When invited to go on a Food and Discovery Famil in Taiwan I had no idea what to expect.
This was the first famil I had ever been on so I knew it would be a steep learning curve, but I was also excited for what lay ahead during my six-day journey of discovery!
Collected from an early morning China Airlines flight from Sydney into Taipei our tour guide, Mr. Leo Chen, took me and three New Zealand writers to our first ‘taste’ of Taiwan – breakfast at Fuhang Soy Milk in the Zhongzheng District. This breakfast restaurant opens at 5.30am and when we arrive the queue is already snaking around the corner and up two flights of stairs.
We order the traditional ‘Yonghe Soy Milk breakfast – this includes a fried dough stick called You Tiao which is very oily, and supposed to go well with the Soy Milk. I found it to be a most unusual breakfast and not really to my taste at all, but if you want to immerse yourself in local food while here in Taiwan, it’s something you should try.
When most people think of Taipei they see in their mind’s eye the famous landmark, Taipei 101. Like Big Ben in London and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, when you see it you know you are really there! When 101 opened in 2004 it was officially the tallest building in the world until it was eclipsed by Dubai’s Burj Khalifa in 2010. Standing out on the pavement looking up, the building is a stunning sight with its bamboo shape and trusses at eight-floor intervals. As we head to the lift, I notice the sign on the elevator that says “The journey that will change your life The high-speed passenger elevator from the ground floor to the 89th floor is the greatest vertical road to instant urban tranquillity”
Well, it didn’t exactly change my life but I was very happy to have that 37 seconds to the top pass quickly and smoothly.
From the top you have a birds-eye view of Taipei and it strikes me as I look out that there is no pollution. The scenery is sharp and the sky is clear – not what I expected from a large city such as Taipei.
Tonight, we are back to Taipei 101 for dinner at Michelin restaurant Shin Yeh Dining, one of Taipei’s most well-known restaurants on the 85th floor. A special eight-course menu has been prepared for us and with each dish we were given a full description of what was before us. For example, the appetizer platter with Neritic Squid from Penghu Island was matched with small bites of chicken, duck, mushroom, and fish eggs. The flavours of everything we had were amazing and seeing the view of Taipei at night was an added bonus.
Tomorrow we attend the opening of the Taiwan Culinary Exhibition at the Taipei World Trade Centre.
The writer was a guest of the Taiwan Tourism Bureau/Taiwan Visitors Association.
.jpg){kind=tracking}