Taiwan 2014: Taipei 101 and Shilin Night Market

Photo from andrewdarwintan

Taking off from our adventure from Tamsui, we found ourselves in the MRT again but this time, hopping off at the Taipei 101 and Jiantian Station…

Taipei 101 would most probably be Taiwan’s most internationally recognized symbol. Boasting of 101 floors above ground, this building used to hold the record for being the world’s tallest structure after beating Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers. Now ranking second to Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the building is still impressive with its structurally sound (disaster ready!) and very well-thought Asian inspired design.

If you would want to experience being “on top of the world”, going up the observatory would be a good idea.

But for us, we went to Taipei 101 not for the view, but to get some Din Tai Fung. As if our Tamsui walking food tour wasn’t enough, we still had the space in our tummies and the gusto to wait it out for a table in this Michelin star restaurant.

We killed time by going around the complex, checking out some stores like Dior cause we’re cool like that.

After an hour of killing time, we were finally seated and ready to consume! Here are our dumpling makers, hard at work.

Our meal started off by pairing our fried rice with some Shaoshing Wine Marinated Chicken.

We decided to have some “vegetable” with our Vegetable Wanton.

Not wanting to be too healthy, we followed this up with some Shrimp and Pork Wonton.

Finally, the highlight of every DTF meal — some Xiao Long Baos. We had some Pork with Crab Roe and the classic Pork XLB.

But for me, the highlight of the meal would be the red bean XLBs, a dumpling version of my favorite hopia.

After some more shopping, we sent off M’s parents on a cab being too tired from our morning’s adventure. Us girls were still alive and kicking so we took the train to another foodie destination — The Shilin Night Market.

The Taipei weather started to go cray with some rain but that didn’t dampen the mood of the hungry night market goers for the exciting stalls.

First to greet us were some fresh fruits, a sign that we should stick to healthy snacks for the rest of the night.

Unfortunately for us, the next thing that greeted us were some “Wow Frog Eggs”. We bought a cup, curious on what it could be. The taste was not all that strange or unfamiliar, as it was just a refreshing lemon juice with some aiyu (or gulaman) jelly.