Chinese New Year threw a huge monkey wrench into my Penang plans; something like 75 percent of the restaurants I tried to go to turned out to be closed.
But in the case of Tong Lek 8 Cafe, I’m not even mad. I randomly found it after the place I wanted to go to turned out to be closed; I’m so glad I got to try out their amazing food.
I’ve been seeing a lot of ads for KFC Malaysia’s Parmesan Truffle Crunch. It certainly looks good; I figured I may as well give it a shot.
It was one of the worst meals I’ve had in a long, long time.
I Love Yoo is a Malaysian breakfast chain that specializes in youtiao (fried dough sticks) and rice porridge. I’m really not sure why it’s not called “I Love You,” since youtiao is almost always spelled starting with y-o-u and not y-o-o, but that’s neither here nor there.
I recently found myself near the Lingya Night Market in the middle of the afternoon. I knew it would be closed, but I figured I’d walk through just to check it out.
It turned out there were a few vendors open, including a place serving up some very tasty-looking deep-fried goodies with an impressively massive line-up.
There’s a place called Cijin Island in Kaohsiung that’s a very quick ferry ride away from the city, and it makes for a perfect day tip (or even a semi-day-trip — it’s so quick and easy to get there that you really don’t have to carve out a full day).
I honestly can’t remember the last time a meal made me so profoundly sad. The food in Taiwan is so good, and you can’t walk more than a block or two without stumbling upon several restaurants serving something that looks amazing.
The Taiwanese version of McDonald’s, on the other hand… Yikes. It might be the worst food I’ve had at McDonald’s since starting this blog, and that’s really saying something — I’ve had some pretty atrocious meals courtesy of old Ronald McDonald.
It’s hard to resist basically anything that’s deep fried. If you batter something and then deep fry it until it becomes golden and crispy, it becomes inherently appealing. That’s just science.
There are several street vendors in Tainan that sell freshly-fried doughnuts that they advertise as being made with millet flour.
I don’t need a whole lot of convincing to try a doughnut, especially one that’s fresh from the fryer.
Chicken House — a stall selling fried chicken on a road absolutely crammed with street food vendors — has the longest line-up I’ve seen since coming to Taiwan. I obviously had no choice but to stand in it.
Ah Tang is famous for something called milkfish porridge, which is essentially a very ricey soup with a whole bunch of fish chunks in it, traditionally eaten for breakfast.
I was a little concerned about having something so fishy first thing in the morning, but of course, I shouldn’t have been. When it comes to food, Taiwan knows where it’s at. They won’t steer you wrong.