

Prawn mee

3). 蛤喋 (Fried oyster cake)

This is 1 of the top 3 of Mr Love's fav dish at this shop. Its a deep fried batter of oyster and some veggies （韭菜) if I didn't rememeber wrongly. Too bland of my liking even with the sauce that comes with it. But Mr Love loved it for he say the veggies and oysters go well together. 

蛤喋-Fried oyster cake

4). 炸丁香鱼-Deep fried "Ding Xiang fish"

We saw others having it while on our way in and I told 姗姗姐 that I wanted to order a portion to try. Similar to the monkey prawns earlier, this is deep fried with veggies and add salt and pepper to taste. The only difference is, this is fish (duh!)

炸丁香鱼-Deep fried "Ding Xiang fish"

5）水煮鱿鱼-Cooked cuttle fish

Essentially, this is boiled cuttlefish with some special house sauce only. Nothing special at least to me since I preferred deep fried squids. Hehe It is chewy alright but too bland for my liking.

水煮鱿鱼-Cooked cuttle fish

6).蒜茸炒蛤蜊- Stirfry garlic clams

Garlic is never wrong this is dish in fact the more the merrier. We had fun trying to find clams with meat still attached to its shell. This was polished off in no time and I took quite a bit of them.

蒜茸炒蛤蜊- Stirfry garlic clams

7). 鱼汤- Fish soup

Not sure what kind of they used but it is sure fresh. You can taste the freshness of the fish in the soup. One thing I noticed in Taiwan is that their soup is all clear broth, unlike back home where we will have chicken or fish stock as the soup base. 

You can then taste how fresh the ingredients are when they are all cooked in the soup. Maybe I grew up drinking our version, I neber quite like the Taiwanese version soup.  

鱼汤- Fish soup

8). 炒饭-Fried rice

I only took a small portion of the fried rice since am already full from the other dishes. Their fried rice is pretty nice, top with seafood. Love it but didn't have the space for it. Hurhur.

炒饭-Fried rice

Selections

Live Monkey prawns

You can order them as finger food and ta bao on the go

Pricing Part 1

Pricing Part 2

Fresh chicken egg.

We hung around the shop awhile after lunch since it was still raining pretty heavily. Tried to coax the youngest kid to take a picture with us but only succeed for the 1st 3min before she refuse to cooperate with us anymore. A cute girl but is very shy when it comes to strangers :)

Coaxing

Succeed for 1st picture

And she refuse for more

She don't want to look at the camera!

No more decents photos

We decided to move to 鹿港天后宫(Lukang Tianhou temple) which is dedicated to 妈祖 the deity who is believed to be protecting people on the sea. Being a popular and busy port in its heyday a temple of such is essential.

Roof top of Lukang Tianhou temple

Mr Love and I were given some time to tour around the temple while the hosts and their friends wait for us. We did a quick tour so as not to hold them up for too long and came out. I must say, this temple is very grand, having three halls and two courtyards (三间二院） which gods and deities are placed in accordance to their ranks.

Main courtyard of the temple

Taking shelter from the rain

We decided to split from her with the hosts' friends as they need to rush home to the kids to finish up their homework. It was a nice meeting and of course once again we were blessed with the generosity and the warm heart Taiwanese. It was pleasure meeting with this family and their 3 pretty daughters and spent half a day in Lukang with them:)

With the pretty eldest daughter

After parting, we roamed around Lukang a more to explore since there are still time till evening where we will shop in the night market.

Buildings in Lukang were built close to each other, hence creating very narrow alleys which are given the name -摸乳巷 literally translate as touch breast/chest alley. Reason being, the alley is so narrow that if 2 persons were to past by each other in this alley, you have to past by chest to chest at some point. We didn't try out though since Mr Love is shy to.

摸乳巷

Closer look

Hand made drums

Old school provision shop

Old door of some residence

We walked around randomly to pass by the residential houses where some have been converted into shops. There is nothing much offered here but we are glad that we came and took a walk in this old street.

The skies cleared up by the time we are ready to make our way to Taichung which is an hour away. Was praying hard that the skies remain clear since we will be visiting a night market tonight. Meanwhile, we will check into the hotel that our hosts booked for us.