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!

Cannon Beach 2026

 

Cannon Beach is popular sandy beach near Portland, Oregon.  It is about an hour West of Portland and it is a small charming town with beautiful sandy beach.  It is famous for its Haystack rock standing in the ocean.  Many Oregonian visit Cannon Beach during the weekend to relax and enjoy the sunshine on the beach.  People also often set up bonfires along the beach at night to get some smores.

We took the Friday off and headed to Cannon Beach for a nice 2 night stay there.  We have never stayed at Cannon Beach previously since it was so closed to Portland.  There were many options to stay overnight but we chose Hallmark Resort and SPA since it is close to the Haystack Rock.

We got to Cannon Beach around 3PM in the afternoon.  Unfortunately it was quite windy and raining a little bit in the sky.  So we didn't spend as much time as we would have liked on the beach.  Instead, we visited the stores in the village to checkout new stuff there.  It was great to get out of the city life and have a stroll in the village to relax.

The weather on the second day was much better.  It was still cloudy but the sun has came out.  We went down to the beach around the sunset golden hour.  It was still windy and many people were flying kite up high in the sky.  The setting sun behind the Haystack Rock was beautiful.  We also flew the drone up in the sky to see the ocean waves from the above.  It was definitely a different perspective on viewing the ocean.

We were unable to take some Milkyway photos due to the cloudy sky at night unfortunately.  But we would definitely come back and visit again to do that!

Pig N Pancake

 

Pig N Pancake is a restaurant that specializes in breakfast and brunch menu items.  There are many locations throughout the cities along the Oregon coast.  It usually opens at 7AM in the morning and closes a 3PM in the afternoon.  The restaurant often has a gift shop at the entrance selling Oregon coast related souvenirs.

On the second day where we were at Cannon Beach, we decided to go for brunch and went to Pig N Pancake location at Cannon Beach.  The parking lot was small but not many cars were there and there were plenty of street parking spaces available.  As we entered the restaurant, there were only 2 servers handling all the guests and we had to wait for a bit to get our takeout order placed.

We ordered a Sausage Omelet, a Western Omelet, and a Strawberry Crepe.  The food was ready rather quickly and they gave us a huge cup filled full with fresh whip creme for the crepe.  The sausage Omelet was our favourite.  We loved the large amount of sausage mixed in the omelet and was very tasty.  The Western Omelet was more like a veggie option.  It was filled with tomato, onion, and pepper.  It was good, but not as tasty as the Sausage Omelet.  We also got the sourdough pancake as the side with the omelet.  The pancake was amazing but we didn't think we could tell the difference compared to regular pancake.  The Strawberry Crepe was great.  There were 3 pieces of crepe in the dish.  The sweetness of the crepe was not too heavy and the fresh whip creme really helped to balance out the taste.

Overall we enjoyed the brunch at Pig N Pancake!  There were many other omelet options that we definitely want to try next time!

Short Sand Beach

 

Short Sand Beach is about 1.5 hours of drive time from Portland.  It is a popular beach for surfers as the beach is at an enclosed cove and thus the wind is not as strong.  The beach is only 15 minutes south of another popular beach, Cannon Beach.  Short Sand Beach require people to do a short hike from the parking lot but the hiking trail is quite easy and very family friendly.

We got to Short Sand Beach around 10AM in the morning and the parking lot was nearly full.  Since it is a very popular beach, we recommend to arrive early to get a parking space.  Since Short Sand Beach is part of Oswald West State Park, there is a $10 day use fee required.

The trail was quite easy.  It was very wide and very flat.  From the parking lot to the beach, the trail was mostly going downwards towards the beach.  Near the end of the trail, there were few obstacles where we had to cross large tree logs but these were not showstopper issues.

When we got to the beach, it was at a cove and really beautiful.  It was during the low tide and we could go along the cliff side to look at all the tide pools.  There were also many surfers along the beach side getting ready to surf the ocean.  There were also people getting the wood log ready to set up some bonfire on the beach.

Overall, the Short Sand Beach was a beautiful beach that is really accessible and very family friendly.  We did not get to spend as much time here as we wanted, but we would definitely come back again and spend the whole day here.