Dim Sum in Yonghe?

I often visit the Yonghe area because I have several friends that live there. However I always seem to come to the same dilemma. What is there to eat around here? There used to be a nice AYCE hot pot train restaurant next to the DingXi MRT station, but that has been replaced by a large stationary store and Thai Town. Besides thai food, cake shops and a few traditional fried rice/noodle places, there isn't much to offer. Until my girlfriend told me of a Dim Sum place very close to the station. She discovered it with some friends a few weeks back. It's called 大大茶樓. So made an afternoon of it and invited some friends over to join us. It's on the third floor of the building. Ironically, you need to use the elevator in the large stationary store I spoke about earlier. Note* Upon exiting, we discovered there is another private entrance next to the Starbucks. Anyways, upon entering the restaurant lobby, we were surprised by the design of the place. It was upscale and pretty. YongHe is sort of the ghetto of the Taipei area. It's not the cleanest or most well sorted part of Taipei. So it's a change to be in a relatively upscale restaurant in YongHe. My friend said she felt like she wasn't in YongHe anymore...and she lives in YongHe. The host (later we learned he was the general manager), greeted us and offered us seats and tea. All tables were full and we had to wait for about 10 minutes, so it seemed to be a popular place. After being seated we started ordering immediately. They push the food around on carts. I truly love this old style. It's slowly being fazed out as more and more Dim Sum restaurants are converting to ordering from a menu. But I love ordering my food seeing it. Not because there's a language barrier, but with food, a picture says a thousand words! Better yet when it's actually in front of you. Moving on to the food. The restaurant's selection seems to cover the most common of dim sum offerings that I'm used to. They are missing a few, but from what was available, it wasn't bad. They still stick a few Taiwanese menu items in there, but I won't devalue them for that. In the States, you'll still find egg rolls and fortune cookies on the menu at Dim Sum. It was a delightful experience and so far one of the best, if not the best, Dim Sum places i've been to in Taiwan. The price tag ended up being about $350 a person. Not too shabby. I wouldn't mind coming back here another fine weekend afternoon. Afterwards, a few of us headed over to the LeHua 樂華 night market (still partially open during the day) for some dessert at Yu's Almond Tofu. We tried something new. Their almond soft serve on a cone with almond crumbles. Deliciously awesome as usual. Highly recommended! And I end it here, so have a good weekend everyone!

大大茶樓
新北市永和區永和路二段116號5樓
02-6637-5959
10am-10pm
http://www.dadatea.com.tw

Macha shaved snow ice red bean

Went out with a new friend that arrived to Taiwan a few weeks ago. We had a simple and quick dinner with a shaved snow ice dessert at the Lehua night market (樂華夜市). This one is one of the cheaper shaved ice places, so it tasted more like green tea than macha. Despite the neon coloring, it was just fine. I don't feel irradiated :). My friend was fine too. I don't have much else to say...haha. I just wanted to share the picture as it came out really nice with it's glossy condensed milk and melting snow ice. Enjoy with your eyes!

YongKang Jie antiques market

After class I had some business to take care of. First was to explore the YongKang Jie (永康街) antiques market. It's small and right behind the Shida MTC school campus. History has it that it was once a fish market. They carry/sell a lot of trinkets and sculptures, signs, posters, toys and jade. I have a friend who will be having a house warming in California that I cannot attend. So I'd like to find something unique and meaningful to Taiwan that can be used to adorn a wall or table. During my search, I also found a cache of old Eastman kodak folding cameras. Right next to it was a really cool Thomas Edison phonograph wax cylinder. It's the earliest form of recordable media dating to 1877. Basically it takes voice vibrations and echoes onto a rotating hard wax cylinder. After the antiques market, I had to drop off my first 35mm Agfa 400 color roll to the Shida Kodak developer. Lets hope they turn out well. I really want to find a good soft and saturated color film to use with the Leica. Thirdly, Yuki needed to buy a plane ticket back to the California. Yes, I'll be leaving end of May back to California. But only for a short bit, I'll be returning by April. Since this ticket business had to be done in Dingxi, afterwards we headed over to the Lehua night market (樂華夜市). This is the first time i've walked through here during business hours. So I got to see what they had to offer. Strolling through, nothing different than any other night market. Except for a few things. First off, they have a Hong Kong style stinky tofu (臭豆腐). It's much crispier than the Taiwanese style. And the tofu is has a hole in the middle kind of like a bowl, to hold the tofu juices. This makes this style much more crispy and moist. Maybe a little too crispy, as I prefer it a tad less crispy. Second, they have a specialty cart serving grilled lamb kabob's. They take their time cooking it, but it's sooo flavorful. Holy crap, I can eat a plateful of this! I love lamb, it's my favorite red meat. Last but not least, is Yuki's favorite ice cream dessert. It's three flavored ice cream scoops and shaved frozen peanut warped in a crepe. Maybe it's hard to imagine, but it's quite delightful. It's like a taiwanese peanut ice cream burrito. I wish I didn't have to travel all the way to YongLe for this, but maybe that a good thing. Unfortunately I did not bring my camera. So I'll have to snap pictures next time and update this entry.

Lehua night market

Tonight I visited Lehua night market because I got a tip that they had some cheap jeans there. I went there kind of late on weekday evening. So it was pretty empty, not crowded at all. Still, most of the shops and food stands were open. The streets are very wide and I suspect this allows the crowds to move around with a better flow during rush time. But I was content with just browsing around and killing time. The tip was good. I did find a few shops that sold some extremely cheap jeans, like around $400 NT. Ridiculous! That's $12 USD! OK, I don't need jeans THAT cheap. The $400 pairs were not that nice either. But they do have JD, which is a brand I have purchased before. They're not bad. I paid $1500 at Shilin and they were $980 here in Lehua. So this definitely warrants a revisit when I'm in the mood to buy another pair of jeans.