Lavender Forest Ice Cream

 

Lavender Forest Ice Cream is a specialty shop that is located in Fenqihu Old Street in Taiwan. The shop is small and it is located in the Fenqihu garage.  It sells soft serve ice cream with weird flavours such as Wasabi flavour and Sakura flavour.  It has drawn attention from the tourist due to its weird flavour offerings.  Many people come to Fenqihu just to have a taste of Wasabi flavoured ice cream and see what it is like.

Since we were visiting Fenqihu when we were in Taiwan, we were obviously not going to miss the opportunity to try Wasabi flavoured ice dream.  When we got into the garage, there were already a small group of people at the front of the shop checking out its weird offerings.  Several people were hesitating on trying out strange flavours but we were not backing down.  We purchased the ice cream using the automated kiosk to order.  We ordered a Wasabi ice cream and a Sakura ice cream.

When the ice cream was served, we thought that it looked more like frozen yogurt than the ice cream.  It did not look creaming at all.  We first had a taste of the Wasabi ice cream and it did indeed had a strong Wasabi kick to it.  It was not that spicy however but it did taste strange when combined with ice cold cream.  As for the Sakura ice cream, it did not have much flavour to it or we did not know how to describe the flavour.  The Sakura flavour was like the smell of the Sakura flower.  The flavour was very faint and barely noticing it.

Overall, it was an ice cream shop just to try something strange but it did not offer a good ice cream or good frozen yogurt.  We probably would not visit this place again since the ice cream was not cheap at all.

Xiaoshe Bento Shop

 

Xiaoshe Bento Shop is a well known restaurant located in Fenqihu Old Street in Taiwan.  This bento shop specializes in classic traditional Taiwan railway bento box food.  The restaurant is located at the center of the busy Fenqihu Old Street.  Its flashy red banner hanging off its roof made it rather obvious for tourists to spot it.  The restaurant has a large dining space and sometimes even opens up its second floor for the diners to enjoy the great view of Fenqihu from the top.

We got to Fenqihu around 1PM and it was extremely busy and crowded.  It was difficult to even walk through the street.  When we got to Xiaoshe Bento Shop, it was still busy with 80% of tables taken but we were able to secure a table at the balcony.  We ordered the classic pork rib railway bento as it is the most classic bento.

While waiting for the food, the crowd continued to stream through the street behind us and it was crazy to see this amount of people in such a small town.

We got the bento box after about 10 minutes.  The food was served in a white plastic box.  The box looks larger than the other bento boxes served in other restaurants.  The box included egg, cabbage, bamboo shoots, and corn as the side dish.  The white rice was served with flagrant bonito flakes on top of it.  The spotlight of this bento is the pork rib.  It was quite large and extremely tender with juice coming out of it.

Xiaoshe Bento Shop did not disappoint us.  We loved the port rib and also enjoyed the side dish.  The side dish was full of flavour and extremely fresh.  We would definitely visit it again in the future when we visit Taiwan.

Hinoki Village

 

Hinoki Village is a popular tourist attraction in Chiayi County, Taiwan.  It is a village made out of last few remaining Japanese heritage buildings that were built during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan.  Many of these buildings were built from the giant cypress trees that were cut down in Taiwan.  This was the reason this place was named Hinoki as it meant cypress tree in Japanese.  The Hinoki Village is now being preserved as a heritage site showing the history of the Japanese occupation era of Taiwan and also sells many souvenirs made out of cypress trees.

We got to Hinoki Village around 10:30AM in the morning and there were already a lot of people.  All the buildings in the village were painted black and there was a giant cypress tree trunk at the entrance of the village.  These cypress trees had a very special scent to it that could lift the spirit of an individual.  It was also said that the scent could help to prevent mosquitos away from people.

At the center of the village, there was this gigantic cypress tree root beside a gift shop.  The root of the tree was 10 times larger than an adult and was quite impressive!  It was unbelievable to see a tree as large as this, but it was also sad to see such giant tree got cut down like this.  There was also a tree that were wrapped with red string for people to make wishes.  People could buy wooden pendants and write down their wishes on it and then hang it on the tree.

As we walked down the street of the village, we saw several more houses but there were all very similar.  There were also many Japanese anime characters built along side of the houses such as Totoro.  The streets within the village were paved and fenced on the side.  We felt that these streets and fences were all built in the recent years and did not represent the old heritage village.  By looking at the houses, the paint on the wall was also way too new and the roof top were definitely newly constructed.  This was a bit of a disappointment as we were hoping to see some real historical buildings that were left behind 100 years ago.

There were also way too many gift shops.  Essentially every single building in the village was a gift shop selling various items to the tourist.  There was no exhibition hall show casing the history of this village and providing tales of this village.  There was only few boards talking about what this village was for and how it was funded.  This was a bit unfortunate.

The Hinoki Village was a good place to visit as part of the rest stop of a long road trip.  About 30 minutes were enough for us to see everything here since we did not visit every single gift shop there.  Parking is a bit difficult to find here but many people simply asked the drivers to drop them off.

Alishan Turkey Rice

 

Alishan Turkey Rice is a restaurant known for its famous turkey rice.  It is located in Chiayi County, Taiwan.  Although it is far away from large metropolitan cities, it still gained popularity among the locals and people from all over Taiwan.  Not only it serves delicious turkey rice, it also offers various tasty side dishes for people to enjoy.

We got to Alishan Turkey Rice around 2PM.  It was not during the peak busy hour but there were still over 10 groups of people dining in the restaurant.  We obviously ordered the famous turkey rice.  We could choose the minced turkey rice or sliced turkey rice.  Both were good options but the sliced turkey rice came in a larger bowl.  We also ordered meat ball soup, marinated soft tofu, and stir fried cabbage.

The food was served quite quickly and it was served with a robot.  The robot rolled to our table with all the plates on top of it.  We took all the plates quickly before the robot ran back.  The marinated soft tofu was amazing.  The flavour had completely soaked into the tofu and it was not extremely soft where it might break when we try to use chopstick to grab a piece.  The tofu was soft and also sturdy enough that it did not break easily.  The stir fried cabbage was tasty as well and quite soft.  We loved it very much.  The meat ball soup came with 2 giant meat ball that were tender and juicy.  The soup itself was very clear and yet very tasty with soft sliced radish chunks in it.  Lastly, the turkey rice had a very strong sweet aroma to it.  The turkey meat was very soft and tasty and the saltiness was just right on the spot.

We really loved the food at Alishan Turkey Rice!  If this restaurant was not too far and difficult for tourists to access, we would loved to dine here every day when we were in Taiwan!

Mercuries Noodle House

 

Mercuries Noodle House is a popular noodle restaurant that specializes in Beef Noodle Soup in Taiwan.  It is also known as the San Shang Qiao Fu in Chinese.  This popular Beef Noodle Soup restaurant chain has been in Taiwan for over 30+ year and is still a popular place for people to enjoy beef noodle soup.  Although Mercuries Noodle House is not as famous as it used to be due to all the competition in the industry, it is still our all time favourite place to go for lunch when we visit Taiwan.

Mercuries Noodle House is a chain restaurant and has multiple locations in Taipei and quite easy to find.  Its orange logo is its signature to welcome the guests to come in.  We went to the Mercuries Noodle House restaurant located in Daan District and it is just beside the subway station exit.  We got there around 4PM, which was already past the peak hour.  There were only 2 other groups of people dining in there.  We ordered large bowls of beef noodle soup, a side dish of bean curd, a side dish of streamed vegetable, and a side dish of pig ears.

The side dishes were served very quickly as they were already made in the kitchen.  The bean curd with the sweet soy sauce on top was a blast.  We loved the texture and the taste of it.  The streamed vegetable had ground beef sauce on top of it.  The sauce made it very juicy with amazing sweet and salty flavours to it.  The pig ears had special texture to it.  We were not a big fan but wanted to give it a try.  It was very chewy and definitely could be delicious to many people but not really our type of food.

Finally, the beef noodle soup came in a large black bowl.  The soup looked dark with soy sauce with amazing aroma to it.  We went to the counter to grab a plate full of pickled vegetable.  This pickled vegetable was crunchy and added a lot of flavours to the beef noodle soup.  We added as much as we could since we loved it so much.  The beef chunks in the soup was also very tender and juicy.  The noodle was thick and chewy, and we loved it.

Overall, Mercuries Noodle House offered amazing beef noodle soup and we would definitely go to Mercuries Noodle House every time we visit Taiwan.

Khantoke Thai

 

Khantoke Thai is a restaurant specializes in Thai cuisine as its name suggests.  It is located at the heart of Downtown Hillsboro Main Street.  At the store front of the restaurant, there are many figuring showing the Thai cultural wagons and Thai traditional outfits.  The restaurant also has a very cozy vibe where the decoration of the restaurant is mainly constructed out of bamboo.

We got the new flyer from Khantoke Thai few weeks ago and their colourful flyer is full of delicious meal.  It intrigued us to try out the food at Khantoke Thai.  We got to Khantoke Thai around 5:30PM on a Friday evening.  There were only 2 groups of customers at the restaurant and there was only a single server.  We ordered a Roti with Yellow Curry and a Pineapple Fried Rice for takeout.  While we waited for our order, we took a walk outside.  While we took a stroll outside, there were many other restaurants and also a food cart place.  It was a very competitive region for restaurants to survive.  After 20 minutes, we went back to Khantoke Thai and got all orders.  When we took our to go order around 6:00PM, there were still only 2 tables of customers.

We were really excited about the Roti, but when we opened the box we were disappointed.  The roti was very thin and seemed to be a frozen food product instead of handmade Roti.  We were not pleased.  The yellow curry had a really good taste and full of coconut flavour.  The Pineapple Fried Rice filled the whole box, but was a bit too salty and quite greasy.  We didn't like it much either and disappointed with this as well.

Overall, we were disappointed with Khantoke Thai.  The food offering did not meet our standard and it could explain why there weren't many customers at the restaurant.  Hopefully it will improve its food quality in the future.

Hoffman Farm

 

Hoffman Farm is a popular U-Pick farm near Portland.  It is located at South Beaverton and less than 30 minutes away from Portland.  It gets extremely busy during the berry picking season due to the farm being close to the large city and also offers large variety of berries for people to pick.  It also has a large playground for kids to enjoy as well.

We got to Hoffman Farm around 9:30AM in the morning and there were already a lot of people.  Most people here are mostly looking for blueberry and strawberries.  When we got to the entrance, we could choose to use a bucket or use cardboard box.  Since we have small kid with us, we chose the bucket as it was easier to carry with.

Hoffman Farm also offered train ride to go around the farm.  The train ticket was $5 per person and it could take you all the way to the backside of the farm and people could get back on to the train after done picking the berries.

As we walked through the farm, the blueberries were the ones we encountered.  There were rows and rows of blueberries and most were ripe.  As we continued down the path, we also saw raspberry and blackberry.  There were also marionberries.  The strawberries were all the way at the back and that was where most people were.

There were rows and rows of strawberries at the farm and there were plenty of space of large amount of people to share.  It was more work to pick strawberries since we had to bend down to pick them.  The strawberries were quite sweet.  Some strawberries were quite large too.  We just had to have patience to look for the big juicy ones.

As we finished picking the berries, we headed back to the store to weight our berries.  The cost of the berry is only $2.50 per pound.  It was quite cheap and there was no entrance fee collected.  We were thinking that people could just come in and take a walk around the farm.  We were hoping to see some baked goods at the farm store but did not find anything interesting.

Overall, it was a great experience at Hoffman Farm.  The fact that it was so close to the city just made it so convenient for people to visit.  We definitely would visit Hoffman Farm again to pick up more fresh berries.

Two Hands Fresh Corn Dogs

 

Two Hands Fresh Corn Dogs is a restaurant specialized in corn dogs.  The corn dogs offered here is Korean styled corn dogs that different from the original American corn dogs.  The Korean styled corn dogs adds different sauce and crispiness to it.  The Two Hands Fresh Corn Dogs at Hillsboro was going to close down permanently and thus we wanted to try it out or else we won't have any opportunity in the future.

We got to Two Hands Fresh Corn Dogs at 4:30PM on its closing day.  When we got there and realized that the restaurant would close at 5PM on its last day.  We were lucky to get here early.  We ordered a Crispy Rice Corn Dog and a Dirty Fries.  When we ordered the corn dog, we could choose different fillings such as all beef hotdog, half hotdog and half cheese, plant based hot dog, or all cheese.

The food did not take long to be ready.  Both the corn dog and the fries were placed in nice little cardboard boxes.  First, the corn dog was really crispy with the rice around it.  It had honey mustard and ketchup drizzled on the top.  Then it had sugar coating around it, which made it sweet taste.  The corn flour coating around it was not very thick and also tasted sweet.  The Dirty Fries was essentially fried tots.  Then there were other seasonings placed on top of it which made it a little spicy and sweet.

The food at Two Hands Fresh Corn Dogs were mediocre and we found it to be a bit too sweet.  For people who enjoys heavy taste would definitely like these corn dogs.  But if you are more into tasting the natural flavour of the food, then it is not the right kind of food.  We were still glad to have tried this on its very last day!