Taiwan - Kaohsiung

At 100/200ntd for a good portion of beef cubes, 火焰牛is one of my favourite street food. Grilled, cut and blowtorched on the spot till brown, with your choice of seasoning (we always go for the usual salt and pepper); the beef cubes are kept juicy and tender! #burpple

Typical of me to be drawn by packaging, but this turned out to be good tea.

Cold brew of light fragrance without bitterness, no mango flavour despite its name but apparently the hot version would have a whiff of that. I was pleasantly surprised by how untypical their red tea tastes too!

Chewy donuts - double chocolate and orange yogurt!

Favourite bolo bun that I'll miss for awhile. Hot, fluffy, crisp sweet top and a contrasting savoury cold slab of butter, with a slice of cheese. We kept coming back for this, sharing only one between us everyday (cos fat) but the last day we gave up and had one each. No regrets 🤷🏻‍♀️

Finally tried this unassuming shop (also bustling with locals at any hour lolll) and we were like why did we only try this on the second last day?!

Not only was it tasty, it was pretty affordable. Two bowls of noodles and a side dish of 三层肉 costs about 195ntd (SGD9). That said, ingredients used weren't the fresh kind and this place felt like one of those express lunch kinda thing - got our orders real fast. But the broth was very comforting, milky and sweet! Soup base seems to be the same across just that flavour is brought out differently by the varying ingredients - we also had the 葱烧 which essentially came with loads of spring onions.

This shop was in a pretty quiet area near Pier 2, yet it was bustling with locals. And I get why - 110ntd for each bowl, usually not a fan of thick eggy noodles but the texture for this was good - chewy/qq without being jaw-breaking, and packing a surprising flavourful treat for the palate in a seemingly simple clear soup (tasted a bit herbal?!). Got the dry beef noodles, beef slices were juicy and tender. The braised pig trotters weren't as soft as I thought it would and not very meaty, but flavours were equally tasty! For a more value-for-money option, go for the beef noodles.

Their signature is a hugeass snow ice dessert for 4pax - 10pax but that's too intense for 2 so we got this harmless super fluffy mango snow ice to beat the heat!

Lemon tart here was pretty decent and I liked how their light pastry crust has a coating of chocolate. Lemon curd itself was just the right amount of sweet/sour but a tad icy. Featuring this cutie who kept playing w my charging cable and crawling into my open bag so I can literally 外带it. 😻😻😻

Cos I'm all for this gimmicky shit I paid extra 30ntd for the 🦄 float on top of the 60ntd for the peach soda which was actually a lifesaver with this crowd and weather. Not too sweet!

(70ntd) THE CHICKEN HERE IS SO DARN THICK AND JUICY! And batter was crisp for a long time without that fatty greasy feel. Got the 微辣 which is the least spicy of all but the heat was still a bit too much lolllll, so thank goodness we got their red tea latte too for an additional 40ntd. Will defo be back again to go for the non-spicy one!

Evidently there's a cheese tart trend here too. 45ntd for this freshly baked, gooey cheese tart with buttery crisp crust, nubbbaaaaad. &of course I got the classic cheesecake that seems to have disappeared from our sunny island!😛