14 March 2012
Food capital of the world
Its well known that I like Taiwanese food.
Beef noodle soup, flavoured tea, Din Tai Fung etc.
Tonight I am ready to declare that Taiwan is officially the best place in the world for food.
Also, somehow the last time I was here about a year ago, I never went to the centre of the city, apart from the train station.
I dont really know how thats possible, but the centre of the city is great. Taipei is also a lot more compact than I realised, last time I was here I rode the subway everywhere, and never go an impression of where stuff is.
Tonight I just walked, it stopped raining and the temperature was good. The walk to the centre of the city I assumed would take over an hour took only 30 minutes, and then whilst wondering around I realised Ximen is located on one corner of the city, not even a kilometre away.
I feel quite silly now.
A few tips, its never safe to assume you have right of way, even on the footpath. Walk signals just mean you can walk now assuming no one is going to run you down. Scooters frequently ride along the footpath, at speed.
Also, the footpath, dont be looking around taking photos whilst walking. Every shop front maintains their own bit of footpath. Often theres a foot drop between shops, or even worse a slippery tiled ramp.
Its also cool to park your scooter on the footpath, making pedestrians have to walk on the road into oncoming traffic.
The streets however are great, you get the nice bits with great shops and restaurants and whatever, but then you get some alleyways that are like hong kongs wet markets. Also some areas are genuinely dark and mysterious with smoke coming out of the ground.
A typical street scene, near my hotel. Lots of scooters and bright lights.
Underground I discovered this series of pedestrian shopping malls, all up about 2km of them snaking around under the road (going by the map). They have sections for different things, this is the comic book and computer game section.
A bit like den den town in Osaka but a lot more innocent. They did have similar shops with old consoles and games though.
It was amazing how long this went on for, so I took another photo at what seemed to be the end of computer game alley.
Every 100 metres or so you get to an exit area with a performance space. There were tai chi dancers at one, and this really really crappy band at another. However rapturous applause erupted when they finished their song.
Without a doubt, this is the greatest food court I have been to in my life. Everything looked awesome.
It was also on basement level 4 of I am not sure what building! I somehow got into here via an exit through a car park via that other mall above. And then I connected to the train station to get out.
Which means I am not sure I can get back to it, which will be a tragedy because I have planned 10 meals from here.
This is where I ordered from. They have all my favourites, dumplings, beef noodle soup, that rolled beef thing with the crunchy pastry shown on the right of the sign, pan fried pies....
Its a good thing its going to be warmer weather so I can wear shorts, they are a looser fit than jeans.
Heres what I ended up with, braised beef noodle soup, fried eggplant, and a green onion pie. All of it was amazing. I also succesfully ordered speaking only Chinese, a little bit of pointing and nodding since I dont know how to say eggplant or green onion, but I could name the pie, soup and confirm the price and say I didnt want a drink all in Chinese.
I dont recall this tall building, or any tall buildings except Taipei 101 from my last trip. This only adds to my suspicion that I missed most of the city.
As mentioned, go one street back and you get crowded laneways like this. And running off these are alleyways with various things being butchered and tiny restaurants where people sit on coke crates.
And then every now and then you come to a shrine like this.