雖然已預早找好前往Mayu的路程和最快捷的方法，但對於首次拜訪的筆者又是要發揮 "路在口邊" 的力量了。烈日當空兼汗流浹背的情況下，我們好不容易才找到正確路徑。與當代藝術館擦身而過後，旁邊斜角一小巷便是Mayu的所在地。

門舖前地方闊落，採用了園林式設計，遍地擺放了不同種類的盆栽，再配上鮮藍色的餐廳招牌，歐陸情懷已即時展現。推門入內一刻赫發現 "謝絕參觀" 的告示，當時真的有點擔心，到底我們前來用膳又可否獲批准拍照呢?

其實原先我們打算A輕食與B全餐各點一份，因為還有吃下午餐的意慾，但店員竟然主動提出由下午2時至五時的下午餐套餐 $250 都可以選擇，對於一心希望吃甜品的人們是絕對感恩啊!! 

先來的是既定是日款式的餐湯，南瓜湯，湯色偏黃，湯的質地厚薄適中、熱度十足，口味比香港普遍喝到的為重，下的香料與蒜味突出，相比下清淡的南瓜甜香就完全被蓋過，若當是清甜湯式以外的味道也算是另類選擇。

配著剛烤焗上桌的巨型法包 (另外兩款wholegrain及croissant供選擇)，不是如想像中的硬淨，反而是質感軟熟，加入在旁附設的蒜香牛油，可先給胃部一點暖意和甜頭。

主菜香煎大明蝦，一客兩隻，體積不算大的中蝦，對這趟法式之旅抱人期望的筆者感到點點失望，乾煎後再伴在香草油和薯茸的味道吸引，可惜敗筆在於蝦的貨色，一口咬下充斥著清洗不淨的蝦腸，大大影響口感，肉質乾嚡欠缺彈性、鮮味薄弱，加上份量少的關係，是個人不推介菜式。當時心中在後悔，早知如此不如乾脆點一個較平宜的烤雞腿或烤豬菲力反而穩當。 

好了，來到令人最感興奮的甜點時間，我們從櫥窗內挑選法式檸檬芝士撻， 是筆者如今想起也口水直流的味道。看賣相是泛著淡黃的高貴，最有趣是在淡淡芝士味道第一時間在咀裡發放，繼而是檸檬酸甜香慢慢滲出，吃得滿口芳香。

芝士和 檸檬兩者濃淡氣息互相融和，能有效清除滯膩感，唯餅底地過甜又厚身也不夠鬆化，面頭燒得焦香的蛋白糖霜其實是這傳統檸檬撻的亮點，但筆者還是吃不消那種特 級甜味。。。。

餐飲點了冰咖啡，咖啡氣味偏淡不怎特別，加上因筆者意外下得過多糖水，除了甜味還是甜味，喝了半杯宣告投降。

爽脆用叉子由上而下一戳到底，發現內裡是包含黑、牛奶和白朱古力三種層次 (底層至頂層)，口感軟滑輕柔，甜度適中，建議店方可朱古力的濃度調高，外層作包裹作用的朱古力漿甜味太搶，蓋過了中心部份的味道，反而墊底的朱古力脆米 十分香口，由於筆者預期這成品是滿滿的朱古力濃香，吃後感實在有些許出入。

*以慕名而來的心態試過菜後，個人認為Mayu的甜品比法國菜做得較精細和出色，遠道而來就是要感受本土飲食文化，加上餐廳環境設計得典雅高貴、食物全是即點即製、店員又不厭其煩地為菜式作出詳細講解，令人感覺窩心，一試無妨。

順帶一提，其實只要作為在這裡用餐的顧客們，有關拍照事宜，店方是無任歡迎的。

在台灣最高7-11上面步行约3分鐘,一望無際的高山,梯田

在清境人氣歺馆位處高山交過不便,晚歺都有好多人到來
住宿旅馆提供了9拆卷,
炸竹蟲炸了後鬆翠不似吃蟲,怕吃的都可接受
新鲜华山雞湯取於山區食材味道極鲜

台灣之旅到了九份逗留三天兩夜，宿泊地點是距離九份老街約十分鐘步程的日式民宿［九份小町］。民宿主人是一對夫婦，男的是日本人，女的是台灣人，男的年輕時來到九份邂逅了本土女生，結婚後一起經營了蕎麥麵店，故事有點像劉心悠演出的港台電視劇<幸福的味道>。後來為何由麵店轉營成民宿，原因不得而知，但這裡能夠為客人提供舒適貼心的環境，卻是百分百肯定的。

由機場坐計程車前往，車費不算昂貴，但原來地點真的有點難找，計程車司機也要和民宿電話聯繫幾次，才能到達正式位置。

民宿附近的環境，舒適寧靜，也有小貓在街上散步。

民宿的設計果然很有日本情調，小小的玄關已經讓人像處身於日本家庭的感覺。

玄關位置的掛畫是早前麵店客人的禮物。

踏上斜斜的樓梯之後，來到入住的房間＜富士之間＞，房間內有獨立日式小庭園，另外日式趟門，塌塌米，日式風侶，都讓人像置身於日本旅館的感覺，甚至連洗手間都是日本人喜愛的電廁板設計，超舒適的。

第二天早上起來，泡了杯綠茶，走出大露台，邊享受超美海港景色邊喝茶，一切來得太悠閒了。宿泊包一頓和式早飯，包括了燒魚、煎蛋卷、時令小吃、冷奴、漬物、味噌湯和白米飯，無論味道和份量都感覺滿足，吃過一頓飽肚的早飯，便可以開始一天的多采多姿的旅遊活動。

這裡的宿泊費用不算昂貴，＜富士之間＞入住一晚，兩個人合共 nt$3000 (平日.星期日)， nt$3600 (假期前)，以這裡的環境和設備，真心感覺合理。還有其他兩種不同風格的房間＜洋艷之間＞和＜利休之間＞，收費也略為便宜一些。

有興趣到訪的朋友可以參考以下網址　：　九份小町

Among the famous snacks of the Shihlin night market(士林夜市) you can see a big blue signboard of this Hot Star Fried Chicken with a long queue of people each of them holding a plastic bag given by the shop waiting for the fried chicken which cost NT$55 a piece. I was in the queue for about 15 minutes before I could get my shares, beware of the blistering heat through the little paper packet holding in your hand.

The smell you may get even as a passer- by of the shop entrance is not a big difference from that of the KFC or McDonald’s also ubiquitously found in Taipei streets, the batter outside is crispy enough, but rather thick and fully soaked with oil, pepper are sprinkled onto each piece of chicken out of the wok, a lot of them I tell you, and sadly the tastes you would get in your mouth are those seasoning more than the real taste of chicken, the meat is tender enough and as usually those adhere with bones are even more tender. A piece of fried chicken is bigger than a man’s palm, and more than enough to feed that man, but as I’ve said most of the piece is batter rather than chicken meat.

This rice noodle eatery in Ximending tourist district has actually become my place for breakfast in the past few days. A famous eatery don’t even need opulent décor or comfortable seats as the food itself is the best enticement for new and old customer, such that holding a bowl sitting or standing here and there near the entrance has become something to marvel at for new comers to Taipei like me.

Very very special indeed, I must confess I’ve taken nothing like this as a bowl of noodle before, the soup in brown is very thick, flows slowly with rice noodles of varied thickness, and a kind of brown, thin veggie that gives you the feeling of chewing tiny shredded meat in your mouth.  A few pieces of pig intestine are used which are quite crunchy and would not be too oily.

You could help yourselves anytime with the 3 different sauces as seasoning, namely Chili, Garlie, and Vinegar, though I would suggest using none of them as the noodles with its soup taste already great enough by itself.  The rice noodles is not the chewy type you would expect with ramen, garnish with corianda when it is served, this rice noodles inclines to a bland palate,  very much my kind of thing.

There has been Din Tai Fung in Hong Kong for many years, but under the hegemony of property tycoons, for every meal you spend, a significant portion of it will become rental for the shop in tourist districts such as TsimShaTsui or Central, which has seen rentals ratcheting up in multiples in recent years.  There is Din Tai Fung in China too, but for the reason of food safety and hygiene, I can do nothing but dismiss it out of hand.

I think Din Tai Fung in Taiwan has taken a more humble way of doing business, 5 pieces of their chef d'oeuvre Pork XiaoLongBao in a take-away paper box cost just around HK$20, think of what you could have with HK$20 in a Hong Kong restaurant?  That said, it is no longer just a matter of food, poor governance of a place by the authority will actually result in deprivation of the hoi polloi in many aspects of life, good food might just be the tip of an iceberg!

Each Pork XiaoLongBao is like a piece of art work, the immaculate 18 folding on the top, the translucent wrapper through which you can see the meat and the hot soup settled down at the bottom, all so delicate and meticulously integrated.  Put one in your mouth, wow!  It’s heaven, so savoury with intense taste of fresh pork.  The meat are grinded with a fine rather than chewy texture, you haven’t lived till you have tasted that!

I’ve also tried the Steam Shrimp and Pork Dumplings with the same price as the Pork XiaoLongBao, it is also a top order thing by any standard but still nothing to compare with the Pork XiaoLongBao.  A cup of tea for every take-away customer (the queue of people waiting may put you off joining them), great services by friendly, helpful and enthusiastic waitresses.

福州世祖胡椒餅 Delicious Black Pepper Cake with Pork Filling

This Black Pepper Cake bakery shown in the photos is very famous in the Raohe street night market(饒河街夜市), so be prepared to line up patiently for a while before you can buy the pepper cake. I waited for 15 minutes that night, but just for your information I’ve also seen a branch of the same bakery near Taipei Railway Station, with much less people there.

Each pepper cake is just a little bit smaller than the size of a tennis ball, with white sesame seeds on its top, very hot out the oven when you buy it with mouthwatering fragrance of meat and pepper upon giving it a bite.  The skin of the pepper cake is quite chewy and there is great taste of flour from it.  The meat filling is savoury,  and a rather coarse texture with roughly chopped up pork meat and tendon mixing up with green onion, a wonderful blend of tastes.  

Don’t miss it when you are in Taipei, to see what this little humble pepper cake can do to your taste buds, and I guess you won’t be disappointed.

Lau Tian Lu is a shop selling pot-stewed items, pot-stewed foods are traditional Chinese cuisine with meats, tofu and veggies marinated using a sauce consists of Sichuan pepper corns and aniseeds to give a special refreshing savoury favour.  Lau Tian Lu and its pot-stewed foods are perennial favourite of all Taiwanese, and of course people coming to Taiwan too.  The shop that I’ve patronized is in the tourist Ximending district, and so unavoidably a queue is something to be expected.

I’ve tried their chicken wing, duck wing, green bean, and MiXueGao米血糕which is a black cake made of glutinous rice and duck blood. The meat they use no matter chicken or duck are invariably very fresh, so the meat is still very tender ever after prolonged steeping and stewing with the marinade, better still, the fragrance of the marinade will not drown out the fresh and distinctive tastes of the chicken and duck meat.

They are really onto something with their pot-stewed items, something you couldn’t find in Hong Kong, which more often than not are too salty rather than the refreshing taste of the ingredients in the marinade.

The spare rib with no bone at all and is more probably just a piece of pork chop, are deep fried with black pepper sprinkled on the surface, the batter is not crispy and indeed soft, no taste of pork or meat at all, even my home made Brazilian frozen pork chop with marinade tastes much better.

The noodle is the cheapest of the cheap thing, over-cooked, soft and mushy in your mouth, the soup of the noodle reeks of artificial favouring, so mind your health.

The vegetable is better, simply because it is vegetable that comes with its own taste, and so nothing or little left for criticizing.

A total waste of time and money on this guidebook favourite, after all, mind your credibility dear guidebook writers.

A very humble tiny eatery with dilapidated simple décor have stood the test of time of over 30 years near the Taipei Railway Station, is there any closely guarded secret behind? I am intrigued to unveil it.

The owner is a middle-aged down to the earth man who sells his foods at quite a bargained price, and I think it is the quality of food rather than price alone that keeps his shop crammed with local and foreign pilgrimages most of the time.

Their famous Steamed Dumplings is of a bland palate, a lot of shredded cabbages along with some meat are used as filling, the wrapper of the dumpling is very thin and lushly green of the veggies inside can thus be shown easily through the translucent wrapper, very beautifully made healthy cuisine.

The Sour and Spicy soup is another gem of the shop, healthy ingredients such as tofu, wood ear fungus and cabbages are used, drizzled with sesame oil on top to finish it up, simple but re-invigorating and delicious.

Their XiaoLongBao are very good too, although much less exquisitely made, the wrapper looks thicker and less soup at the bottom than that of the Din Tai Fung’s, the taste is however very good, and the meat they use is very fresh and juicy too. Well done man, I wish your shop another 30 years in Taipei.

Rice dumpling is a traditional Chinese food for the dragon boat festival in memorial of the venerated poet and politician Qu Yuan thousands of years ago.

This shop’s rice dumpling is so fully packed with ingredients amid the mound of sticky glutinous rice, they include a salted duck egg York, a large piece of chestnut, a few pieces of dry shrimps, a small piece of shitake mushroom, and quite a large piece of pork belly meat to give a velvety texture.  The whole dumpling is drizzled over with a rather thick brown sauce tastes like oyster favour sauce in a diluted sense.  The glutinous rice is starchy enough and chewy, but all the ingredients don’t seem to blend together very well, although individually they are all very fresh and taste great.

Another thing I’ve tried is the Fish Ball Soup with Radish, altogether 3 very big fish balls are floating on the soup among some pieces of radish.  Very disappointingly, the fish balls and the soup are artificially favoured together with pepper.   The texture of the fish balls is coarse and hard, with nothing in your mouth tastes like fish at all.

This noodle shop eventually opened on the very last day of my visit in Taipei, I’ve really struck gold!

There are quite a number of their noodles that won noodle competitions a few years ago, the Boneless Short Ribs & Beef Briskets Noodles that I ordered on my day of visit is one of them.  They tout the use of boneless short ribs from USA and beef briskets from Taiwan, which agricultural products Taiwanese people are always very proud of.

The noodle only came after quite a while longer in comparison with average waiting time for other restaurants.  The first thing that caught my attention upon the first mouthful of the soup is the greatness of its quality, never have I tasted anything on par with this one in Hong Kong, so intense delicious taste of beef but not salty.  The USA short ribs and Taiwanese beef briskets are both very great with their individual distinctive tastes, albeit the local beef briskets is a little bit coarse in texture in comparison with the USA’s.  The noodles is chewy and discernibly a fragrance of wheat out of it.

It is a thing capable of rendering all beef noodles I’ve tasted in Hong Kong sound silly.  Isn’t beef noodle one of the essence of Taiwanese cuisine? Hitherto, I believe it definitely is!

繼十分之後 下一站就是菁桐了!

十分到菁桐的車程大約十多分鐘吧
一下車就看到很多許願竹筒
很有日本的風味
我也急不及待買了一個來寫

我選擇把竹筒掛在亭內
也有些人選擇把竹筒拋到火車軌旁的樹上
看你個人的喜好吧
但拋上樹的時侯要留神 不然會被掉下來的竹筒打中啊!

許完願後 就可以四周逛逛了
實情這裡的精品店跟十分的差不多
最受歡迎的要數呀嬤的日本冰!
有很多不同的口味啊
在這裡稍息一下 等侯回程的小火車
真的非常寫意
不過就比十分略為少一點特色景點