Coffee Alley, Taipei

ok ... I may seem maniacal about Coffee Alley, but there is good reason for yet another post on Coffee Alley - another friend recently came to Taipei, so I had to take her to my new favorite place for tea :)

As usual, I ordered her the iced fruit tea ...

... with the frozen lime ice cube ...

This time, I finally got round to trying their drip coffee, which came on a tray with all the necessary paraphernalia (cream that is supposedly comprising of 3 different types of cream, a tilted glass that kept wobbling around yet never tipped over, and sugar syrup)...

... and an iced coffee cube so that even when it melts, the coffee is not diluted ...

For me, it's these little touches that set Coffee Alley apart fm its competitors.

We ordered their waffles with salted caramel and ice cream ... (the nuts were the premium kind and were so fresh!)

Again, I couldn't resist impressing with Coffee Alley's showstopper - candy floss with ice cream and expresso ...

Enchiladas

The other day, while I was watching "Little People, Big World", Amy Roloff was cooking a dish that looked like enchiladas. As I like Mexican food, and good Mexican food is hard to come by in Taipei, I decided to try my hand at making some enchiladas. Using this recipe, this was the result:

Saffron, Tienmu, Taipei

A friend asked me to help her get some silicon gloves fm Pantry Magic, which has only 1 shop in Taipei - at Tienmu. Since we hadn't been to Tienmu since coming to Taipei 4 years ago, we decided to make an outing of it and go seek out some of the nice restaurants in that area. We found some good reviews of this Indian restaurant, Saffron, and thought we'd try it out ...

I ordered a mango lassi ...

Condiments to accompany our pappadums below ...

Pappadums ...

I've always loved naans, so I ordered a garlic naan ... (this was definitely tailored to the Taiwanese taste as it was very chewy or "QQ" :)) ...

Tandoori Fish ... oh ... this was scrumptious!

Vegetable Korma ...

Chicken Marsala ... this was delicious as well!

Tokyo Banana

While Hubby was in Tokyo for a business trip, he picked up a box of Tokyo Banana ...

Typical of the exquisite Japanese packaging, these were individually wrapped to perfection ...

Each "banana" came in a little banana-shaped plastic tray ...

The "banana" was actually sponge cake with banana custard filling ...

Saboten, Taipei

Last week, one of my closest friends happened to be in town, so I took her to Saboten at Mitsukoshi, Xinyi District for some tonkatsu.

We ordered the set meals that came with a free flow of finely shredded cabbage ...

Sweet black beans and pickled radish ...

Sesame which we came in a mini pestle and mortar. As you grind the sesame, the fragrant aroma comes wafting up, whetting your appetite for the meal to come ...

We had some multi-layered slices of pork encased in deep-fried crispy breadcrumbs ...

Breaded pork tenderloin ...

Special item on the menu: pork with mentaiko and cheese ...

M&M Cookies

I guess I've been somewhat obsessed about baking some M&M cookies ever since I had one at I-Baked (the ice cream cookie place in Shida, Taipei). After googling for some M&M cookie recipes online, I stumbled upon this All Recipes Hall of Fame 2010 Best Chocolate Chip Cookies. It was rated 4.5 stars by 3,205 people! I figured so many people couldn't be wrong, and decided to try it. In view of my obsession with M&Ms, I substituted the chocolate chips for M&Ms. Here are the end results ...

Just look at these beautiful nuggets of cookies with that colourful smattering of M&Ms!

They were a mite too sweet cos the M&Ms were not the dark chocolate ones, so next time, I'll have to find some dark chocolate M&Ms or use dark chocolate chips/chunks. But this recipe is definitely a keeper.

Fyi, the cookie is beautifully crisp at the edges, with just the right amount of chewiness in the centre. Wonderful! Am already thinking of baking more such cookies with granola instead of chocolate chips/M&Ms!

Peanut Butter & Snickers Muffins

Someone had given us a pack of fun treats, including Snicker bars and Milky Way bars. In addition, we also had a huge pack of Heath bars. As we were having a bit of problem consuming everything as is, I thought I'd try using all the above choc bars to make some Peanut Butter & Snickers muffins from Nigella Lawson's "How to be a Domestic Goddess". The last time I made these (ages ago!), they were a big hit. Sinful, but a big hit :)

Here are my Peanut Butter, Snickers, Milky Way and Heath Bar Muffins:

Coffee Alley, East District, Taipei - Again :)

Since I'd loved Coffee Alley so much the first time I tried it, Hubby made a reservation last weekend. The cafe is so popular that when we called to make a reservation, which was a week in advance, there was only one time slot left for the entire weekend! I kid you not!

This time, we ordered some ice lemon tea ...

As I liked their fruit tea so much, I ordered that again (with 50% sugar, it was still a lil too sweet for me, so the next time, I'll try asking for no sugar) ...

BBQ Pork Sandwich

- I was expecting more like a pulled pork sandwich, but this turned out to be more like a thick ham sandwich. Nevertheless, it was still pretty good.

And for the piece de resistance ... ice cream?

We were served this mountain of candy floss, with a little side of warm coffee. They told us to pour the warm coffee over the candy floss to dissolve and caramelise it to form a sweet caramel coating over the vanilla ice cream and nuts underneath ...

This was simply AMAZING!

(Definitely worth every bit of torturous exercise I had to do after devouring this :))

Almond Shaved Ice & Jelly, Eslite, Taipei

On a blisteringly hot summer's day last week, we had a craving for something cold and refreshing. As we were around Eslite building in the Xinyi District in Taipei, we decided to try this dessert in the food court ...

"Almond" Shaved Ice & Jelly ...

We had the option of choosing from a few different ingredients to complement the shaved "almond" ice. The ice shavings are basically from "almond milk", or apricot kernels (if literally translated from Chinese to English, apricot kernels = almond) ground into powder then made into a milky liquid and frozen.

We chose "almond" jelly, which looks like this ...

Some white fungus ...

And boiled peanuts ...

This whole concoction was simply delicious! Will definitely be going back for more before the end of summer :)

Tau Shan, Taipei

Some time back, we revisited Tau Shan, a Japanese sushi restaurant in Taipei. It's one of my favorite Japanese restaurants cos the lady boss is very innovative, so every time we go there, we always get to try something new and tasty. This time, we ordered a sushi platter ...

A very unusual tempura dish

Chicken wing stuffed with mentaiko ... delicious!

Stirfried baby brocolli

BBQ eel ... this was done in a very different style fm the usual Japanese unagi...

California sushi rolls ...