Saturday, June 26, 2010

iDream of a Candlelight Dinner



To be completely honest, we're not sure if it was real or if it was just a dream.
If it was a dream, it was a very nice dream.
We dare not wake up ...

As Dory said, "just keep eating eating eating. what do we do? we eat eat eat ..."


*'0'* & ^'(00)'^

Monday, June 21, 2010

Ximending - Taipei's Shibuya

Today Koggy visited the famous Ximending area... also dubbed as "Taipei's Shibuya", it's where all the youngsters hangout and the hub for many sub-cultures here in Taipei...



While strolling down the many promenades there, we found this lovely snack... GRILLED mochi... nice and crispy on the outside, warm and chewy on the inside ^_^ we wanted to try all the flavours, but after a bit of deliberation we decided on 3: seaweed, peanut, and sweet condensed milk... all were nice, but if we could had to only choose 1, we'd definitely pick the milk one again!

the mochi on the grill & smelling heavenly


grilled mochi with condensed milk, peanut, seaweed

Kinda lost count of how many "cute stores" (the ones with stuffed toys and miscellaneous tid-bits in every corner) and accessories stores we went in and out of, there were so many there!

And every now and then we'd follow our noses and sniff ourselves to check out these alluring smells...

Taiwanese martabak (Asian sweet pancakes)

Taiwanese corn dogs


*'0'* & ^'(00)'^


Sunday, June 20, 2010

Treasures from the Land Down Under

Last night Koggy was on hyper hungry mode that lead us to ransacking Koggyland. A few minutes later, we found a bag of treasures from the land down under that Koala brought over.

...and this is what happened not too long after...

*'0'* & ^'(00)'^

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Dragon Boat FEASTtival

Today, Koggy almost turned into a Dragon... no joke... read 'til the end and you'll get it...

It was the Dragon Boat Festival (roarrrr!!!) and it was Koggy's first time to celebrate a traditional holiday here in Taiwan!

So how better to celebrate the day than with the locals and do what they do, right?

We headed out to Taoyuan county visit a local friend of ours and her family... we took the TRA (Taiwan's main train network) this time around... just like the HSR (Taiwan's bullet train), the TRA was nice and clean and prompt... it took us about half an hour to get to Taoyuan station where we were greeted and pick up by our lovely hosts....

Koala about to get the tickets at Taipei Main Station

Piggy admiring the size & interior of Taipei Main Station

The cute sign that greeted us as we disembarked at the platform at Taoyuan

Posing with our tickets ^_^

We arrived at the Chen's family cozy home and were absolutely taken aback! Mrs. Chen had prepared a smorgasbord of authentic Taiwanese vegetarian home-cooked dishes for us AND also prepared two types of zong zi (sticky-rice packets) from the day before! What a treat!

Clockwise (R-L): Alkaline-water zongzi, plums, purple chinese snake beans, dou jia (stit-fried taiwanese melon), stir-fried beancurd & green chilies, wintermelon & water-chesnut soup, savory northern style zongzi, layered tofu stew, taiwanese purple eggplant dish, "monkey-head" mushroom stew (Mrs. Chen's specialty!), taiwanese pickled sweet plums

It was all so interesting and yummyyyyyyyyyyy!!! Especially Mrs. Chen's "Monkey-head" mushroom dish! It was so unique and tasty... the texture was really quite "meaty"...

As we were eating lunch, more of the Chen's extended family arrived (they came over especially when they heard us 'overseas guests' were visiting for the day - we feel so honored!)... Mrs. Chen's youngest sister & her family (it was so sweet, they took turns trying their best to translate different bits of the tale) told us about the origins of the Festival... zongzi has always been eaten during Duanwu Jie (the Festival's chinese name - fifth day of the fifth month on the lunar calender) to commemorate the patriotic death of a famous poet, Qu Yuan. The legend is that packets of rice were thrown into the Miluo river to stop the fish from eating the poet's body and the local people paddled out on their boats and banged on their drums to scare the fish away.

So ever since then, the custom is to make zongzi and hold dragon boat races every year during Duanwu Jie... and in Taiwan, the plums are in season so here it is also customary to eat lots of plums during this time of year ^_^

Amongst the Festival's special foods...

After lunch we enjoyed each other's company and chatted (while Mrs. Chen continued to "magically" make food and drinks appear in front of us... There wasn't a moment we didn't have something in our hands (& mouths... hahaha)

We thought the munching today was limited to as long as we were at the Chens' humble abode, but NOOOOOO... Mr. Chen insisted on taking Koggy check out Zhongli night market... to do what? to EAT yet AGAIN (believe it or not, Koggy was actually starting to "slow down" at this stage)...

ON THE WAY to the night market (yep, we weren't even at the destination yet...)

Mrs Chen wanted to let us try some authentic Hakka delicacies, so Mr. Chen drove us to Liu Mama's... and there they had the most colourful Hakka veggie-buns we'd ever seen!

All the buns were made fresh on-site and not left on display for too long

a rainbow of flavours and colours!

These Hakka Taiwanese veggie buns are all hand made from scratch on site (the 24 hour kitchen is right next door to the shop). One of the main ingredients is a dark green plant, known as "ngeh bahn" in Hakkanese, that is mixed in with sticky rice and molded until it reaches the consistency of....you guessed it, MOCHI [Taiwanese people are just as crazy about their muo shu (mandarin for mochi as they are for their sago pearls (found in milk teas)] and then stuffed with a combination of shredded daikon, preserved veg, baby dried shrimp, and with/without minced pork inside.

A must-try if you ever go to Zhongli!

After forging through some traffic and carpark "hunting" we finally arrived at the bustling night market and got straight into it...

We found our favorite fried milk (and they had them in strawberry & chocolate too!!!)


The Chens' treated us to bowls of stinky tofu soups... which were a nice variation to the usually fried stinky tofu we see everywhere else... which came with mounds of lightly pickled sweet cabbage... Piggy had the original "mala" one and Koala had the not-spicy-but-already-too-spicy-for-her version... Lovely authentic flavours, but left Koala a bit thirstier than the Australian outback ;)

Unfortunately, we had to rush through and didn't get to see the whole night market because we had to catch our train home to Taipei... but, we'll definitely go back and visit that bustling place when we get a chance! (maybe with XXS next time? *wink wink*)
*BURP*
And maybe by then, we'll have a more "DRAGON-sized" tummy to bring back! Koggy's tummy has yet to be stretched to match the eating capacity of the Taiwanese... LOL...
All in all, what a memorable day! One that our tummies will definitely NOT forget for a longggggggggg time ;)

Thank you so much Chen family for your amazing hospitality! Zai Jian!

*'0'* & ^'(00)'^

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Koggy's first fanmail!!!

One afternoon, Koggy found something inside the mailbox.
What is it?
It's our very first fanmail!!!

Thank you Ms.Pandawan from the Bay Area for your sweet mail! We hope you can come and visit us soon.

*'0'* & ^'(00)'^

Friday, June 11, 2010

Piggy's P-Day

First of all, Piggy would like to thank everyone for their warm wishes on my Precious P-Day. That's Pink Day (a.k.a birthday for you humans). Normally, on her P-day Piggy dresses up as a pink princess and goes out being a pink happy princess pig all day long. However due to some unfortunate circumstances, Piggy couldn't dress up as a pink princess pig. Luckily, Koala has a new cool plan for Piggy. And she's been running around like a KrazyKoala to make it happen (thank you!).

So here's how it went:

Koggy went out to have a wonderful "Pig Out" at an AYCE bbq nearby

"Look at those poor clams!" exclaimed Koala
"What are you talkin' about? They smell yummy!" replied Piggy



yummy goodness:
ooey gooey grilled marshmallows + black sugar cakes!

Now look at that beauty Koala made for Piggy!!! Doesn't that make you just wanna hug and kiss her all over? okay, maybe not really ...
As if we didn't have enough sugar earlier, we continued piggin' out 'til death do us part ... ehmm i meant 'til our eyes closed and we dozed into a very good night sleep...


and here's the cutest birthday card especially ordered by the one and only Miss Koala!
She's such a sweetheart, isn't she? (btw, she's single and available! For more inquiries, pls contact Miss Piggy hihihi...)

And we ended the night like any other P-Day: by opening up presents and taking pictures with the good ol timer ;)

It was 1 unforgettable P-day indeed. Once again, thank you to all that made it happen =)
This li'l piggy gotta go to bed now ...

Good night,
^'(00)'^

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Koggy is swimming


... in our Taiwanese snacks


Good Night,
*'0'* & ^'(00)'^

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Longshan night market

This is what happened on the day Koggy decided to go check out the Longshan night market...

The entrance gate

Here was where we met our trusty, Xiong Xiansheng (that's Chinese for Mr.Bear), who took us through the whole market and introduced us to numerous treats that lined the streets...

Xiong Xianseng, our local guide

Within 60 seconds of turning into the first street, XXS ordered a bag of these piping hot crunchy (& chewy) yam balls...

The li'l yam balls

We continued strolling whilst munching on these bite-sized delights... and about 20 meters later we were stopped in our tracks...
Koggy was ecstatic! We had found something we thought we would have to wait until wayyyy later in our adventure...

BEHOLD... the mighty (delicious) peanut brittle ice cream wrap!!!

Shaved peanut brittle (+ ice cream) wrap
The flavours and textures were absolutely gorgeous! (as Koala likes to put it: 'it's like a party in your mouth'!) The sorbet-like hand-churned ice cream wasn't too sweet, so it was just nice when paired with the shaved peanut brittle... and this is the what makes it unique - the CORIANDER leaves... yep, coriander leaves... it may sound weird to most people, but honestly it complemented the other flavours perfectly and actually helps you eat more of it without feeling that "sick" feeling you usually can get from eating too much sweet stuff... and white crepe was also gorgeous! It was so soft and paper-thin! Brought it all together so nicely! This one's definitely going on Koggy's TOP TEN list ^_^

Continuing down the street, we saw more sweet temptations...

Cute caramel candy sticks!
We didn't buy any, because we thought we'd be good and not ruin our appetite with too many sweets just yet...

XXS ushered us into one of the famous oyster pancake shops...

Taiwanese oyster omelet
Oyster omelets are probably one of the most famous Taiwanese dishes. What makes them so special are the incredibly fresh and plump oysters that are farmed locally. What makes these omelets different from others is the potato starch that they use in the batter, which gives makes it plumper and chewy (almost jelly-like) texture... and then a special tangy but savory sauce that is generously poured on (each vendor has their own secret mix). Definitely a must-try when visiting Taiwan.

I'm sure the oysters were still only half way down our throats, when XXS ordered us a pack of these UFO looking cakes... hahaha... they were actually these little steamed cakes made out of rice flour and filled with palm sugar (similar to kue putu found in Southeast Asia)...

"UFO" cakes
Of course, we needed to wash down all that good food with some good cool drinks too...
So we did so with cups of lime juice mixed with aiyu jelly and frog eggs... Yes, that's what they call them (they are EVERYWHERE in Taiwan)...

Aiyu jelly drink
don't worry, they're not really frog eggs... they are tiny glutinous rice balls cooked in a dark sugar syrup. When they are cooked they turn translucent a white dot of starch will appear in the middle which make them look like real frog eggs.

Frog eggs!!!
Armed with full stomachs and great local guide, we continued to explore the rest of the night market...

Views of the night market




... after walking for about another hour, we decided to head back and call it a night (probably because all that food finally reached our tummies and was starting to get digested so we were starting to feel a bit drowsy *yawn*)

Bear-sized thanks to XXS for making our first ever Taiwanese night market experience so memorable!!! Koggy can't wait to go out exploring with you again!

*'0'* & ^'(00)'^

and here's one for the road!






Tuesday, June 1, 2010

New month, new day, new food

Koggy's welcoming the first day of June by having a wonderful new (healthy) breakfast.

Detox style ^_~

Cheers,
*'0'* & ^'(00)'^