[Food Recommendation] Chia Te Milk Cake (佳德牛奶酥餅), Taiwan

We all know about Chia Te (and Li Yu) suncake, so i won't elaborate on that.

In comparison, there's not so much reviews on the milk cake, and it was not available for tasting in the shop.

So i just bought a small box (6 pieces).

Imagine my surprise when i found out how tasty it was. It was so regretful as I was already back to Singapore.

The milk cake is very addictive. The milky taste was faint, it felt so shiok to sunk my teeth into the fragrant skin and soft but firm inner fillings.

When you're at Chia Te, you might want to just buy a piece to try. If you like, buy more, don't regret like me.

p.s. I prefer Chia Te's milk cake to their sun cake.

[Food Recommendation] Mu Ming Restaurant, Hualien, Taiwan (慕名私房料理, 花蓮)

It was a restaurant selling indigenous people's dishes, at Qixingtan, Hualien, 5 minutes walk away from Bayview Hotel (review here).

I reserved a week ago as I heard it was vastly popular. It was a weekday and the restaurant was filled with customers minutes after they start business (11.30am).

There were 3 pricings: NT$350 / NT$550 / NT$750.

I chose the NT$350 (but i heard from the driver i engaged for the next day that the locals normally go for the NT$550).

Before i start on the pictures, I have to warn you that it's one person serving only.

Appetizer
They serve the wild vegetable salad first. It was one of the most delicious salad I've ever eaten. The texture and the taste were *thumbs up*

Main course
The vegetable set on the left has wasabi, so be careful when you eat. I wasn't sure what's the transparent thing wrapping the wild vegetable, maybe it's intestine, but it's super nice. I like cactus-looking leaves too, it's very crunchy.

In the middle we have the indigenous people wild boar's meat. It's very salty, and the sausage on the left could be too jerlat after a few pieces,  thus the jam and kimchi were very good side dishes.

The combination of the tastes of the food were done really well.

Rice was refillable

Soup
Here came my favourite. The pumpkin / mushroom / wild vegetable soup.
It was so well done. i wasn't really a fan of pumpkin but this soup was DELICIOUS. I was still bummed that I wasn't able to finish it.

Drink
Other than a bottle of plain water, they gave me one honey lemon drink. I heard the popular drink was dragon fruit juice, and saw a table of family (who was staring at me weirdly for eating alone) having it.

Appetizer
I was so full that i didn't manage to eat the appetizer, i heard it's ice cream.

Conclusion
If you're in Hualien, this restaurant is a must go. It might sound simple: pumpkin, wild vegetable...etc., but it's how they cooked and combined the ingredients together that made this whole meal so delicious.

[Accomodation Review] Bayview Hotel, Hualien, Taiwan

Website to book: Bayview hotel website (English) (Chinese)

Cost: NT$4100 for a seaview without balcony. 

Location:  No. 10, Mingtan St, Xincheng Township, Hualien County, Taiwan 97143

Size of accommodation: see picture above

Accommodates: 4

Location: 2.5/5. it's at Qixingtan, 5 mins walk from a very famous and delicious indigeous restaurant, 10-15mins ride from the harbour to watch whale, 30mins from taroko gorge. but it's not at the city centre nor near the night market.

Cleanliness: 4.5/5

Host(s): Professionally friendly in general, there were a few staff that were personally friendly. they saw that i'm alone, and checked in on me from time to time.

Design: 4.5/5. Isn't it beautiful!

Facilities: 

Security: 3/5. Within hotel compund it's pretty safe at night.. the surroundings are ok as well, just a lot of constructions and at night it's pretty dark

Additional comments:

• Provide transport (a small van) to and fro train station/airport and hotel
• There's an area for you to chill, eat their tidbits/drinks, and use their computer.
• You can ask them for recommendations on where to go, what to do and hiring of drivers.Seems like they have discounted rates for drivers (to and fro city).

[Accomodation Review] M hotel, Taipei Main Station

Lobby

Family room

Deluxe Family Room

 no shower tub, and no place to put shower bags and clothes

Restaurant at 10th storey

Website to book: hotel booking websites

Cost:Family room for 1 night (127SGD including tax) Deluxe family room for 2 nights (288SGD including tax)

Location:  No.64, Sec. 1, Hankou St., Taipei, Taiwan

Size of accommodation: 22 and 24 sq m respectively, but the family room feels bigger

Accommodates: 4

Location: 3/5. It's near Taipei Main Station, Bank of Taiwan (and many other banks, except DBS, for you to change your currency), Li Yu suncake in main station, Ximending, and bookstores just across the street.

Cleanliness: 3/5. my friend had rashes on her legs after waking up

Host(s): Professionally friendly

Design: 3/5. standard hotel room.

Facilities: Wifi with no password, cable tv channels, aircon in the room. at the 11th storey, there's gym, sitting area and laundry area all rolled into one. so it's pretty weird. 

Security: 4/5. I walked alone at night, it feels safe for me.

Additional comments:

• It was a bank + hotel. The hotel starts from 6 storey onwards. So you will see bank staff in the lift, busy with their work. One of them even asked us how much was our room rate. Lol.
• The soundproof was extremely bad. I can hear somebody using the hairdryer in their shower room when i'm a few rooms and a corner away (the shower room is at the extreme inner end of the room, by the way), let alone when they speak.
• Skip the breakfast. It was overcrowded (feels like kopitiam during meal times) and the food was bad. There's a dou jiang store just next to the hotel, and some cafes around, you could use that.

Disclaimer: this post is not sponsored. The above is entirely my personal opinion.

[Travel tips] How can foreigners purchase Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR)?

Website: http://www5.thsrc.com.tw/en/

Tips (from my Taiwanese friend): It you want to travel during peak hours (i.e.weekends, 8-9am), it's better to book.
Tips (from the taiwanese taxi driver): if you go to buy the ticket on the spot within 4 hours of  departure, the tickets may be half price - not verified by us as we reserved our tickets.

Go to Ticketing information > online booking

Key in the details and click search (if you have more than 1 passenger, you can't state seat preference)

Choose the timing (and discount) that you want

An email will be sent to your email address, informing you that the tickets will only be reserved if you complete the payment by a specified time. You can choose to pay with your credit card online.

After you have paid, you will receive another email confirming your reservation.

You may choose to collect your tickets at the convenience store when you reached taiwan, or at the train station itself.

How to collect reserved train tickets (i.e. THSR, TRA) at convenience stores in Taiwan (i.e. 7-11)
- have your reservation number ready
- go to a self-service machine
- select train tickets section
- select reserved bookings
- key in reservation number
- key in requested personal particular (i.e. last 4 digits of passport)
- confirm if all details are correct (i.e. number of tickets, seat no.)
- click ok
- print out receipt and go to counter to pay the transaction fee (it was NT30 for us)
- check your tickets before leaving

[Attraction Review] Spaland Centum City, Busan, South Korea

Address: 35, Centumnam-daero, Haeundae-gu, Busan. 부산광역시 해운대구 센텀남대로 35 (우동)

Price: 
Adults: Weekdays 15,000 won / Weekends & National Holidays 18,000 won
Students: Weekdays 12,000 won / Weekends & National Holidays 15,000 won
Early-visit ticket & Nighttime ticket: Weekdays 10,000 won / Weekends & National Holidays 13,000 won

Review: 

The place of Jjimjil-bangs' and saunas.

 The entrance.

After entering the Jjimjil-bangs area (separated into male and female corners), we were to put all of our belongings (including clothes) at the women's locker area. I was tried with eye ice-cream of naked women there, casually walking around, blowing their hair, doing make-up, chatting..etc. At first it was a culture shock, as we were not that comfortable of being naked in public. But seeing how they were so at ease in their own skin, we tried to assimilate. At the spa area, we realise there were many families there. Granddaughter, mother and grandmother scrubbing each other and chatting.
Obviously no photos were allowed in this area.

After about 30mins, we went to the sauna area. On the way we saw many people lying on the floor sleeping, some of them were eating hard-boiled eggs. The sauna were themed:  Pyramid Room, Bali Room, Yellow Earth Room, Hard Wood Charcoal Room, Salt Room and so on. It was so comfortable with the heat, music and smell that i briefly fell asleep.

Pyramid room

 There's signage outside of each spa

We felt so refreshed after the experience!

[Food recommendation] Hackethals, Berlin, Germany

Address: Pflugstr. 11, 10115 Berlin, Germany

Price: below 10 euros for the dish, and the beer was less than 5 euros

Website: http://www.hackethals.de/, do email in a few days in advance to book. the restaurant was full house soon after we sat down. If not, you can try your luck by being there earlier than the opening hours. 

Review of Hackethals: The house beer was one of its kind. It was so nice! I tried many other beers but nothing matched theirs. I love their portobello mushroom pork chop as well,  it was so tender and complimented their beer very well! High recommended! I would visit this restaurant if i goes Berlin again. The son of the owner spoke English, you can ask him to do recommendations (the menu was in German).

[Food recommendation] Gold Mine Restaurant, Bayswater, London, United Kingdom

Address: 102 Queensway, London W2 3RR

Price:  A plate of duck rice costs 8.50 pounds

Review: I don't usually eat skin, but the skin was so good that i just scrapped off the fats and eat it. the meat was also very tender, and the highlight was the sauce. Being Asian, I have eaten a lot of duck rice, but this one still wowed me. (p.s. Just order the duck rice will do, the pork was normal).

(picture credit: https://www.zomato.com/london/gold-mine-bayswater/menu)