Janelle's 4th Birthday

It's gonna be Janelle's 4th birthday next Sunday. We'll be celebrating her birthday at her Childcare Centre on Friday afternoon. So this morning, I prepared her party packs for her CC friends, 18 packs in all.

I love packing these party packs. Maybe I like mass production stuff? Haha, who needs help buying or packing next time, pls come look for me! Free labour and transport!!

Birthday & X'mas

We went down to Concourse this morning to buy Janelle's birthday party pack stuff. Ate at the famous fried egg fish soup stall opposite. It's still as yummy as ever!

Look at all the X'mas stuff I got tempted into buying... Almost went crazy there, everything looks so nice and cute and christmasy! Wanted to buy X'mas tree too, but was not allowed to by hubby :(

Ondeh Ondeh

Today, I made Ondeh Ondeh. Have been wanting to make it for the longest time but keep procrastinating. So when I saw some orange sweet potatoes in the wet market and fresh shredded coconut, decided to try my hand at it.

Ondeh Ondeh

Ingredients:
600 gm of steamed and mashed sweet potato
2 tbsp pandan juice
250 gm white coconut shreds (add 1/2 tsp of salt and steam)
150 gm tapioca flour
1 tsp green colour (if sweet potato used is orange in colour, omit the colouring)
3 tbsp castor sugar

Method:
1. Mix mashed sweet potato, sugar, pandan juice and colouring (if used) and knead into a dough. If dough is dry, you can add some water (a tbsp at a time) until dough is soft and not dry.
2. Pinch some dough and make into a small ball.
3. Flatten it with your palm and put filling in it and wrap it up.
4. Boil a pot of hot water. When water boils, put the wrapped ondeh ondeh into the pot and let it cook.
5. When ondeh ondeh floats to the top, the dough is cooked.
6. Roll cooked ondeh ondeh in the steamed white coconut shreds.

For Filling:
Either use 200 gm of gula melaka (cut into small pieces) or 250 gm gula melaka
4 tbsp castor sugar
4 tbsp water
1 coconut w/o skin (shredded)
1/2 tsp salt
6 pcs pandan leaves (optional)
1 tbsp flour mix with 2 tbsp water

Boil gula melaka, sugar and water until all the sugar dissolve. Sift the mixture. Pour the shredded coconut into the sifted mixture. Add in salt and mix well. Pour in flour mixture and stir until well mixed. Leave aside to cool before using.

(Source: http://www.bakingmum.blogspot.com/)

Curry Favour @ Stamford House

We've not been to this restaurant for quite some time, so decided to go there for dinner tonight. I simply love the Japanese Curry served here.

Hubby had Stewed Chicken Curry.

And I had my favourite Chicken Katsu and Prawn Fry Curry.

Janelle enjoyed her food from my plate too, minus the curry.

Wild Rocket @ Hangout Hotel

My sis treated me to lunch at Wild Rocket @ Hangout Hotel at Mount Emily after raving all about it after her birthday treat by her friends.

We had Black Pepper Soft Shell Crab with Crunchy Granny Smith Apple Salad as the appetiser. I find this so-so only, did not especially like the black pepper which came as more of a paste while the soft shell crab rested on it. Hehe, forgot to snap a pix of it before its all gobbled down nonetheless.

Next, came the famous Wild Rocket Burger which my sis was raving about. Not bad I suppose as the meat patty was quite thick and juicy.

Then came the Seafood Crustacean Oil Spaghetti which was supposedly not to be missed too. On first taste, it tasted like dried prawn noodle!! Haha, the lowly prawn noodle in comparison to high class spaghetti. But its quite nice on the whole. First time I tried angelhair pasta though. However, I find the prawns and crabmeat abit devoid of flavour and not as sweet...

To end the meal, we had Coconut Ice-Cream with Gula Melaka. Yummy, though I suppose it should be quite easy to reproduce it at home.

Snackies Part III @ Dan Shui Old Street

Hong Zao Meat Dumpling
This is pretty interesting, with the red red meat (pork marinated with red wine lees, or hong zao covered in a layer of sweet potato starch batter. It is then dropped into the oil to be deepfried, which will turn the white batter into a transparent casing, as can be seen in the background of the pic. Didn't try this, but would guess the taste would be rather strong.



Fried Assorted mushrooms
Mmmm another yummy snack! Assorted mushrooms - fresh shitake, enoki, and some thick white mushrooms - dipped in a light tempura-like batter and deepfried. What's not to like about this? With a quick sprinkling of salt and pepper, the fried goodies are dumped into a paper cup and handed over to the waiting crowd. Definitely a crowd-pleaser!


Corn dogs
Thought the hot dog shape was cute, a twirly design. A clever twist on the conventional corn dogs. The skwered hot dog is dipped in a special thick batter and fried, before putting through whatever contraption that creates this unique shape.

Steamed Seafood
Passed by a this shop that's advertising their fresh wild crabs. We ordered a crab each ( a bamboo rack comes with 2 crabs) - quite small, about the size of a small hairy crab. Best eaten for the roe, which sure is quite a lot in my crab. The meat is not nice though, very grainy texture. Overall still fresh and cheap, think not even 10 bucks per serving.

The snad prawns are good too, though small. Incredibly fresh and sweet, it only needs a light touch of the wasabi soya sauce. This disappeared down our tummies in a flash.

Tall tall ice cream cone
This is supposed to be another main draw at this food street too, tall ice cream cone. Each stall has designated ice-cream "coners", who sits there all day to create tall cone when you order it. Looks good, but tastes bad. Not creamy at all, just like sweetened ice with a touch of milk. Novelty item only i find.

Snackies Part II @ Dan Shui Old Street

Stinky Tofu
Real stinky, can smell this from afar. Not the usual fried one, but a grilled one with sweet sauce. Definitely not for the faint-hearted. With no deepfrying, the stink is presented in all its glory. I took a bite and that's it.

Grilled Squid

This is the same stall as the stinky tofu, but this grilled snack is much more palatable. Brushed thickly with a similar sauce as the tofu, the fat squid is thick and chewy. Two sizes to choose from - big or bigger.

Ah Gei & fishball soup

The sheer number of people packing this stall is a clear sign of it's popularity. So much so that we could not find a table nor seat - ended up standing by the stallside with a bowl of fishballs in hand.

Ah gei is a steamed beancurd pouch, filled with fried rice vermicelli. The ends are sealed with a light coating of fish paste. Supposedly to be eaten drenched with a reddish sweet sauce - break open the beancurd and mix in the sauce with the vermicelli. Did not try this though.

Their fishballs are like our foochow fishballs, with a meat filling inside. However Taiwan's version has very finely minced meat, so much so that it almost resembles a paste. Not much taste too. Fishball itself is not bad, quite smooth and QQ. Burnt my tongue in my hurry to eat it in its steaming glory :(

Iron Egg
This is DanShui's specialty snack - iron eggs. Essentially they are chicken or quail eggs, braised in a herbal soya sauce for an extended period till all the flavour has permeated the eggs. The resultant texture is quite hard and chewy due to the long braising process, but very flavourful. If you aren't keen on breaking your teeth, go for the chicken egg. Way kinder to the teeth that the super hard quail version.

Left is quail egg and right is chicken egg.

Grilled quail eggs
Thought this would be nothing surprising, just grilled boiled quail eggs. The eggs turned out to be stuffed full of silver bait! The yellow sign on the left reads "Bound to have more than 50 silver bait in the eggs, or else it will be FOC"... shows the boss's confidence in his products hahaha..

Very ordinary tasting, exactly how a silver bait omelette would taste like. Boring I find.

Fried Prawn Rolls
Wow this sure has a lot of good reviews, judging by the no. of newspaper reports and interviews done on this stall. Highly recommended by Chen Meifeng too!

Comes in a piping hot stick of 3 rolls, to be brushed with your own favourite sauce. However the sauces all seem the same to be, veering on the sweet side. Delightfully crispy too, in sync with my penchance for fried food ;)

But but... where's the prawn??? It's more like a pork and vege roll, definitely no prawn in sight or taste. Shoudl be called a meat roll instead, no?

Pepper Crispy buns
Ooohh this is my topmost fav snack in TW!!! This stall is solely manned by an old man, who does everything in a one-man show. Everything is handmade, which accounts for the authentic taste. You can opt for either lean meat filling, or the fatty belly pork version.

This just came out of the oven, all steaming hot and crispy.

The boss definitely did not stinge on the meat filling, it's chockful with pork and spring onions! Encased in a thin crispy yet lightly chewy dough, the pork was super juicy, even though we chose the lean meat version. The strong peppery aroma hits you once you bite into it... bliss...!!!

Ooooh snack time! Part I...

Taiwan is well-renowned for their street snacks, or xiao3 chi1. They have loads of night markets that open till the wee hours in the morning, truly a gastronomic haven.

Ah Chung Mian Xian @ XMD

This is a super famous stall that never fails to hold a perpetual queue any time of the day. Located right smack in the midst of bustling XMD, this is a stand-up-and-eat stall. No tables or chairs, just choose the bowl size you want, pay and wait for yours to be ladled out. A non-stop clockwork process. A big bowl (as per below) costs NT55, whereas a small one goes for NT40. All ingredients are standardized - only the size if of your choice.

Mmm... easily my second-favourite snack in Taipei, yumz!! The stock boasts of a strong bonito flavour, richly flavoured by the onion/garlic oil and seasoning further added. A lone basil leaf crowns it. The white blobs that you see on the lower right hand corner are piggy's big intestines, which apparently tastes funny according to hubby. But the rest of the steaming bowl of silky mian xian strands in the gooey tasty stock, we slurped it up in no time..


XXXL Fried Chicken @ Shih Lin Night Market
The next much hyped about street snack, the XXXL fried chicken. This is apparently the original stall, who insists on not cutting up the crispy snack, but rather have you chomp on the whole piece. My guess it that this way it shows the size of the chicken, which would have been lost had they chop it up.

In my opinion, this snack is overrated. The chicken breast (yep, it's breast meat sliced out to form a big flat piece, bones intact!) is encased in a layer of sweet potato starch before frying, which is a bit too much for me. That flavours only comes from the spice powders that are dusted on top. But to give them credit, each piece is as big as my face, and freshly fried only upon order.

Oyster Omelette @ Shih Lin
This is really different from our local orh jian - after trying it I can understand why most locals still prefer our own version. It's sweet and salty and gooey and mushy, which does not sit too well with me and hubby.

Whenever I order orh jian, I always put in special request to have my omelette fried all nice and crispy. Taiwan's version, on the eggy edges of the omeletter is crispy. A flip on the underside of the omelette, you'll see the gluey potato starch, combined with lettuce slivers and small oysters. This snack is dependent on the flavours from the reddish brown sauce, which probably explains it's generous serving. It's like a sweet fermented bean paste type of taste, more sweet than anything. Note that lard is used liberally (actually in almost all snacks it's the case!) - cholesterol alert!!!

Small sausage in Big sausage @ Shih Lin

Initially when I saw the vendor tasting away the sizzling sausages, I thought the outer fat white sausage is also a meat-bases one. Turns out it's glutinous rice encased in a intestine jacket. It comes with a few condiments like pickles and lettuce, to cut through the grease no doubt.

Interesting texture overall - the small sausage is the sweet Taiwan sausage, fatty and sweet and a bit harder that the ones we have here. The exterior big sausage is chewy and sticky, due to the tightly packed rice. The pickles and veg offers a slight sourish sweet tinge. But the most prominent smell and taste I find is that of butter - didn't realize that the sausages are all grilled and brushed liberally with that. Not bad overall, but the greasy heaviness of this gets to you after a couple of bites.

Another foodcourt post

Left out this in the previous post... This time I ordered a true blue Taiwanese set, lu rou fan, or well-braised meat bits over hot rice. Was halfway through eating when hubby reminded me that I've yet to take a pic, so here is my half-eaten meal.

The rice with the meat sauce was good, comfort food that never fails to cheer me up on a bad day. The egg was braised just nice, not too hard (like the iron egg!) but tasty with the braising liquid. Came accompanied with a bit of preserved vege, to cut through the porky grease I presume. Yummy in the tummy!

The gong wan or meatball soup was just like a normal meatball, albeit a big one. Not tasty enough for me, lose out to the porkballs I buy from the supermart. Took a bite and left the rest.

The boiled cabbage was nothing fancy, just scalded briefly in boiling water, and topped with the same lu rou sauce. Munched on a few pieces, but left it largely untouched.

The fried cod was surprising tasteless, a waste of a good piece of fish. Didn't think cod was suited to be deepfried in the first place. The exterior floury casing didn't have any taste, even the preserved vege and the drizzled teriyaki sauce could do nothing to perk this dish up.