台湾春天之旅 2013- Back to Taichung and onwards to Feng Jia Night Market(逢甲夜市）

 We were just in time to catch 1 of the last ferry back to our starting point. Was thinking to utilise 1 of the coupons to catch a bus ride up 向山.

Interesting cafe name

 But things were not meant to be, by the time we reached the bus stop which is opp the visitors' centre, we realised the bus has departed. The next bus is ard an hr away. By the time, skies would be dark and also we need to consider the 2hrs bus ride back to Taichung.

Because of time constraint, we gave 向山 a miss much to our disappointment.

Bye bye 向山, hope to visit u the next time

 The bus departing for Taichung is also an hr away, therefore we decided to stick ard and shop at the rows of shop nearby. As usual, my 1st stop is the convenience store to buy some happy food. Brought a whole load of chips for to last our 2 hrs ride back. Haha

We then stumbled across a shop selling Assam black tea and brought 1 big cup to try. Warned Mr Love not to buy any more tea leaves back as our cabinets are still full of the tea leaves we previously brought from China. Haha.

The waiting area for the trip back is right outside the visitors' centre and we stood 1 in the line haha. The next bus is at 6pm and there is a timetable that you can collect from the VC to plan your time here.

After attacking all the snacks, we fell aslp, and in no time, we reached Taichung. Got down that the railway station cuz we wanted to transfer to another bus to our next destination Feng Jia Night Market （逢甲夜市）.

Ticketing area of Taichung station

View frm Taichung Station

According to my research, we can take a bus from the bus stop right in front of Taichung station to Feng Jia Night Market, number 33 or 35 goes there.

Various station fares

Being the Kiasu Singaporean, I still decided to ask ard while waiting, incase my research is wrong. Hehe.. I thank mummy for my good command in Chinese and thus have no problem in communication in Taiwan. In fact, I can even understand 台语 cuz of its similarity to hokkien plus me watching Taiwanese 乡土剧 in their original language.

It is confirmed that there are these 2 buses going to Feng Jia Night Market from here and we proceed to wait patiently for our bus to arrive.

Bus timetable

There is no MRT/LRT in Taichung and thus I think buses are depended heavily upon. I cannot speak for other bus stop, but the stop that we are at has a super integrated bus tracking system. Showing you not only the timing of arrival of bus but even how many stops away is is from us. On top of it, unlike the verison back in SG, it updates itself frequently.

It was accurate as far as I can see while it updates itself. We were impressed by the system.

Better than those who always claim that they provide world class transport system to their people by keep increasing the fares but their systems failed big time and fell flat on their face. I dun even bother to check the timing in SG when I wait for the bus as I knew it is bullshitting me most of the time.

Tracking system

Bus 35 came and we boarded it. Its was very crowded and luckily, we found 2 seats though separated. If you using their ez link card, the fare will be waived for the 1st 8km. But we paid cash as the card we r holding is the Taipei version. I didnt go find out the Taichung equivalent as we did not intend to use much of the bus transport here.

Crowded bus to Feng Jia

The bus ride turns out to be pretty long, 45min to be exact from Taichung train station. By the time we alight from the bus, our legs turned jelly from the hunger..Its was 8pm when we reached here and the night is just starting.

The location where we alight is in a midst of a row of shops, it is when the driver announce den we realised we had reached. I read smwhere that the crowd here during wkend is crazy and thus, I deliberately chose to come here on a wkday. It is still crowded, but manageable.

1st Look of 逢甲夜市

Feng Jia Night market is known as 1 of if not biggest night market of Taiwan. Its is situated right in front of Feng Jia University and hence the name. The shops here sells pretty trendy fashion and accessories, partly due to the fact that there is a huge presence of the undergrads.

Being the hungry us, of cuz we went for the food section 1st. There is a lane full of food stalls right beside the row of shops we alighted from. Everything looks good here. Shan Shan Jie told us that many of the famous street food we heard about Taiwan originated from here. Hubs was so excited to be here..

Prawn cakes..

1st up, we ordered 1 portion of prawn cakes (pardon my translation) (虾饼) which is deep fried and comes along with a sweet & sour thai sauce. We ate it hot and it super crispy. The Thai sauce makes it more appetizing and we finished it up in no time.

Crispy fried prawn cakes

A few stalls away, a big banner caught our attention. Its Mr Love's favourite chickie chop!! The version sold here is charcoal grilled, which is different from the conventional deep fried version we had in Taipei. There is a pretty long queue and we joined in while deciding what to order.

The big ass banner that attracts us

Queuing up

We ordered 1 portion to try out 1st. The tactic we practice in Taiwan night market is to order 1 portion of what we saw n try. If we like it well enuff and had space for another 1, we will come back again after going thru the whole night market, trying out the things we are interested in. This way, it leaves space for other food instead of feeling bloated after the 1st 3 stalls. We are not young anymore and realised the space in our stomach got smaller as we aged. Hahah

Receipt to claim the chickie

The chickie they served here is 1st deep fried and then charcoal grilled with their special sauce. The deep frying makes the skin stay crispy even though they grilled it with the special sauce before serving.

Yummy chickies

We walked around more checking out the stalls while we ate the chickie chop. By this time, I am half full oredi. I was checking out the nail sticker stalls instead of food. Hahah

We came to a stall where they have a small shop area u can sit in n njoy your food. Ordered 1big portion of oyster & pig innards mee sua and then proceed into the sitting area to rest. hehe

Menu

Stall front

As we sat there resting and enjoying our mee sua, I realised the family beside our table is from SG too as I listened to their conversation. Haha Feels good to see fellow countrymen..Hahah

There is nothing realli memorable about the mee sua but still consider acceptable. Perhaps I still haven got use to the pig innards they added and is turned off by the smell of it in the mee sua.

The mee sua

After much eating, we got thirsty and started to look for drinks. Came across a stall selling black bean tea which offers sample. Haha..We found the taste to be refreshing and brought 1 original to share. There is quite a few flavour to choose from too.

Black bean tea

We came to near the end of the lane and decided to turn back to where we came from. Mr Love sported another fried chickie stall and decided to try another 1 before calling it for the night. We ordered 1 fried chickie and 1 fries.

Turns out that in Taiwan, their fries r mostly make of sweet potato unlike ours in SG is make from potatoes..If you didnt specify you wan the potato version, they will assume you wan the normal 1 made from sweet potatoes. And it is not everywhere they have those made from potatoes..

Ordering again

We made the mistake here by not specifying what we want and hence got the sweet potato version. I for 1 hates sweet potatoe for its sweetness. Ironic isnt it? Hating sweet potato for its sweetness. Haha I hate pumkin, yam all these for their sweetness and stickiness too. Hehh

Manning the stall

The chicken here is not bad too, we ordered the deep fried version this time though they served  grilled 1 too.

Menu

I tried 1 of the fries and decided that it is not to my liking, haha and Mr love gotta finished them all by himself. Sweet potatoes are known to be extremely filling and after eating what we brought here, we couldnt eat anthing else.

Sweet potato fries

We then went to the row of shops opposite where we alighted from to check out the things offered there. I brought some nice accessories from here after abit of haggling and decided to call it a day. We flaged a cab to take us back to our hotel which costs NTD 200.

Aftertots of visiting this night market is it is not as big as I imagine it would be. It was later then we learnted from Shan Shan Jie that the rows of shops are inclusive too and there is a certain part where we didnt explore. Perhaps, we are too tired out by the day trip to SML oredi. Nevertheless, we r glad to make a trip here and perhaps next time, we should ask Shan Shan Jie to bring us ard here if we ever comes to Taichung again. Haha

Because HE watched too much 冲上云霄2

The "HE" here refers to my bro who along with me is a big fan of HK serials. Hahaha

Despite me "jio-ing" him  many times before, he told me he had no interest in Taiwan.

2wks ago, he told me my that he will forgo the planned year end Macau trip and asked me to plan for a Mar 14 Taiwan trip instead.

Gave me a list of places he wanted to visit and top of the list is 垦丁。

Haha I asked him the reason and he told me that he saw alot of nice food there in this serial.

Where got? Good food is everywhere in Taiwan 好不好。。。。

Hahah

End up, he admitted that it is due to this show..Hahah

He gave me specific instructions that he wanted to stay near the sea side.

With the places he mentioned, the others is up to me to plan.

With 5more months to go, I am excitedly doing research and abit of initial planning.

After all, Mr Love and I had neber ventured to South Taiwan before and thus I am not familiar with that area. Travelling there also take quite a bit of time. So schedules are important.

While I worked on & off the planning, we shall see whether this trip shall materialised, else I can always amend a little and still make the trip with Mr Love.

Many plp find us funny to keep going bak to Taiwan. But I am not complaining. Haha As I read on, there is so much that we still didnt visit, see or try.

Taiwan, see you in Mar 2014 during my 30th bday. Heheh

Kending Map

Back to basics

Its been a wk since hubs started his new job and there goes my ride to & fro office everyday.

So, both of us need to accustom to the new routine of getting to work place using public transport. Its been a yr n half since I last did that. I used to go work on my own as it is not logical for hubs to drop me at my workplace near town n come bak to west area again. Since I changed to IBP, I had the luxury of a driver since he has to pass by my office while going to work.

Now that his work place is futher, we see no point for him to drop me at my workplace much early before making his way down south. Furthermore, parking at his new area costs quite a sum, not to mention the petrol costs.

Now, he wakes up 45min earlier so that he can catch the express bus that goes to his workplace from CCK while I will wake up and laze ard till he gets out of the bathroom and prepare to go work too. I love going to office way before official start time so to have a good breakie, chat with colleagues and also do some reading on news.

Just the other day after work, we arranged to meet at CCK for dinner before heading home. It suddenly strikes me that after 6yrs in our home, this is the 1st time we had dinner in Lot 1 before taking the bus home. Its like a brand new start for us.

I am slowly adjusting to the new routine, no longer keeping late nites as need to wake up much earlier in the mornings. I also try to convince myself that all the walking to the stations is good for me as I dun get to exercise much in my daily life. Hahah.

Regardless, I tink we will eventually get us to this and contribute a bit towards a the green campaign by not driving that much.

乐乐的家家酒。。。

 I am a self confessed noob when it comes to housework, cooking or any womanly household duties as far as I am concern. Even with these in mind, Mr Love made a bold decision to marry me haha. Wonder where his courage comes from and there, we started our stay in couple life 5yrs + ago.

Fast forward to today, our house has been renovated and we took back our kitchen(whole unit was rented out previously except for 1 room).

DOM stew chicken

By this time, SG had become too crowded for our liking to go out to eat or do anything for that matter. A dinner at 7pm can make you queue an hr for a seat, another 30mins for the food to arrive. C.R.A.Z.Y. Not to mentioned the costs of eating out and of cuz the nurtrition value.

Fried Udon

 So, we decided to self cook during wkends as there is more time on hand. For a starters, Mr Love is the 1 who does all the cooking and washing. Hehe partly due to fact that I was pregnant and during my post mis-carriage period where he need to nurse me back to health.

My fav veggie-豆苗

 Then 1 fine day, he decided that he is too lazy to cook and clean up and we revert back to eating out even during wkend. Further more, he always need to attend his IPPT/IPT/RT during sat evening and makes him even more tired to cook anyting after that.

Steam cod fish with dark soy sauce & sesame oil

 So, I decided that I should take over the cooking duties though not the washing part. Hehe.. And from there, I tired my hands at cooking for the very 1st time in my life. It was no easy feat given that I dun even now how much oil, seasoning to add. It was a nightmare.

On top of it, I was worried that Mr Love would not like my liking or my love for chinese food.

Fish maw soup

 Luckily for me, though the presentation of food looks awful, the taste is still acceptable at  least to him. Everytime that I cooked, he would polish off every thing. Even it is to make me happie, I felt appreciated.

God noes how much time I spent in the kitchen making the preparations. An typical day would requires me start preparing at 3pm when I served the dinner onli at 6pm.

麻油鸡

 Usually I would prefer to come up with at least a soup and 2 dishes and most of the time, it would be 3dishes and 1 soup. Its actually too much for 2 pax and thus, I would asked mummy to come join us for dinner. She, on the other hand would always pin point my mistake and criticise my cooking. But when I invite her the next wk, she would happily come again. Haha

苋菜

 Anyways, we are now pretty fixed to a routine. Sat would be a western cuisine nite where preparation time is usually shorter and cooking is relatively easier cuz I need wait for Mr Love to finish his running at 7pm. By the time he takes a shower and settle in, it would be 8 b4 we can start our dinner.

Five spices prawns

Steam chicken with black fungus

 On Sun, we would do some shopping after brunch and I would head hm to prepare for dinner. Usually, I would prepare the side ingredients like like ginger, garlic, cutting them to the desirable sizes. And to clean up the chicken/fish or devein the prawns. This will take up quite alot of my time.

Not to mention, sometimes you need to marinate for a few hrs before cooking so as to allow the meat to absorb the taste.

Steam herbal chicken

Chicken wrap

 I have also tried to wash up watever utensils I used during the preparation, leaving Mr Love to wash up the plates onli after dinner. This is also not to turn him off eating home cook food as no 1 likes washing up after dinner rite?

Pepper salted prawns

Steam promfet

 With the purchase of air fryer, cooking became more easy too. Hehe For pan fried stuff, I would usually throw into the air fryer and thus will not make a mess out of my kitchen so as to avoid major wipping/cleaning after cooking. Most of the time, I would also prefer steaming to frying.

Korean fried rice cake

Home made 五香

Homemade 腐皮卷 & cheesy mushrooms

Grilled salmon

Chicken chop with pasta & fries

Granted that my standard is not up to standard, haha but it does feel good to be able to cook for your love ones. It is now then I really start to enjoy cooking for them (hubs & mummy) as versus earlier years of my marriage where I find cooking a chore and hates it very much.

I guess as we aged, thinkings do realli change :)

Tim Ho Wan landed in our shores

Tim Sum is 1 of my favourite food and after hearing so much about Tim Ho Wan, I wanted to try it badly. Brought mummy once there on her bday but gave up due to the long queue.

So on 1 fine sat morning, we decided to wake up early to go try our luck. My piggy bro had told us that if we were to reach b4 9am on a sat morning, chances r we need not queue too long for a seat.

True enuff when we reached b4 9am, there is only a handful of customers queuing up. And they are open for business oredi though the official time is stated at 10am.

Menu

 As piggy bro was late, we couldnt go in as the rule is that every 1 should be present b4 we can get seated. Was so anxious as I am afraid the queue will get longer as time goes by. Luckily, we didnt wait too long for him.

We were given the menu while waiting and I was surprised to find the small variety offered. Piggy bro told me that the outlet is in Hong Kong where this restaurant originated from offers the same limited items also.

Hot tea

Overview of the items

We decided to order 1 of every thing we like 1st before going for a 2nd round. Here's an overview of the things we ordered.

1). Chicken feet with black bean sauce (鼓汁蒸风爪）

This is a must ordered dish for Mr Love though both piggy bro n I dun eat..He gets to eat the whole serving every time we go for dim sum. According to Mr Love, the chicken feet they served here is not bad, the black bean sauce compliment the chicken feet well...

Mr Love's favourite chicken feet

2). Baked Bun with BBQ Pork (酥皮叉烧包）

This item is classified as 1 of the Big 4 heavenly kings (四大天王）of Tim Ho Wan and piggy bro insist that we should order though I dun fancy eating cha siew bun but he convinced me anyway.

The crust of this bun is realli special, unlike the conventional char siew bun. It reminds me of the papa bread bun crust. Filling wise, there is nothing special, juz normal BBQ pork. I normally dun order this dish and thus there is nothing for me to compare. But if you asked me, its worth a try because of the special crust.

Baked bun with BBQ Pork

3). Pork Rib with black bean sauce （鼓汁蒸肉骨）

This is 1 of my favourite dim sum selection but then not every where serves nice version of this. The 1 served here is not to my liking either. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth after eating.

My best guess is they are using frozen meat and thus explain the taste. But I am sure there is a way to prepare remove the smell during preparation.

Steamed pork ribs

4). Prawn dumpling （晶莹鲜虾饺）

My favouirite dim sum dish. Usually I can eat 1 serving all by myself and thus we ordered 2 servings for this. Hehe.

I must say, this dish they served here did not disappoint me. The skin thickness is juz nice, prawns are fresh and succulent. Without fail, I ate 1 whole serving by myself and 1 more from the other serving. Haha.

My favourite Har Gow

5). Pan fried carrot cake (香煎萝卜糕）

This is also 1 of the Big 4 Heavenly kings listed and we decided to order and try. Not sure whether they prepared it earlier but it was served cold. Thus, it was not as cripsy as I tot it would be it. Taste wise is acceptable, it went well with the chilli..Anyways, I would really prefer it to be hot.

Carrot Cake

6).Vermicelli Roll with BBQ pork (密味叉烧肠)

I would prefer the prawn version anytime, but since we are oredi having alot of prawns in other dishes, we decided to order the BBQ pork version. The thing I like about Hong Kong Chee Cheong Fun (as commonly known in SG/Msia) is the skin. Its thinner than our version, so much thinner that it cannot realli hold the stuffings inside without breaking.

Another thing I like is the soy sauce sauce that it poured over it.The 1 served here is not the most fantastic version I ever tried but still I like it qutie well.

Char Siew Chee Cheong Fun

7).Beancurd Skin Roll with Shrimp （鲜虾腐皮卷）

This is another of our must have during di sum and I had high expectations of it due to the fact that I can DIY at home. If the standard is not higher than my lousy skills, why should I pay to eat this outside?

The 1 here is surprisingly good, served piping hot, the skin is super cripsy. Breaking into crumps as we bite into it. The only thing I wanna complaint is the present of parsley inside, I totally cannot stand the smell though Mr Love keep claiming that it added to the taste of this dish. EEKKKKKSSS

腐皮卷

8). Beancurd skin roll with Pork & Shrimp  （美味焖鲜竹卷）

This is the steamed version of 腐皮卷 but added with pork. Not sure why we chose it but than its normal only. Prefer the deep fry version anytime.

Steam beancurd roll with pork & shrimp

9). Pork dumpling with shrimp （鲜虾烧卖皇）

You cannot say you are eating dim dum without ordering 1).Har Gow, 2). Siew Mai. So here's the must order. Its bigger than the 1 we usually see, topped with 枸杞子. 

The meat and shrimp used are pretty fresh and since it was served hot, there is a little of sauce flowing out as I took a bite. 

Last but not least, Siew Mai

These are basically what we ordered and the total bill came up to 60bucks for the 3 of us. I must say, this restaurant is abit over rated. Not having a wiee variety is something that I am not particularly impressed with.

The pricing is also on the high side given the quality of the dim sum. Piggy bro told me that he finds the HK outlet serves better dim sum than here thought the queue is equally crazy.

Having said that, I think 1 should at least give them 1 visit at least. The char siew bun is still worth a try if the queue is not crazy.