Family Ever After

One thing I really like about staying at Uncle Jason’s house. I get to open my eyes to nice scenery covered with a thin layer of mist and wake up to the smell of homemade breakfast! *la la la* 🙂

Mmm… I can’t help but to agree, Uncle Jason makes one of the most wonderful fruit cakes I have ever tasted. No kidding!! I am very picky when it comes to fruit cakes, and I hate it when they used those ready made stuff like dried cherries and god knows whatever dried fruit’s skin.

LOL… I’ve got insider’s news stating that my uncle uses only the best ingrediants… so good that even money can’t buy. He uses only fresh ingrediants, some he event planted himself in his little garden!

We even have this huge dumpling filled with eggs and garlic chives. This is really great. The dumpling is pan-fried till golden brown at both sides. The best part is, it’s really not oily at all. The  garlic chives gives a really good aroma and blends in well with the scrambled egg inside.

What is better than having fresh fruits we bought yesterday at the fruit stall, local delicacies like dried sour plums… which tasted sweet rather than sour and also a good cup of coffee. Simply heavenly! <3

It’s always good to go out, catch some fresh air… and allow some cool mist to touch my face, after a good breakfast! Right, I am at Uncle Jason’s garden… wandering around, snapping pictures… feeding those pretty Koi fishes. I really admire the beauty of the garden, but I even more admire my uncle’s hard work in maintaining it. What he said was so true, people can easily admire something beautiful, but they will never know how much hard work and effort is being put in to create something beautiful. Now, how inspiring is that huh! And I totally agree with every single word he said!

I need food! The cold weather accompanied by beautiful cherry blossoms makes me go hungry even faster. Right after walking around the park nearby Uncle Jason’s house, we headed directly to Danshui.

Danshui which means “fresh water”, is a small sea-side town in the New Taipei City in northern Taiwan. Danshui is famous among visitors as it is a popular location to view sunsets as there are several riverside parks.

We of course took the chance to visit the Danshui Old Street. Danshui Old Street is an open air market specializing in traditional handicrafts and street stall snacks. It is located on the north side of the Danshui MRT Station. The first thing we do is sink our teeth to the local Taiwanese Sausages. Ooo… I tried the original flavours and the fatty pork sausage tasted real sweet and juicy!

While walking along the street looking around, we also bought some Salt and Pepper Deep Fried Squid. The squids were lightly battered and deep fried to perfection. My saliva is almost dripping just by thinking about it!

While at the Danshui Old Street, how can I not try out the famous Danshui A-Gei. A-Gei is pretty similar to our local Yong Tau Fu. A-Gei is actually tofu stuffed with flavoured glass noodle and sealed with fish paste (surimi) . The stuffed tofu is later deep fried and served with some mild sweet and spicy sauce. Mmm… if you ask me, I really didn’t enjoy  A-Gei that much. The stuffed tofu itself tasted rather bland hence the sauce is quite the key which determines the success of the dish. And to be honest, I find that the sauce is a little too sweet for my liking.

How can we not order the Danshui Fish Balls while street eating in Danshui! It is one of Danshui’s specialty food as Danshui is located near to the sea, hence it is a good place to try the fish balls made from fresh fishes. Danshui Fish Balls are balls of fish paste stuffed with meat and garlic cooked in light broth. There are  few variety of fish balls in a bowl and they all tasted really awesome. And trust me, there isn’t any fishy taste to the fish balls!

As for drinks that quenches my thirst, Uncle Jason introduced me to the famous Sour Plum Tea Drink in Danshui. It is a little sweet and sourish drink made from salted pickled plums that have been cooked in syrup. I seriously find the drink rather interesting as I have not tasted anything of similar back in Malaysia. I really enjoyed it, but Deon doesn’t really like it… mainly because he doesn’t really like sourish drinks 🙂

It’s kinda set that I didn’t get to try the Iron Eggs… but seriously, my stomach doesn’t have any empty spot left for me to place the Iron Eggs. Well, I believe there’s always next time… as I strongly believe I be back visiting Taipei real soon.

After a street eating at Danshui Old Street, we drop by near a large fruit stall by the street and do some fruit shopping. The fruit stalls here are really huge and they really do have lots of different types of fresh fruits. Did I mention that all the fruits here looks so giagantic! I think most of the fruits seen here are almost twice the size of what was sold in Malaysia. Woo… looks like I’m gonna have sufficient vitamin C this whole trip 🙂

 Wow… it was a long long while ago but well, as I have promised Nicole that I will share with her on my Taiwan trip after I finish working out the photo album, I’ll have to keep my promise. So, lets begin.

I could still remember clearly the mist and the chilled weather the moment we arrived in Taipei. Uncle Jason and Aunt Nancy was there to welcome us, and I seriously love the feel of someone waiting at the airport to welcome me.

 We then arrived at Uncle Jason’s house at Yangmingshan. And we are immediately served with apples and pears the size of half my face! Haha, apparently my aunt knew we were coming and reserved the fruits for us! And the eating begins as soon as we drop our bags. We were quickly served with pork meatballs as well as dumplings. *Yum yum* the pork meatballs are almost twice the size of those found in Malaysia which  is really bouncy. LOL… ping pong game anyone?

The dumplings in Taiwan are pretty much different from the ones in Malaysia as well. The skin for the dumplings are actually thicker but chewy. How nice of Uncle Jason, who also serve us with pickles that he made himself. And it was really awesome! I seriously thinks it will go well with a bowl of hot porridge. But eating it on it’s own is cool too as it was not salty and still preserves the sweetness of the raddish! Did I not mention that it was super crunchy too? YUM!  🙂

We wasted no time and decided to quickly catch a glimpse of the cherry blossom beauty after we filled our tummy. I guess we were lucky as we are just in time to see some cherry blossom before it withers. Awww… it really is beautiful, and it feels like I’m really in some Taiwanese movie.