{Tea diaries}

Somehow I have always avoided the Grand Hyatt in Taipei in the past- yes, maybe in part due to the superstitious sayings of how it is seemingly haunted (almost everyone I know that had stayed there in the past has a story to tell). Out of convenience and the lack of alternatives, was finally given the reluctant chance to see for myself on my recent hopover to Taipei. The hotel lobby looked impressive - grand and spacious, with a small fountain right in the middle (?) of the hall. Promising, I thought.
My room was, however, a plain letdown – worn down and cramped, with a substandard washroom. I was surprised with the poor upkeeping, especially when compared to Sherwood or Shang, the two alternatives around town. When I complained to my colleagues, who are all frequent visitors to this hotel~ I realized I probably caught the short end of the straw. It seems while the furnishing in their rooms were tired and worn down, it was much more spacious than mine. Guess I have not used my Hyatt Gold Passport frequently enough in the past.Check out the bare bathroom. Had a glimpse of one of my colleague’s rooms and found the bathroom of a much higher standard, with a proper separate shower cubicle and bathtub. The one I had in my room was an awkward shower head fixed on top of the normal bathtub you have at home. Only got 40 min in-between meetings to grab a meal, so ordered the fastest room service available on the menu - Taiwanese-style braised pork rice (滷肉飯). This arrived promptly on a nicely laid out platter, with chili soy sauce and preserved veg accompaniments on the side. This was pretty decent, both in terms of appearance and taste, although I'd prefew the hawker stall one any time.

Best part about the Grand Hyatt Taipei is its location, as it is within walkable distance to the 101 office building and shopping complex, neo19, Warner Village, New York New York, and World Trade Center, and also the multitude of nearby office buildings. 
Unrelated to Grand Hyatt, if you were in town, the observatory tower of 101 is definitely worth a visit. Am normally not much of a fan of such activities (perhaps 'cos of the many skyscrapers we have in HK), but cocktails at 101was definitely the highlight of my trip. Afterall, 101 is still the tallest building in the world (for now). It took us an impressive 39 secs to reach the 89F of 101, where the observatory tower was situated, and the nightview was magnificent. (Sadly I didn't manage to take any pics, as we were running late for dinner~ next time perhaps).
Another plus of the Hyatt is the outdoor swimming pool, which is temperature controlled and with underwater stereo. Sherwood does not have a swimming pool, and the one at Shang is less fanciful.

Am an avid reader of many Taiwan foodies’ sites, and have been intrigued by the many rave write-ups on this Chef Show Time restaurant I keep reading about. Finally had the opportunity to visit this “must-go” restaurant recently, and I agree that it was indeed a unique dining experience.
The restaurant is located off the busy Tung Hwa South Road in a quiet side street, with an unassuming red brick exterior. The first oddity I noticed was how the tableware was laid out – a pair of chopsticks took the place of the norm fork and knife in a Western restaurant. I found out that this was the chef’s idea to encourage diners to share their food, which to us sounds like an excellent idea. In addition to being able to try out more dishes than normal, it also allow the diners to have more interaction during the meal. Chef Show Time serves more than just a European cuisine, in fact, it offers an unusual combination of Taiwanese-European fusion, which worked way better than it sounds.

We perused the menu in detail while waiting for our friend to arrive from Taichung. In English, a lot of the dishes sounded dull and ordinary, like the “poaching beef with soy sauce” and “grilled lamp chop”. Instead of relying on the bare menu, we asked the friendly hostess for recommendations and also snooped around to see what interesting dishes the other diners were having. Any of the main courses on the menu could be converted into a full set by adding NT$180 (cHK$45), which would give you an appetizer, soup, salad, bread, dessert, and drinks. Sounding like a great bargain, we opted for three sets and one more normal mains to share amongst the four of us.

Apart from Mister Donut, a Japanese sandwich shop is driving another queuing craze in Taipei - Romankan Yokohama, loosely translated as The Romantic House of Yokohama, specialises in pork sandwiches. Being the investigative journalists as we are, we decided to check it out on our recent visit. Romankan Yokohama, opened in March 2005, is situated in the corner of the food court for Breeze Shopping Center, and is hard to miss with the super long queues close to the escalator. Unfortunately we cannot show you this incredible sight, as the shop does not allow photography in its vicinity, for reasons totally beyond us.
The shop offers four different types of sandwiches - Porkloin, Chicken, Hamburger, and Vegetable patty. Prices ain't cheap at NT$75 a piece (breakfast for three at Yung Ho was only NT$80), so expectations were set high. Since it was early and we had all the time in the world before the shops opened, we stood there observing every single step involved in producing a sandwich in front of the open kitchen. In true Japanes tradition, division of labor was practised to meticulous perfection, with someone in charge of deep frying the meat, another in toasting the bread, someone else preparing the ingredients, and the final touch of assembling everything together being done by a fourth person. At the till, two young femal attendents were busy sticking the item labels to the small plastic wrap. 

Whenever I stayed with my relatives on my infrequent Taipei visits when young, I always eagerly looked forward to the break of dawn, when my cousins would bring me to the local street stalls to devour a bowl of piping hot sweet soy milk, a Taiwanese traditional breakfast choice.
Sweet soy milk (tian dou jiang/ 甜豆漿)
Nowadays, it has been so commercialised that there seems to be a branch of the famous  Yung Ho Soymilk (永和豆漿)

Was deliberating whether to recommend Fullerton for a while simply because it is such a gem for tourists. Decided in the end that sharing is better~ ha. Fullerton has two branches within Taipei, located in close proximity to one another. We chose the Fullerton 315 for our recent trip as the Fullerton 41 branch was fully booked. The latter is not only newer, but also more suited for weekend tourists, as it is within walking distance to the shopping district around the massive Sogo dept store, while 315 is closer to the business district.
Recently there has been a flood of boutique hotels in Taipei, and one that has been frequently recommended is Les Suite Taipei. I have not stayed there personally, but have visited a friend at the hotel and found it below my expectations. While the minimalistic, chic decor was very refreshing and unique for Taipei, I was let down by the service level - or the lack of service. You rarely see more than one attendant in the entire lobby, and it takes ages for room service to answer calls. In short, the hardware is all there, but it is in dire need of better software. At Fullerton, I had a much warmer welcome and the service was definitely on par. Not only did everyone speak extremely fluent English, serivce was also prompt and satisfactory.

We opted for the Executive Room (NT$3,950 + 10%) instead of the Superior Room (NT$3,350 + 10%) as we heard the rooms are a bit small. Buffet breakfast, mineral water, newspaper, ADSL broadband service etc are all included in the price, and you'd get an extra 30% off if you book online. This works out to be roughly HK$800 per night for a room for two, giving you a whopping 50% discount on the rates for the business hotels. Indeed the rooms are smaller than the Westin/ Sherwood/ Far Eastern of the world, but it was still decently sized and definitely not claustrophobic.

While a freshly prepared and cooked dinner waiting at home upon your return from work sounds enticing, more often then not, eating out is a more practical alternative for most people these days. However, good and affordable restaurants are in general hard to find, and while I adore the street vendors one sees in abundance on the streets in Taipei, sometimes I do prefer a proper sit-down meal in an air-conditioned environment. Found a street that specializes in this type of restaurants on my recent visit to Taipei.
One is greeted with an enormous selection of dishes upon entering 小李子 "Little Lee" (Direct English translation). Every dish is on display, and when you see something to your fancy, you can order with the waiter standing right behind the counter and collect your dish from him immediately.
This type of restaurants originated with the influx of Japanese tourists, who enjoy having local Taiwanese food on their visits, but dislike the street stall style affair (see night market entry). Gradually, it became popular with the locals as well, as they discovered this was indeed a good idea given the efficient semi-self-service nature, and more importantly, the reasonably priced good local food. As you can see, the selection is appetizingly huge and is comparable to any proper restaurant - with many cold and hot dishes laid out in a hygienic surrounding.

After a deeply satisfying local dinner, my aunt recommended heading over to the nearby Raoho Street night market for an after meal stroll. If it were't for the fact that we were totally stuffed from dinner, I'd probably be able to give you a more personal view of the vast variety of local snacks on offer at the night market. Now, there's only a pictorial account, which I still find highly fascinating~ (hope you do too)
Located behind Sungshan Train Station, Raoho Street Night Market is one of the more famous ones located in Taipei, and is home to over 700 street vendors. We arrived at around nine, and even thought it was a Monday night, the place was still bustling with people. I used to think that night market visits are only for tourists, but the locals outnumbered the foreigners this particular weeknight. We were totally awed by the interesting food stuff on offer - although I have no clue what half of the dishes are! Will add in random comments here and there~

One of the most popular Taiwanese dessert is shaved ice served with an assortment of toppings, including fruits, tapioca pearl, tapioca seed, sago seed, and other colorful ingredients (as below). The Taiwanese like to describe the chewy stickiness of the pearl tapioca seed using the alphabet "Q" - as in how QQ the tapioca seed is... Some dessert shops even call themselves "QQ"!
I really admire how they could eat hot food like noodles and soup in the summer time~ even though it was 9pm, I think it was at least 27 degrees C the night we visited the night market. I guess the food was really very good!
Guess what this place is~ a beauty parlor. No kidding, the technique used is threadding, which is an age-old Chinese tradition of moving a long string of thread over your face to remove facial hair, or to shape your eyebrows. The modern day equivalent is eyebrow shaping using tweezers, or shaving using facial razors. Before you act all squeamish, talcom powder is sprinkled all over your place to minimize your level of discomfort. See the guy in white - he is apparently the master expert on this, and has made numerous TV appearances to show off his skills. The place was not only packed, but with long queues waiting~ do contemplating trying it out when you are in Taipei next. (No, I did not).
There are also Ten-dollar shops here, but instead of HK$10, it is NT$10 ~ which is the equivalent of less than HK$3...
Certain parts of Taiwan conjure up images of HK in the fifties or sixties~ and this night market is definitely one of them. Kids not only could try catching fish using a small paper net at this stall...
... but could also ride on this portable Merry-Go-Round... bet you can't find that at Temple Street these days!
Taiwanese in general seem more health conscious than HK people- and recently there has been a craze over eating cuisine that has medicinal purposes. One particularly popular dish is using some Chines herbs and medicine to broil lamb - which is meant to be good for your general health. We found many people eating this nutritious dish (at the dirt cheap price of NT$60 per bowl) at the night market....
Not all the snack on offer is all that healthy though - check out the goose neck and assorted intestine & organ that a few street vendors specialise in!
Was told that this is by far the newest and most popular street vendor on Ranho Street. These freshly made steamed pork buns are called "Pepper buns" (direct translation from the Chinese name), and are apparently delicious. Was very impressed with how quickly they managed to roll out a dough from scratch. Regrettably even someone as much of a food fanatic as myself couldn't force one down (or bear to wait in the long queue) so cannot give you a first hand commentary. Do drop by on your next visit to try it out yourself.
Reaching the other end of Raoho Street, you would find yourself facing the grand-looking Sung-shan Matzu Temple, which was built in 1753. There are a few more stores located close to the temple if you would like more shopping!
There were many more interesting stalls, selling anything from handphone accessories to plastic slippers, or services from palmistry to massages. A wonderful experience highly recommended for any visitor. There are many more night markets in Taipei, each with its own distinctive flavour, including Shilin (one of the biggest and most impressive but very hectic all the time), Lungshan Temple, Shihta Road, Kungkuan, and Chingmei... plenty for you to explore!
Raoho Street Night Market, RaoHo Street

Since my going to Taipei was a bit of a late notice, Sherwood cramped me in one of the smaller corner rooms this time round.... normally the rooms are more spacious than what you see.
Pros:
+ Centrally located
+ Good service

Was in Taipei recently for work, and when we heard how awful the catering was at the hotel, we decided to sneak out for lunch in between the all day meetings. Knowing how much my overseas colleagues love wonton and dumpling, we hailed a taxi for Din Tai Fung.
With its immense success with both locals and foreigners, Din Tai Fung has expanded to two branches within Taipei, and many more overseas, including Singapore, HK, and Japan. Having only ever visited the original store, we headed for the new one on the busy Zhongxiao East Road. Arriving at twelve thirty on a weekday, we saw a queue of office workers forming outside the place already. There were more than fifteen tables ahead of us, but because of the quick turnaround, the hostess mentioned the wait would only be twenty minutes. We began ordering while waiting, making efficient use of our time.
As promised after 15 minutes, it was finally our turn. Upon entering the restaurant, one is greeted by the amazing sight of thirty-odd people cladded all in white busy making Din Tai Fung's renowned dumplings behind a huge glass window. Some were in charge of rolling out the dough, while others were busy filling up the steamers. Personally I prefer the original store where one actually walk directly pass the kitchen area, brushing shoulders with the chefs busy at work, with an up close and personal view of the whole process, before heading upstairs to the seat down area. Guess this is the less hygienic version.