After reviewing the Taiwanese restaurants last week, this post is a bit miscellaneous – one fusion restaurant, one bakery at which we tried almost everything, and an incredible place for ice cream. Let’s see what Taipei has to offer today!

Vegan Amore

Taipei has loads of listings on Happy Cow, but a lot of them are small market stalls or places with no seating or air conditioning. It was hot and humid during our visit and we were permanently drained as a result, so we were desperate to find eateries where we could have a seat somewhere cool. For that reason we broke our usual ‘don’t get western food in Asia’ rule, and visited this place in a very well air conditioned mall. And in its defence, some of the dishes were fusion!

Dr HH kept us somewhat on track by trying the Sichuan spicy spaghetti with peanuts and vegan pork. He was very happy with the spice levels and thought it had a good tingle from the Sichuan pepper. The pork was nice and added some good texture. This was a tasty dish.

I had the tagliatelle carbonara with vegan bacon, which was absolutely not fusion. I was served spaghetti rather than tagliatelle, which is a shame because I love tagliatelle, but the dish was really nice. The sauce was creamy and generous, though maybe a little under seasoned. Fortunately the bacon provided a nice salty hit.

This was not one of our culinary highlights of Taipei because it wasn’t really the dining experience we wanted – but we were very grateful to have a chance to sit down and cool off, and the food was perfectly pleasant.

Hip Pun

We visited this all-vegan bakery so many times during our stay in Taipei! It really made me wish I could bake bread, or at least that we had similar options to these in Prague.We really loved this bakery and highly recommended it. It kept us well stocked up for breakfast and packed lunches on our trip, and even when we visited within the last hour before closing, there was always still a decent selection.

A lot of the items we tried were stuffed or filled bread buns. The ham and garlic bun tasted exactly as it should – plenty of ham and garlic! We enjoyed this one.

The meat floss bun wasn’t too exciting, unfortunately. The bread was good, but the small meat pieces tasted a little sweet and we would have preferred bigger chunks. I saw a lot of meat floss buns in convenience stores, so this seems like a big thing in Taiwan. It’s always good to see a veganised version of a popular local dish!

The black pepper with tofu was the standout savoury bake we tried. There was plenty of soft and moist tofu inside with lots of black pepper giving it a good bit of kick, the seasoning was excellent. I would love to recreate this at home!

The ham and rosemary snail was well seasoned and generous with ham. Again, this would be a good one to recreate at home.

The maple mustard ham was tasty if you’re a fan of mustard (I am not!). It had a good amount of ham and cheese inside but there wasn’t a lot of flavour from the cheese. Still, it was nicely balanced.

The sea salt butter bun was a bit disappointing, the salty butter was all concentrated in one spot. Maybe this would have benefitted from being heated up so the butter would melt and spread more, but we were eating on the go without heating opportunities.

The egg yolk and taro bun was enjoyable and part of our attempt to eat plenty of taro while we had the opportunity. The sweet taro worked well with the savoury flavour from the yolk.

Moving on to sweet things now – the earl grey and maple bun was sweet and delicious. The tea flavour was a little subtle, but pleasant.

The scones were the only item we tried that were not perfectly baked – the chocolate ones were a bit too crumbly and dry for us. The cranberry scone had a better texture. Flavour-wise, everything was good!

The cinnamon roll was good, it was big and generously filled. It’s not the best we’ve had, but it was good.

The cranberry chocolate bread was big, it was filled with a chocolate spread and the cranberries added nice juicy pops of sweetness and sharpness.

The chocolate cake bread was a piece of chocolate cake with chocolate bread baked around it. It was decadent and enjoyable. I’d never seen anything like this before, and I’m not sure I could bring myself to recreate it – it feels like a bit too much unless you’re on holiday!

The chocolate filled bread was okay. The chocolate cream filling was smooth and rich but it wasn’t very well distributed throughout, making some parts of it a bit dull.

And finally, on to the dessert counter. The Basque cheesecake was tasty, Dr HH enjoyed the slightly savoury element and different texture from the egg yolk sections.

The salted caramel cake was tasty and sweet, but we didn’t notice much salt.

The chocolate brownie was tasty but was more cake than brownie, with good chunks of nuts.

The sesame cake wasn’t quite sweet enough but the bake was good and the cream smooth.

The French pudding tart had good pastry and a lovely smooth filling.

The chocolate mousse was great, very decadent with a great smooth texture. The chocolate flakes on top were a good addition.

Not everything was a total hit, but overall we were extremely satisfied with what we tried. And what a variety of items they sell! Imagine having this much choice regularly!

Nice Cream

I think bubble waffle ice creams were all the rage a few years ago, then I totally forgot that they exist. In Taipei, they continue to thrive! Nice Crema is an all-vegan ice cream spot which offers cups of ice cream, or milkshakes, but we had our hearts set on the gelato waffle. It’s quite clear from the menu board how it all works. There were at least six flavours of ice cream available when we visited, and a few waffle flavours as well. When we ordered, we were told it takes about ten minutes to prepare, which was fine by us. There were four seats at the bar and no other customers on a weekday lunchtime, so we took a seat to enjoy our treats.

Dr HH got a chocolate chip waffle with Sicilian pistachio and chocolate ice cream, plus chocolate sauce.

I got an original waffle with soy milk and Oreo cookies and cream ice cream, plus chocolate sauce. Both of us received our orders served with a Lotus biscuit on top. We enjoyed the ice cream, especially the chocolate, which was very rich. I thought the texture of the Oreo one was not quite right, it seemed a bit too frozen and hard rather than creamy like the others. The waffles were excellent, crisp outside and soft inside.

All in all, this was delicious and highly recommended!

Activities in Taipei

Despite the overpowering heat, we enjoyed a few outdoor activities in Taipei, including the botanical gardens. They weren’t the most thrilling gardens we’ve seen, but we did enjoy spotting some birds that we don’t get in Prague. It was fun to see the plants that we only get in the hot houses in the Prague botanical gardens, just growing normally in Taiwan.

We also took a walk around the pond in Da’an park which is home to an incredible number of birds. There were millions (millions, I say!) of egrets and herons of all different kinds, basking on the low branches and nesting in the trees, plus various other birds swooping in and out. We had our binoculars with us so we could look at them in close detail, and it was so amazing. If you want to do some birdwatching, this is certainly the place to go.

We also somehow hauled ourselves up Elephant Mountain. Even though we went early in the morning to avoid the hottest time of day, it was absolutely baking and I have never sweated so much in my life. It’s not actually that long an ascent – it’s called a mountain, but it feels more like a big hill, and it’s right in the city. But it’s all steps and it’s all tough. We had plenty of water and stopped in the shade whenever we could, but it was still a hard climb. The views made it worth it though – we loved looking out at the Taipei skyline. It also felt completely different from the walks we did in Korea and Japan where the plants and trees were a bit more familiar to us. This felt properly tropical! If you are a keen walker, this is a fun activity for your trip to Taipei.