One of the things I miss about Australia is the availability of late-night ice-cream. Taiwan’s climate is perfect for it yet when the sun goes down, for the most part you’re restricted to Taiwanese ice-dessert places or 7-11 prepackaged icecream.

There is the odd icecream parlour around but it’s mostly overpriced Haagen Daz or some other brand starting at around $80 TWD ($2.70 USD) a scoop.

McDonalds is also a workable alternative and is pretty cheap but sometimes you just want something that tastes a little more like traditional icecream. If you’re lucky to live near an area that has one, that’s where places like Yofroyo come in.

Definitely not traditional yogurt, Yofroyo serves up a milk based soft-serve frozen yogurt that is rich and creamy and comes with three pre-selected toppings.

The “yogurt” itself comes in berry flavours, plain, chocolate and green tea (ewwwww) and the basic idea is that you pick one of their premade creations which feature one of the yogurt flavours with accompanying toppings designed to complement the yogurt.

I tend to steer clear of the green tea options and solely order either a berry or chocolate yogurt variety.

My favourite variety of Yofroyo has to be Chocolate Devotion (chocolate yogurt, crumbled oreo, chocolate wafer and chocolate chips):

Note that in the above photo I’ve substituted the wafers (which I don’t particularly care for) with chocolate puff balls from their “Ivory Coast” variety (regular Ivory Coast has banana in it which I don’t like).

On the particular occasion the above photo was taken, my girlfriend opted for a ‘Berry Berry Acai’ (acai berry yogurt, acai jelly, strawberries and raspberry sauce):

My other favourite Yofroyo offering is their ‘Cranberry Paradise’ (cranberry yogurt, dried cranberry, cornflakes and aloe jelly)

Whilst I can’t highly enough recommend Yofroyo’s yogurt deserts as being delicious, there are a few beefs I have with the company itself.

On my first visit they made a big fuss when I asked for them to replace chocolate wafers with chocolate balls. All yogurt sizes are the same price no matter which variety you choose so I have no idea what the big deal to them was (it was still 3 toppings all up so no change for them).

Instead of just obliging my dislike of wafers, Yofroyo instead insisted that I buy one of their DIY cups, which would have wound up costing me $10 TWD more in total. Not a large amount but kind of ridiculous when all I’m doing is substituting chocolate wafers for chocolate balls.

Since sometime last year Yofroyo have abolished the DIY yogurt option though so I’m not entirely sure what they do now if you ask them to change a topping. I’ve only had it a few times and after paying the extra $10 TWD that one time I haven’t bothered to enquire about changing anything else (I just suck it up and eat the crappy wafers or order Cranberry Paradise).

My other beef is the price hike. Around the start of 2011 Yofroyo was offering their yogurt in the large size for $95 TWD ($3.20 USD). Today the same size now costs $120 TWD $4.05 USD), an increase of 26% on the original price.

I’m not sure if this is going to be an ongoing issue but it means that I’ve had to delegate eating Yofroyo to rare treat status, which is painful to do because it tastes so good.

When you consider the general lack of dairy desserts available in Taiwan, Yofroyo definitely make for a nice alternative to mashed ice and fruit. Shame about the price though and watch out if you want to change any of their premade flavour selections!

Yofroyo is currently only available in Taipei, with stores in Xindian, Ximending, the Shida Nightmarket area, Dunan (Zhongxiao Dunhua area) and Q Square shopping mall near Taipei Main Station.

I’d just finished a bicycle ride in one of Taiwan’s 30 degree humid days (although you wouldn’t think so given the horrendous torrential rain we’ve had these last few days), and had pitstopped at 7-11 to grab a bottle of Cherry Coke.

Standing at the refrigerator trying to find it on the shelf, it was then that a rather podgy little bottle I hadn’t seen before caught my eye:

Lo and behold, it was yet another serving size option for Coca-Cola.

I guess if a 250ml slim can, 330ml short can, 355ml glass bottle, 375ml regular can, or the 600ml, 1.25L, 1.5L and 2L plastic bottles didn’t quite suit your needs, rest assured Coke now have you covered with their new 920ml bottle offering.

I kinda feel for the marketing department of Coke, I mean there’s only so many new flavours you can splice into Coke and as far as brand awareness goes there’s not all that much more they can do. But really… is there that much demand out there for a compromise between 600ml and 1.25L?

At $39 TWD ($1.33 USD) it’s not too badly priced but for $10 TWD more you can walk away with a 2L bottle so I’m not sure who the 920ml bottle is aimed at. We found it decent enough to share with two people but for 10TWD more obviously 2L (not drunk in one sitting of course) was a better option.

Keeping in mind of course that these are convenience store prices, otherwise a 2L bottle of Coke is only usually $30 TWD ($1 USD) from a supermarket.

I suppose if two people both wanted to drink Coke and didn’t want to lug a 2L bottle around though that the 920ml bottle makes sense… but I always thought that’s what the 1.25L bottle was for.

Memo to Coke: what gives?

You don’t get too many proper pasta places here in Taiwan so when I saw Cherry Bubble offering all you can eat pasta dishes I figured I had nothing to do lose by giving them a shot.

Situated next to one of our favourite all you can eat hotpot places, ‘Guo da yeh’, even if we walked in and didn’t like the place, we only had to hop next door to grab a decent meal.

That said, we did infact eat at Cherry Bubble… but it wasn’t without its problems!

Inside the decor of Cherry Bubble was nice and modern. The chandelier lighting however kinda made it feel like you were sitting in your grandparents living room and seemed out of place.

Opting for the $299 TWD (~$10 USD) all you can eat menu item, we sat through the waitress explaining to us that we had to choose one pasta dish and then could help ourselves to the buffet area.

Slightly confused (we thought it was all you can eat main dishes), we ordered are pasta and the dishes were promptly brought out to us.

I had a tomato pasta dish with beef:

and my girlfriend ordered a cheese and vegetable risotto:

Taste wise it was nothing to write home about but the novelty of eating proper pasta and risotto was worth it. Note the tiny portion sizes… obviously one dish is nowhere near enough to be considered a meal so we had to supplement our mains with buffet food.

On the buffet you had four hot dishes, two were steamed vegetable based, one was the hotpot style boiled random foods you see like in 7-11s and the last dish was beef curry.

The blue area was a salad bar and just after that was soups (corn soup and tomato from memory) and then your standard softdrinks.

I was starving after my tiny pasta dish so I wound up having two large plates of curry and rice.

Desserts on offer were various flavours of Meiji icecream:

and a series of cakes available from a cake bar:

All in all the single pasta dish was disappointing (being the whole reason we went there) but as we were leaving, my girlfriend asked about it and then found out that it was indeed all you can eat pasta.

You have to order additional pasta dishes when they collect your first pasta dish.

We didn’t kick up a big stink about it (the curry wasn’t too bad and had filled me up), but we did mention that the serving staff had said nothing and neither had the person who collected our pasta dish. All they’d said to us was that the buffet was all you can eat.

Apart from that confusion for $300 TWD Cherry Bubble is an alright eat out for something different. Just make sure you don’t let them jip you on the all you can eat pasta!

Located in Taipei City’s Ximending, access to Cherry Bubble is easy via Ximen MRT Station’s exit 6.

After a nice hot spa we found ourselves starving and luckily for us, ‘Stone Board Food’ (石板小吃) along the Old Street in Wulai was still open.

Being a mountainous area, most of the dishes on Stone Board Food’s menu were pork related. We opted for four dishes in total:

From left to right, soy based noodles with cabbage, stir-fried mountain pork, stir-fried beef and stir-fried cabbage.

All in all, a decent enough greasefest (but still tasty) meal to see us through the evening.

Dishes at Stone Board Food range from $100 TWD to $200 TWD and you pay by the plate (one dish comes on one plate). This meal was a while ago so I can’t remember if we had to pay for rice or not (if I had to guess, I’d say it was free).

Located in the middle of Wulai Township’s Old Street, access to Stone Board Food is simply a matter of strolling down the street itself. Heading towards the bridge in the centre of Wulai, Stone Board Food is on your right about halfway down the Old Street.

I think previously I’ve had Cherry Coke once before in Australia but that was so long ago that I couldn’t really remember what it tasted like.

Succumbing to one of those ‘oh I’ll just have to try that!’ moments, I picked up a bottle.

Kinda reminds me of Dr Pepper a bit, although the last time I had that was even longer ago than when I last had Cherry Coke so maybe I’m getting that flavour wrong too.

All in all, not going to sway me from my favourite Vanilla Coke (which is a bitch to get here as convenience stores don’t sell it), but Cherry Coke is decent enough for the novelty value.

Available in 600ml bottles Cherry Coke is currently priced at $29 TWD a bottle ($1 USD). Also I’m not sure if anyone else is selling it or if it’s a 7-11 specific promotion, the sign indicated that 7-11 started selling it on the 19th March so just a few days ago.

Not wanting to sit in somewhere and hungry after a decent enough ride into Wulai through the mountains along route 9, the Wild Pork King food stall just across the bridge from the Wulai Old Street looked like it’d hit the spot perfectly.

Attracting a long queue, the Wild Pork King stall seemed to be serving up wild pig on skewers, marinated in what was presumably an Aboriginal traditional style sauce.

At the front of the stall you had the cooks grilling the meat away. These guys move incredibly fast to keep up with demand, which is quite entertaining to watch when you’re waiting in the line.

There’s an older guy who I saw later who was juggling bottles around and putting on a pretty good show for the crowds.

There are some skewers you can see sitting there in the sun but with the speed these guys were grilling the pork they weren’t out for more than a few minutes at a time before hitting the grill.

Once you get to the front of the queue, you tell the serving staff how many sticks you want and they then dip the pork skewers into some sauce and hand them over.

The two tubs of sauce in the above photo look quite different leading me to believe there was different flavoured sauce but my girlfriend insisted they were the same. Also note the eskys in the background to keep the meat covered and cool, so much better than just leaving your meat out in the sun!

All up you’re looking at $35 TWD for one skewer or 3 for $100 TWD ($3.40 USD). My only complaint is that I finish them too fast. Delicious!

Finding a place to lock the bicycles up, it was lunchtime and the aromas of Wulai’s Old Street were assaulting our nostrils relentlessly.

Resistance was futile so we set about looking for something to eat.

Not really wanting to sit inside one of the cafe style restaurants that lined the Old Street and in need of a bit of a fat fix after our ride, we decided we’d go for some of the typical night market fare that was on offer.

Fried this, fried that, boiled this, boiled that… you know the stuff.

Down near the Old Street bridge was a section that had no less than five or six Taiwanese sausage stands. Not your delicious rice bun Taiwanese hotdog variety, but rather the bog standard honeyed pork sausage on a stick deal.

Personally I find these sausages much of a muchness no matter where you get them from in Taiwan, so I resided myself to the bridge and took in some of Wulai’s surroundings whilst my girlfriend chose a stand to order from.

Propping myself up against the bridge railing just to the side of some of the hotdog stands, it was then that I spotted this:

Thinking they must have just temporarily left the sausages out in the sun, I kept my eye on the box. Twenty or so minutes later and they were still sitting there.

Figuring there was more sausages in the box, it appeared this particular stand let a selection of sausages sit out in the sun, before plopping them on the grill and taking more sausages out of the box to sit in the sun again.

And if one stall was doing it… they probably all were.

Being out on the bicycles and not wanting to risk the runs, I jumped off the railing and went to find the girlfriend.

‘Yeah so… uh I’ve kinda lost my appetite for sausages.’

‘What?! But I’ve waited so long’.

‘Relax we’ll go get something else. Trust me.’

Crossing over the bridge away from the sausage stalls we then opted in for some delicious Aboriginal style marinated pork kebabs.

Being cooked out in the open and in the sun too, the kebabs were probably only a fraction more hygienic than the sausages. But with the meat not as thick as a sausage I figure you’ve probably got a better shot at, y’know… not dying of salmonella or some such.

Here’s what dinner at Taoban House (陶板屋), in the southern area of Taipei City looks like.

Being a large group we ordered the Taoban set. The set comes in at $499 each and consists of

• salad
• mulberry vinegar juice
• antipasto
• soup
• rice dish
• main
• dessert
• hot/cold drink

Salad

For my salad, I opted to have the smoked duck breast salad with grapefruit dressing.

Although only a few mouthfuls (sadly the case with most of Taoban’s menu items), I found the duck breast salad to be delicious. Grapefruit might sound like a bit of a weird dressing to have for a salad but it worked!

My girlfriend got the short end of the stick, ordering the seasonal fruit salad with seafood:

It didn’t taste bad but I think the best way to describe it was glorified coleslaw with some ground crab sticks.

Not wanting to order what I ordered, our salad choices pretty much set the tone of our orders for the rest of the meal…

…with me repeatedly coming out on top.

Mulberry Vinegar Juice

This was quite odd sounding to me, I don’t think I’d ever had a mulberry, much the less even know what they looked like.

That said, wow… talk about nice!

Quite difficult to describe it was like a sweet and sour juice but not in a Thai way. If I described Thai sweet sour soup as savoury, this was like a sweet, fruity alternative.

Delicious!

Antipasto

Baked King Oyster Mushroom was the only antipasto on offer.

I love mushrooms and eagerly wolfed down my serving.

Soups

Knowing that steak was coming later, I still couldn’t help myself and opted for the Beef Soup with Lilly Bulb.

I was a bit cautious on the lilly bulb, having had a terrible experience with flower soup before but thankfully the lilly bulb in this soup was mild. The beef broth was delicious and with more beef taste than lilly bulb, I was more than happy.

My girlfriend on the other hand felt a bit left out with her Cream of Mushroom soup:

Not that it tasted bad and wasn’t creamy, but having just come from the King Oyster Mushroom antipasto she was a little mushroomed out.

Rice

Again sticking to the meat dishes I ordered the plain sounding Steamed Rice with Beef and Basil’:

Again only a tiny portion was served but it was rich enough in taste to distinguish itself from being just rehashed fried rice. A nice light interlude after our soups.

Not too sure on the little black jar/pot thing the rice came in though, I felt a bit like Winnie the Pooh scooping out my rice…

My girlfriend ordered the Deep Fried Rice Ball with Shrimp in Pesto Sauce and…

…it wasn’t nearly as nice as my beef and basil rice.

Main

Taobao I believe translates into ‘pottery board’ so Taobao Steak (I think) is named after the way it is cooked, presumably on some kind of pottery board (pan?).

Either way, I ordered the Taobao Steak and had no regrets!

This was the one dish my girlfriend didn’t mind ordering the same thing I did so at least she had one decent dish.

Here’s how the Beef Steak with Garlic and Plum (sauce?) looked:

And somebody else ordered the simply titled ‘Steak and Fish Set’:

Dunno how they tasted but they sure looked good (although the fish set does look a little sloppy…).

Dessert

Only one dessert caught my eye and that was the Dark Chocolate Mint Mousse.

Painfully tiny in size, what few mouthfuls I could salvage only left me wanting more. I could have happily had a mousse block five or six times the size of what was served.

Other, less appetizing sounding desserts on offer were the Red Bean Flan:

And Orange Ice Souffle:

Drinks

Almost making up for the tiny serving sizes was this scrumptious Tiramasu Iced Coffee:

I’m a big fan of iced-coffee (I don’t drink the regular kind) and the addition of tiramasu to the coffee was a definite hit with me. Highly recommended.

The only other drink I got a snapshot of was the Iced Fruit Tea:

Rather plain looking (and no doubt tasting) in comparison to my iced-coffee I thought.

All up for $499 TWD ($16.90 USD) I thought Taoban House was pretty decent value.

With somewhat of a Japanese styling, the tiny serving sizes were kind of offset by the amount of courses offered (despite my expectations I wasn’t left hungry after the meal), but personally I would have preferred to knock off one or two of the items off the set in favour of larger serving sizes.

Still, as a nice pleasant alternative to beef noodles and your typical Taiwanese cuisine, Taoban House still has a distinctive Asian feel to it and there’s quite a bit of creativity behind the menu and presentation.

I think there are a few Taoban Houses around Taiwan, with the one we went to being easily accessible in Taipei City’s Daan District Area.

The nearest MRT station is the Technology Building Station on the Brown Line with a short walk down HePing East Road.

Guting Station on the Blue line is a few blocks to the west of the above map along HePing East Road, but the walk down is a bit longer and would probably be about 15 minutes.

Note that the entrance to Taoban House isn’t on Heping East Road, it’s actually on the smaller XinSheng South Road and consists of nothing more than a small staircase leading up:

A little difficult to find if you’re not expecting it. One would think they’d at least put some sort of signage there other than the menu… but hey, welcome to Taiwan.

Sure I have a sweet spot (no pun intended) for those little $100 per some local measurement I have no idea about where you just fill up whatever lollies you want in a plastic bag. But at the end of the day I know I’m buying machine-made gummies from who knows where and with who knows what in it.

Thus, even the slightest hint of tradition and love of making sugar treats in Taiwan invariably elicits an enthusiastic response from me.

It was on a walk through Wulai’s Old Street where I came across the ‘Sugar Onion’ store.

Outfront you have (I assume) the guy who owns the store, and with his dad he puts on a pretty good show making sugar candy (I’ve had this before but can’t remember the exact name for it).

Quite similar in how pasta is made (from memory), there’s a lot of stretching and showmanship in moulding what is essentially a lump of sugar dough type material into candy.

And he must be doing something right as there’s always a crowd out front enthusiastically watching him go about his work.

After he’s made his batch, it’s then dutifully cut up by his parents and ready for purchase. The father looks like he knows a bit about the trade so not sure if this is a father-son thing or whether the dad just helps out.

For $100 or $150 TWD or so (can’t remember exactly) you can buy a bag of his homemade sugar candy.

And if you’re wondering about the use of the word “onion” in the name (糖蔥), I’m told it’s due to the candy looking a bit like garlic, the bottom of a spring onion (the white bit).

Taste wise the candy readily melts in your mouth and appears to have no preservatives in it. The owner was kind enough to stress that once opened we sealed the candy and keep it in the fridge, otherwise eat it within 48 hours.

Mmmm, not something I can have too much of in one sitting but deliciously better than industrial candy… just make sure you don’t accidentally cut your tongue on any sharp surfaces as the candy melts in your mouth!

What Ximending is to young adults and fashion in Taipei, Shida Nightmarket is to food. There’s plenty to eat here and it’s priced for university students. Unfortunately the same can’t be said about most of the shopfronts there, with a lack of vendors in favour of more traditional boutique shopfronts slowly taking over.

Away from the main strip that serves as the main nightmarket area, you’ve also got a bunch of side streets offering a more cafe/restaurant environment for those wishing to escape the nightmarket crowds.

That said, the nightmarket area retains most of its urban culture and is one of the “warmest” nightmarkets I’ve been to in Taiwan.

Well, not if the Taipei City Government and cranky residents of the surrounding area have their way.

Citing some bullshit Taiwanese law that states ‘restaurants are not allowed within a radius of 8 meters from residential buildings‘ (that makes what, nearly every eatery in Taiwan illegal?), the residents of Lane 13 Pucheng Street in the Shida Night Market area petitioned the local government do so something about the noise Lane 13 was generating.

Shortly before the turn of the year, the city government, at the request of long-suffering local residents who organized themselves into a “self-relief association, medium-sized demolition vehicles struck down the signs, neon or otherwise, of the “exotic” eateries lining (Lane 13 Pucheng St).

The lane, which has over time become a hub of international cuisine (Korean, Indian, Malaysian, Thai, Tibetan are just some of the countries represented), is now under threat as the government has hinted that removing the signs is only the first step in the complete removal of business there.

The signs are the first to go, and the evictions of the businesses cannot be ruled out, the owners of the eateries were told.

Whilst the eateries sit on the borders of what can be constituted Shida Nightmarket, it appears the government is escalating a growing desire to eradicate Shida Nightmarket altogether.

Following a protest by residents of the area in October last year , Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) announced that ‘no further expansion of the Shida Night Market would be permitted‘.

Recently however the first shots appear to have been fired with Taipei City Government removing the words ‘Shida Night Market’ altogether from the nearby Taipower Building MRT station (the main public transport entry/exit point for the nightmarket).

The ‘Longquan Market’ that Shida Nightmarket has been replaced with, is from what I understand a regular run-of-the-mill Taiwanese daytime grocery market. These markets are a dime-a-dozen in Taiwan and why this needs a mention as a local attraction escapes me.

It’s a bit like listing Walmart in a tourist guide.

The removal of Shida Night Market from the TaiPower MRT station signage was apparently done in response to yet another petition filed by locals. In addition the petition requests that the government

remove the name ‘Shida Night Market’ from all official bulletin boards, road navigations (signs), tourist brochures and  even bus stops.

All traces of Shida Nightmarket have also apparently been removed from the Taipei City Government Tourism website.

This appears to have been done in response to yet another petition filed by local residents. In addition to the removal of ‘Shida Night Market’ from the MRT signs,

Because yeah… pretending the nightmarket doesn’t exist will fix it. I imagine once the local’s demands have been met, they’ll simply launch new petitions requesting the government take more action towards the eventual close of Shida Nightmarket altogether.

Clearly this appears to be the ultimate end-goal for local residents.

Shida Nightmarket appears to have its origins dating back to 1987 but didn’t really develop into a fully fledged nightmarket until the early 1990s.

Roughly twenty years old give or take, Shida Nightmarket is currently one of Taipei’s busiest tourist attractions, generating ‘NT$12.3 billion (US$408.6 million) in 2009, rising to NT$14.7 billion last year‘.

It’d be a shame to see Shida Nightmarket disappear just because some locals can’t play Mahjong in peace…


Additional source used: UDN (English)


Update 9th February, 2012 – Citing another bullshit rule that states

commercial services as restaurants, retail stands and shops are not allowed to be operated in lanes with a width of under six meters.

Taipei City government appears to have escalated their war on Shida Nightmarket by asking 70 stores to ‘to improve their environmental protection, safety, and anti-fire facilities‘.

Looks like the same thing that happened down in Taichung with nighclubs is going to happen at Shida. Namely that bullshit regulations nobody follows are going to be used to slowly close most of the shops operating in the nightmarket until there’s so little open that it’s not worth going to anymore.

I’m pretty sure that the main street (where the 7-11 is (not Shida Rd)), is less than 6 meters wide, so what – all of those stores are now illegal?


Update 11th February 2012 – Shida nightmarket stores have started to take down their street signage after threats of closure were sent to 70 stores were sent.

The threats demanded that the stores ‘improve firefighting and environmental protection measures‘ which the stores have taken to mean clearing out the roads infront of their stores.

Outside of nightmarket hours this might make a difference but during nightmarket hours (when I imagine fires are most likely to break out), I’m pretty sure signs or no signs it’s still going to be a stretch to get a firetruck into a crowded area.

Along with taking down their street signs, stores have also started to self-regulate, opting to

close their businesses by 10 p.m., ensure storekeepers and customers leave the area by 11 p.m., keep windows closed during opening hours and lower music volumes

A nightmarket that closes at 10pm? …what’s the point?


Update 23rd February 2012 – The restaurants and food stalls of Shida Nightmarket are fighting announcing that as of 12pm today they are closing.

The idea behind the voluntary “strike” is that ‘local residents and students to experience the inconveniences of living‘.

Not to mention the thousands of other visitors that flock to Shida Nightmarket daily. Although perhaps with Taipei’s rain, not so much today.

Should have held the strike yesterday guys!

Interestingly the NowNews article (Google translate breaks the article so use Chrome to translate into English), makes no mention of when the restaurants will reopen. I’d assume tommorow but with imminent closure hanging over their heads perhaps this will go on longer.

Taiwanese people seem to love their convenience above all so it’ll be interesting to see if the lack of a nightmarket has any affect on local residents’ stances towards it.

Meanwhile I imagine the 7-11 down the main nightmarket street is going to make a killing today!


Update 26th February 2012 – Turns out the day protest was only for an hour so most likely had little impact. One would think if vendors were serious about protesting they’d shutdown for a whole afternoon/evening.

Sure they lose a days wage but when their entire livelihoods are at stake?

Another half hour protest was scheduled last night (Feb 25th) where for a half hour vendors turned off their lights and instead used glowsticks ‘ to pray for the future of one of the city’s top tourist attractions‘.

91 vendors who received notices from the city government about their illegal operations, more than 30 had shut down. About 30 other shop owners plan to move to other locations.

If they’ve resorted to praying for the future things musn’t be looking good at all…


Update 29th February 2012 – Whilst most business owners seem content to shutdown, hang yellow ribbons outside their shops or flee, 9 business owners are fighting back against the government.

The nine owners have announced plans to retain

a lawyer with a plan to appeal the city government’s fine of NT$60,000 each and their order to halt business operations.

They also plan to file administrative litigation against the city government’s acts.

The main beef the owners have appears to be 20 years of promotion and encouragemnent of business owners to make Shida flourish, and then a sudden officially unexplained ‘about-face to shut down their business’.

Meanwhile local residents are

emphasizing that the (Shida) district has long been designated as a “cultural and educational region” in accordance with the zoning code because of its proximity to Shida and other cultural institutions.

The residents claims that all they want is to restore peace and serenity in a cultural environment by eliminating the bustling cacophony, loud noises by late night customers, and foul smells of cooked dishes or barbecues that always permeate the air day and night.

They’re arguing that night markets aren’t a cultural asset to Taiwan? Sorry, what?!

All I heard about when I got here was ‘nightmarket this and nightmarket that’ as I learnt more about Taiwan… and as for Stinky Tofu? It’s a freaking cultural religion here!

What country are these residents living in?


Update 17th March 2012 – 500 Shida nightmarket vendors met with Taipei City Government officials a few nights ago and finally called them out on ‘double standards in its targeting of illegal businesses in the area.’

It’s no secret that the proximity and zoning laws being cited in the “cleaning up” of the Shida nightmarket area are being largely ignored city-wide.

“At least 16 of the restaurants that have been forced to close received awards from the city government in the past and most of the vendors follow regulations, but are still fined. Shouldn’t the city government apologize for adopting double standards?” vendors’ self-help association spokesman Chen Cheng-hsiang (陳澄祥) said.

As I see it now, the government can ignore the vendors and continue their hyprocritical policing of laws that are ignored everywhere else, or worse… start applying these laws Taipei-wide and shutdown most businesses in the city (like that’s going to happen…).

The battle continues…


Update 21st March 2012 – Good news for Shida Nightmarket vendors today as the Taipei government announced:

Businesses set up in alleys less than 6m wide, which violate a Taipei City urban planning bylaw that prohibits the operation of restaurants, retail stores or service–related businesses in small alleys, can continue to operate if they do not violate other regulations.

“The city government will not demolish Shida Night Market. Our priority will be to deal with vendors that seriously violate regulations,” Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said at Taipei City Hall.

Sounds good to me! As to the scope of ‘violating other regulations’,

Under the proposed regulations, the city government would adopt a points system to assess the vendors’ performance. Those who break noise and air pollution, social order and construction regulations will be cited for violations.

The city government will then fine or demand that businesses cease operations depending on their overall score, Chen said.

Of course the locals aren’t happy:

Local borough chief Pan Wei-liang (龐維良), in a public hearing with Da-an District (大安) residents yesterday, lashed out at Hau and his administration for failing to keep a promise to clamp down on all illegal businesses in the neighborhood.

“Your administration should implement the law, but it has failed to do so, and city officials owe local residents an apology,” Pan said.

But surely they can see the hypocrisy in enforcing strict regulations in the Shida Nightmarket area whilst largely ignoring them in the rest of Taipei City.

Either Shida Nightmarket stays or all nightmarkets get shut down (they all violate the laws being used to threaten Shida nightmarket vendors).


Footnote: This news story uses a Chinese news source that  has not been published in English and as such I’ve done my best to translate. I’m not fluent in Mandarin so my translations might be slightly off.

Any corrections are welcome and can be published below as a comment.

During this time I like to take in my surroundings. The people around me, all stuffing their faces or ignoring eachother with their smart phones all offer a few moments relief from the meal at hand.

A look over at the food area rekindles any forgotten ‘oh I have to try that’ memories and a surveying of the decor itself often reveals little gems I might otherwise have missed.

Sitting in Greenness Hotpot in Banciao one night, it was there that I discovered ‘The Art of Food’:

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

Quite obviously not even in the slightest way connected food, let alone the art of it, I snapped a photo and made a mental note to investigate Greenness’ Art of Food when I got home.

A short Google search later revealed that indeed the Art of Food had nothing to do with food. Turns out Greenness’ the Art of Food was incorrectly titled and consisted of the first two verses of ‘Spring, the Sweet Spring’.

Spring, the Sweet Spring being poetic lyrics written Thomas Nashe around the year 1592 as part of the play ‘Summer’s Last Will and Testament‘.

Performed below by the Infinito Nightingales back in 2008:


With Greenness Hotpot not exactly priced to attract the patronage of the creme de la creme of Taiwanese high society, I’ll forever wonder if the appearance of Nashe’s play was intentionally included by the owner of Greenness, or merely the result of some an interior designer’s random whim.

‘A bit of high-brow English poetry with your hotpot, sir?’

‘Why thankyou*munchmunchmunch*that’d be*munchmunchmunch*splendid*munch*!’

A favourite (and I can only presume staple) thankyou gift appears to be a box of individually wrapped cookies. By and large whilst these cookies (biscuits) usually come in a fancy box, I’ve found they’re nothing worth writing home about.

Last year I attended one particular wedding where, in addition to cookies we also got a rather strange little box.

The back of the box looked like a regular offering of ‘Moringa Adzuki Bean Caramel’ candy:

But flip the box over and you had a nice little quaint wedding gift:

Apart from the printed photo, special touches include ‘Happy Milk Caramel’ on the front (which should probably read ‘Happy wedding’ or something?) and the couple’s wedding date written underneath the barcode.

The only problem with such a gift I found was that once you’d finished the candies… you kinda felt massively guilty about throwing the box away.

Good thing I didn’t know the couple to well and had no such reservations!

But shame the candy tasted horrible.

Seriously Taiwan, you need to get over your love affair with red-bean flavoured everything… it all tastes like freaking arse!

I’m not entirely sure when 7-11 started stocking it but I’ve had my eye on a little blue can I noticed popping up in the energy drink section of their refrigerators.

A few days ago I thought what the hell and decided to try Laohu Yatzi out.

What a mistake that was.

Manufactured by O²+ Life Co., they describe Laohu Yatzi as

the drink of the 21st century.

Laohu Yatzi is refreshing and aids the body in recovering from aerobic exercise, restore lost essential vitamins and promote a sense of general well-being.

It helps to boost the body’s ability to uptake Oxygen in the body, and helps metabolism too.

Translated literally as ‘Tiger’s tooth’, I suppose O²+ Life Co. are trying to cash in on the old Chinese association with eating tiger parts and good health. By calling your drink ‘Tiger tooth’, you probably hope people will drink it for the same reason they chow down on tiger penis soup in China.

What I didn’t realise till I got home though was, despite it being clearly grouped with 7-11′s energy drink offering, Laohu Yatzi is more a sports (“aerobic”) drink.

As such it’s not fizzy!

That and it’s got a pretty mellow orange Vitamin C type flavour to it. Essentially what you wind up with is a drink that tastes like someone mixed a berocca with water, regurgitated it into a can for you and then diluted it with some more water.

I did note on the can it mentioned ‘Light’ (I couldn’t see a full-strength version anywhere), so I’m not sure if that had something to do with the appalling taste.

That said, why the hell do you need to make a ‘light’ version of a sports drink anyway?!

Laohu Yatzi Aerobic Drink – Unless you like that non-fizzy watered down Vitamin C taste, this is one drink you’ll want to pass on.

Around June of last year I paid a visit to Laodong Beef Noodles down in Banciao Distict of Taipei County and enjoyed a highly satisfying bowl of regular flavoured beef noodles.

With LaoDong’s regular flavour beef noodles being an excellent mix of spice and oniony broth, with the meat slow-boiled for around 24 hours, I walked away keen to try LaoDong’s other beef noodle offerings – in particular, the tomato flavour.

A few weeks ago I was in the area and had the chance to sit down and order me a bowl of LaoDong’s tomato flavoured beef noodles.

When I first visited LaoDong, I lamented that LaoDong

had a tomato flavour offering too which looked interesting, if not sounding a bit bland

and unfortunately, this turned out to be pretty accurate.

In comparison to Laodong’s regular beef noodle offering, the tomato variety tasted like heavily watered down packet soup that totally destroyed the flavour of the dish.

Why LaoDong even offer the tomato variety when the regular flavour is so full of flavour I have no idea. If you ever find yourself looking to dine at Laodong though, probably best to just stick with the regular beef noodles.

LaoDong do have some other varieties of beef noodles on offer but with the tomato flavour turning out to be so boring I’m entirely terrified of trying anything else for the time being.

Still, there are times when I feel, as much of a devoted follower of the hamburger that I am, that even I pale in comparison to the true hamburger devotees out there.

This niche of society operates in complete secrecy, most likely largely due to the ridicule that follows when you tell someone just how much you love hamburgers.

Occasionally though, in rare moments of revealing clarity, a glimpse of this cult-like cross-section of society can be seen – if you know where to look and more importantly, what to look for.

The other week I walked past a billboard for MOS Burger.

For those not in the know, MOS Burger are a Japanese burger chain that specialise in serving tiny overpriced hamburgers that almost always leave you hungry. Possibly even more hungry than when you first walked into the store…

To the untrained eye, the MOS Burger billboard above is innocent enough. But take a closer look and well, clearly someone at MOS Burger takes their hamburgers a wee bit too seriously…

‘Hamburger is my life’… really guys?

If MOS Burger weren’t some multinational giant corporation, you’d almost want to forgive them for their enthusiasm. Instead, the billboard left me with a shudder that resonated down into the deepest recesses of my spine.

The day I ever meet someone who agrees that hamburger is indeed their life, is the day I finally lose all hope for humanity.

On the other hand, maybe it’s just the final realisation that the man in the mirror is now truly what terrifies me.

May whatever hamburger god you choose to believe in have mercy on us all.

With the standard price for all you can eat hotpot in Taipei city starting at roughly $500 TWD ($16.50), sometimes it pays to venture out of the city into the surrounding Taipei County.

If you look hard enough, it’s often possible to score yourself an all-you-can-eat hotpot meal for well under $500.

As the current temperature in Taipei continues to hover around 10 degrees C, today I’ll share with you a recent dinner we had at Greenness Hotpot.

Situated in Banciao District, just south of Taipei City, Greenness Hotpot is quite large compared to Taipei City’s cosy hotpot places.

On offer a variety of hotpot flavours for you to pick from:

Personally I have a thing for curry flavoured hotpots so I ordered this and am happy to report the flavour was quite delicious. The girlfriend went with the spicy flavour and equally found it satisfying.

Being an all you can eat buffet, it’s up to you to get up and serve yourself and Greenness provide you with a huge selection to stuff yourself with.

At the far end you’ve got a refrigerated wall of meats and chilled foods,

and in the centre a series of heated mains for you to help yourself from, along with various steamed dumplings and soups.

If you’re craving sushi, Greenness have a manned sushi bar you can order from,

and I believe these guys will also cut up various types of hotpot meat on request if you’re not happy with the wall fridge offerings of meat.

Oh, and there’s plenty of options to choose from when it comes to mixing your sauce too!

For dessert there’s a cabinet of cakes and bread, and in the centre aisle you’ve got jellies and two fondue fountains (milk chocolate and white chocolate) to dip marshmellows and breadsticks in. Greenness also has a selection of Meiji icecream as well as several brands of individually wrapped icecreams to enjoy.

There’s also a well stocked drinks bar down one side offering a ton of drink choices and around the corner from that is a soft drink fridge serving delicious Coke, Fanta and Sprite in glass bottles!

After filling my plate up, I went back to our table and marvelled at the wonder that is all you can eat hotpot in Taiwan.

Sometimes the staff let the meat and more popular dishes run out at these large all you can eat hotpot places, but I’m happy to report this didn’t happen at Greenness. Stuff did run out but the staff were constantly refilling everything up.

Coming in at $379 TWD ($12.50 USD), Greenness Hotpot is definitely a viable cheaper alternative to Taipei City’s all you can eat hotpot joints. $121 TWD might not sound like much in savings but if you eat hotpot regularly it’s a noticeable difference over the long-term.

Greenness Hotpot is located on Section 1 of Wenhua Road in Banciao between Banciao and Xinpu MRT stations (blue line).

I’m not sure of the exact address (website URL is in Chinese) but if you’re heading from Banciao Station, Greenness is on the left side of Wenhua Road (it’s huge, just look for the giant fish logo).

Not really having a stocked kitchen, much the less an oven, this year we found ourselves once again eating out on Christmas Day.

The venue of choice for Christmas Dinner in Taipei this year was On Tap, a bar situated in central Taipei City.

Coming in at around $750 TWD (~$25 USD) or so, On Tap’s Christmas Dinner was a three course meal with one complimentary drink.

The drinks on offer were Tiger Beer, red and white house wines and San Miguel Light. I’d had a mug of San Miguel before and didn’t particularly like it, and not feeling like wine I opted for a bottle of Tiger.

Next up was our entrée, a bowl of corn soup:

The soup was pretty good I thought. Creamier then the corn soup you get from McDonalds or the steakhouses. It also had a little cubes of meat in it too which was good (chicken or ham, was difficult to tell!).

Shortly after that was our main, which was an assortment of meats and veg.

You had turkey, brussel sprouts, carrots, peas, a sausage wrapped in bacon (delicious!), brocoli and some potatoes. Rather than offer condiments separately, each plate also came with a serving of bread sauce, gravy and cranberry sauce.

Personally I found the main quite satisfying and a nice change from my usual staple diet of Taiwanese food. The best bit was definitely the bacon wrapped sausage, I could have easily downed 3 or 4 of those!

Desert was a straightforward affair,

A chocolate brownie with some icecream. I’m not exactly sure what it was but the brownie had some sort of fruit inside (cranberry?), which offered a nice slightly sour taste to offset the sweetness of the chocolate and vanilla icecream.

I know that doesn’t sound appetizing but I found the combination worked. Again, could have easily eaten 3 or 4 of these but that’s just my big mouth talking.

All up, not bad for just over $20 and with On Tap being a bar, afterwards you’re free to relax and have a few drinks.

Some of the other patrons did seem to get a bit loud later in the night though and I heard a glass smash at one point… but from what I could see nothing too out of control.

Back in Australia without a doubt my favourite junk food escape was a McDonalds Quarter Pounder meal.

Not something I’d eat regularly, but when that fatty food craving hit, a Quarter Pounder meal was always the ticket for me.

When I came to Taiwan unfortunately I had to give this treasure up. Unfortunately McDonalds Taiwan didn’t have any love for the Quarter Pounder – instead replacing it with a crispy skin grilled chicken burger and some weird grilled chicken marinated burger that I’ve never seen anyone eat.

To my surprise, I was walking past a McDonalds the other day when I saw on the door what looked like a Quarter Pounder.

Flushed with excitement but still not sure if it actually was a Quarter Pounder and not some crappy Taiwanese copy version I was looking at, I ordered a double and when the box came let out a small squeal.

Indeed McDonalds Taiwan are now offering the one and the same Quarter Pounder I’d grown so fond of back home.

Obviously only to be eaten in moderation, but as delicious as I remember them being back home.

Pricewise they’re just as comparatively dirt cheap as the rest of McDonalds with the normal Quarter Pounder coming in at $125 TWD ($4.15 USD) for a regular meal and the double $145 TWD ($4.81 USD).

The Quarter Pounders are listed as ‘new’ rather than the usual for a limited time so if I didn’t know any better, I’d say they are permanent additions to the McDonalds Taiwan menu lineup.

Life in Taiwan has its ups and downs and whilst a simple menu change at McDonalds might not be all that much – stay here long enough and you quickly learn to roll with the punches and take the good news any which way it comes.

Here’s to high cholesterol and fat clogged arteries!

The first thing you’ll probably notice about the Taipei International ‘New Row Mian’ Beef Noodle Festival is the ridiculous spelling of the event.

I’m not sure why, but rather than opt for calling it the Beef Noodle Festival or using the correct Pinyin, the organisers seem to have just slapped together English words that sound right, but have nothing to do with beef noodles.

If I had to take a punt, I’d say this come from the practice of putting together whatever Chinese words fit together to sound out English words that can’t be directly translated (such as names).

Unfortunately Taipei International New Row Mian Festival didn’t seem to get the memo that the reverse in English doesn’t really work.

That aside, for fans of beef noodles festival is a must visit. With so many beef noodle varieties on offer, you’ll be wishing you had the four stomachs of a cow to sample it all.

Haw haw haw, see what I did there.

Hosted at ZhongShan District’s ‘Expo Dome’ (next to the ZongShan soccer stadium and YuanShan MRT station) in the north end of Taipei City, the Taipei International Beef Noodle Festival is a moderately sized affair showcasing what is supposed to be the best of beef noodles in Taiwan.

There was an international offering there… but from the one enthusiastic local couple we spoke to, they said it was pretty crappy compared to the local samples available (no beef chunks, just thin slices of beef!).

On offer were probably 20-30 different beef noodle makers and the basic idea is that you walk around and for $50 TWD ($1.65 USD) get a small sample cup size of their beef noodles to eat.

Situated around the main vendor area are seating areas for you to sit and enjoy your beef noodle samples.

These areas can get a bit messy but the festival staff were quite efficient in keeping areas clean and running smoothly.

There are bins provided to throw your own rubbish out so if you go don’t be a dick and leave your bowls and crap on the table (like most people did), just throw it out. It takes a whole thirty seconds of your time and the people waiting to use the eating area after you will be thankful.

Arriving mid afternoon, we managed to hit up three beef noodle joints before finding ourselves full;


Taiwan Yi Pin Ramen and Sliced Noodle

Taiwan Yi Pin Ramen and Sliced Noodle had won awards in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010 so we had some pretty high expectations ordering a sample from here.

To add to your noodles you had selection of various meats and organs as well as the additional option of some grilled stinky tofu.

Wanting to focus just on the beef noodles we each just ordered a bowl of the noodles.

Being the first meal we were having for the day we were eager to wolf down the noodles but unfortunately Taiwan Yi Pin’s beef noodles were the most bland of the three we had.

The beef was nice enough and you got a nice big tomato with your noodles but the taste was massively lacking. Basically you felt like you had a very weak tomato based soup with some boiled noodles and beef thrown in.

These guys really need to work on pumping up the taste of their noodles.


Royal House

Royal House noodles were our second pick and this was largely based on the consistently huge line they had out the front of their stall.

With so many customers to serve, here you can see the Royal House production line;

and evidently winning giant beef noodles trophies is serious business.

Just look at the guy’s expression. He’d totally rip your face off and serve it for dinner if you dare criticise his noodles.

I’m not usually one for standing in queues but not really being hip to the Taiwan beef noodle scene on a name basis, just decided to go with it.

Thankfully we did as Royal House beef noodles was easily my pick of the day.

Their beef was succulent and their soup was awesome. I’m a big fan of slightly salty noodle broth (not too much) and Royal House was a perfect mix of onion and beef flavour soup.

Highly recommended.

Yong Kang (永康)

Yong Kang really surprised me as in stark contrast to some of the other beef noodle displays around, these guys had nothing up and were simply just a white blank stall.

Despite this though, throughout the day they had a consistently long massive line out the front of their stall.

Apparently Yong Kang is famous around Shida Night Market and going off the enthusiasm of the locals I just had to try some.

This guy had a pretty hardcore job, note the compression band on his elbow!

Unlike Royal House and Taiwan Yi Pin, Yong Kang used thick sliced noodles in their beef noodles and this guy stood around all day shaving the noodles off a big chunk of noodle dough (or whatever you call it).

He was super friendly though. Not sure if he spoke English (didn’t want to bother him as he was quite busy) but he smiled and said hi to everyone in the line as they went by.

The best part about Yong Kang noodles was the beef. I don’t know what they do to marinate it but it’s infused with the most delicious slightly spicy flavour.

The bad part about Yong Kang noodles was the sample bowl only had one piece of meat in it, whereas everyone else gave you 3-4 chunks of beef.

The soup wasn’t as flavourful as Royal House but the beef more than made up for it. On the day I still picked Royal House as the best tasting out of the three we sampled but it could have easily been Yong Kang if they’d included 2-3 chunks of beef with the noodles.

Other than eating beef noodles there wasn’t all that much else to see. As you walked around speakers everywhere blared out what was going on from the main stage area at the back of the hall.

For about the first hour we got there, some annoying company was promoting their Australian beef and all you could constantly hear was the promoter woman shrieking ‘Ow-jo niu-ro!’ (literal translation: ‘Australian beef’) into the microphone trying to get the audience pumped.

Every so often they’d all shoot their hands up and I assume someone won a prize.

This went on for about an hour and then some belly dancers came out.

They  weren’t exactly lookers but the middle-easterny music was a welcome relief from the shrill cries of ‘au-jo nui-ro!’ that had been blasting our eardrums.

Just off to the side of the stage you had the chef preparation area with chefs from the various teams cooking furiously away.

I think there were just under thirty teams competing and I think they had to prepare beef noodles from scratch (?).

Later once the chefs were done you could actually walk in around the area and whilst I’m not sure if this is what the chefs were working on, on show were artistic displays of beef noodles.

As you can see some of the art was quite elaborate and a lot of thought had obviously gone into the presentation.

With so many restaurants vying for business, it was interesting to see some of the sales tactics used.

Some stalls used giant statues:

whilst others relied on kinky maid sex appeal to draw in the hungry masses:

Walking around the back end of the festival was kind of like stepping into the twilight zone. There were some stalls selling pots and pans which I can understand but what some of these vendors had to with beef noodles I have no idea.

The above photo I think was of some shoe soles and behind it you had all sorts of massage chairs, LED lights and other random stuff.

Mobile phone manufacturer HTC and a bedding vendor:

Remote control helicopter guy:

A fruit vendor:

This woman was giving out what I think were resort discount tickets to a very enthusiastic gathering:

Hell, even Costco were there…

Along one side of the festival area you also had this giant comic display set up;

Unfortunately all the comics were in Chinese… but even without a translation they looked confusingly random;

Two rich guys meet, fantasise about cows in lingerie and then go on to start up the beef noodle festival??

If you brought kids along and they got bored, there was a little area near the comic wall where they could sit and color in some cows on paper;

Also small dogs are allowed in too,

I saw one woman with three medium sized dogs in a pram though so I don’t know what the rules are, health and safety regulations be damned!

Finally towards the end of the day the news cameras burst in and began to take over prime real estate near the stage at the back

Don’t ask me what those presenters are wearing… apparently grown adults dressing up like Japanese school kids was in vogue for beef noodle fashion this year.

We didn’t stick around to hear who won (it would have all been in Chinese anyway and I had no idea what was going on), but today my girlfriend tells me nightclub ‘Room 18′ took out #1 in the spicy beef noodles category.

A nightclub being judged best spicy beef noodles in Taiwan!? I bet that pissed off some of the other more ‘serious’ entrants!

Entry to the International Taipei Beef Noodle Festival is free and although the festival runs for four days, one weekend afternoon is pretty much all you need to take it in and enjoy some beef noodle goodness.

If you’re keen to try as much beef noodles as you can, I’d advise sharing a cup from each vendor rather than buying two separate cups each time as we did.

Oh and make sure you starve yourself on the day too so you’ve got enough room.

If I go to the beef noodle festival next year I’m definitely going to focus much more on the beef noodles themselves and try to sample as much as I can.

I did use to like the Toblerone bars 7-11 had until late last year they jacked the price up from $33 to $40+ TWD (can’t remember the exact price hike).

The otherday I walked into a 7-11 craving a chocolate fix and I was surprised to see a shelf just inside the door with a whole bunch of different chocolate products on it.

Turns out 7-11 Taiwan are running a limited time ‘World Chocolate’ promotion.

As you can see there’s a whole bunch of imported chocolate that 7-11 don’t usually stock. There’s too much chocolate on show to include the entire display with any great detail so instead here’s a shelf by shelf rundown;


Shelf 1

36 Chocolas chips and various Mirabell chocolate varieties.


Shelf 2

Ritter Sport, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey’s Kisses, Meiji Black, Meiji Milk and Meiji Strawberry.


Shelf 3

Pocki Almond Crush, Meiji Macadamia, Meiji Meltykiss and tubs of chocolate balls (can’t make out the brand and I forget what they were).


Shelf 4


‘Always’ assorted dark chocolate varieties,  Guiylan Shells, Grahams Goldfish and assorted Dove chocolate balls.


Shelf 5

Pocky Peanut Crush, some Chinese brand of chocolate wafers, some Japanese brand of chocolate biscuits and Brown & Haley Almond Roca.


As you can see the chocolate is priced between $35 TWD ($1.15 USD) and $279 TWD ($9.25) so it’s a bit hit and miss.

Not having had them before, but having heard of them throughout the years we opted to try a box of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, coming in at $59 TWD ($1.95 USD).

Inside the box you had six of the cups individually packed.

Compared to a normal size of peanut butter cups I have no idea how the 7-11 size goes for value… but I thought it was alright for just under $2.

Tastewise though, although the cups did taste like peanut butter… it was highly salted peanut butter. As such you were left with what felt like an oily chocolate sensation as the peanut butter slowly melted and then somewhat of a finely gritty and heavily salted aftertaste.

I probably should have gotten something more chocolatey but oh well, lesson learnt.

Memo to Reese: Just because something is made in Chocolate Town doesn’t mean it’s good! False advertising much?

Oh and unless you’re an idiot like me, do remove the paper cup on the bottom of each cup before eating. I thought it was enough to take out the plastic bag from the box, remove a cup from the plastic bag, unwrap the foil covering the cup and then pop one into my mouth.

Evidently not… as there’s an additional paper cup on the bottom of each chocolate cup itself and if you don’t remove it, you have to spit out the cup and waste precious chocolate!

Yeah, I wasn’t too impressed either with my overzealous habit of stuffing chocolate down my mouth without thinking Reese’s peanut butter cup fail.

We asked the 7-11 staff how long they were running the promotion for and they said until stock runs out. They were also holding a promotion where if you bought two of the chocolates (above $50 TWD I think it was) you got the second for half price (they have to be the same variety).

Enjoy.