Back To Taiwan. The Best Food is From a Dirty Cart!

So once we touched down to Taipei, the mother and I were ready to make the most of our time remaining since no we didn't have to censor our eating habits with Grandma gone! Whoot! By the way, I can't wait til my recaps in Taipei are over so I can get onto the adventures I've been having back in L.A.! Don't want to ruin it for you-but my friends and I got the most amazing Hawaiian shaved ice last night from a... TRUCK! Awesome.

We literally just got off the plane and headed to this place. That is all tea that you see. This place specializes in flower tea! I bought so much to bring home. So far, I've tried blueberry, strawberry, & apple tea!

Night 1: Shilin Night Market!!! Night market=Food!!!! The rule of the night was to look for whatever cart had the most lines and just get in line! Doesn't matter what it is!

Check out our Shallot drabing! However, while some things looked super delicious...

Others did not. Wow, frog eggs. (see sign above) Wow, indeed. Plus, there was no line in front of them but I don't think I would have tried them anyways even if they did due to my fear of frogs.

But some things did look deliciously intriguing like the man making squid hot dogs. Sure it was kinda weird that the sausage was black, but that was the fun of it!

Ooh but look! A humungous line and even a newspaper article on them? Get in line!!! Baked/Fried Chicken! It was delicious. The batter was so good you could eat it by yourself! Apparently my mom hates stinky tofu so she wasn't willing to share one with me. =[

Left is sugar cane being grilled on a stove and right is the boba I got. Rainbow colored boba! It was calling to me. I had to get it! By the way, I wish they had tables or something at the night markets. It's really hard to eat and hold onto a gazillion things at one time. Plus, Taiwan literally has like one trash can every 3 streets. Stupid idea. Where the hell are people supposed to put their trash?

Here's our order of pepper buns! Delicious! Freshly made pork buns filled with loads of cabbage and pepper! Yum! Wish they had that in the U.S.!

Day 2: More food! So apparently my mom went to the "IT" high school. All her ex-classmates are all now rich and famous. I really don't get why she doesn't try and get some freebies or nice hookups from them. It's getting ridiculous! Grrr Mother! So anyways my mom, mom's friend, and I went to get lunch at Shanghai Shanghai in Sogo aka 紅豆食府. This place is like THE place to go in Taiwan. You're typical overpriced Chinese food that you treat people out to. So apparently my mom's classmate's sister open it. WTH? Why are we standing in line? Why are we paying?

Left is our order of scallion panckes. Right is our river shrimp stir fried. It may look like Mac & Cheese but this baby was delish! Mini little shrimps!

Here is our red kernels with cubed chinese ham and our crab sauteed with fermented soy beann paste with rice cakes. Basically the first is an order of mini peas. So small and tasty. Imagine your usual pea size and divide that by 1/2 or more!

Red dates stuffed with sticky rice! Yummy yummy!

And of course in typical fashion, my mother decided to use none of her connections to get our bill paid. Not even try for 10% off. She seriously sucks. But at least it was then time for more food in Sogo!

So this is Mr. Donut. They are the shit in Taiwan. It's actually a Japanese company but you know them Taiwanese love anything Japanese. Their most popular donut is the one we bought on the right. They changed your typical chewy donut recipe to fit for Asian taste buds that don't want a heart attack. I thought they would just add less sugar but no... their donuts tasted like mochi. NOT COOL. Please don't ruin my donut experience. But at least I can say I tried it. So yeah I tried it.

My mom's friend wanted to take us to a historical place while we were in Taiwan. *Yawn* Seriously do people not get that we don't care about history? I want food! The white building in the first picture was taken at the Sun Yat Sen Music Hall. So yay cool... let's move on. So the most historically important place that I had to hit while I was in Taiwan, was the original 85C! Duh! Not as amazing as Irvine it pains me to admit- but they have better fruit tea than we do!

My Taiwan adventures will commence in my next post. How exciting! See how I ended my trip next time! Happy Eatings! Here's a spoiler.... it is entirely possible that during my last day in Taiwan I had some bizarre foods. *Gasps* Possibly something I have a fear of...