Arbite @ Serangoon Gardens

Second visit to Arbite, this time for brunch.

The first thing I felt when I stepped inside was that the place was not cold enough. There were four air-conditioners, but it still felt a bit too warm. Business seemed to be quite good, and we managed to get the last or second-last table when we arrived at 1115am.

Wagyu beef burger, $18.90

I felt that their potato wedges were very disappointing - they were a bit too tough and dry on the interior. The burger was all right though.

Eggs Benedict, $11.90

Brioche didn't seem to fit well with this. The dish could also be saltier - be it via the hollandaise sauce, or via the ham. But at least the eggs were very well done.

Arbite's prices are really reasonable for the food that they serve, and their service is pretty good too. When it was time to pay the bill, the waiter told us that UOB cards get a 10% off on his own initiative. Something small, but I appreciate it. 

Past visit:
6th April 2012

Random tips

Chanced upon this article on Gizmodo, titled 40 Tricks You Must Know for a Much Better 2013. While some of the tips aren't that helpful (to me, at least), some were pretty innovative and interesting, and most importantly, applicable. I jotted some of them here more as a reminder for myself.

1) Rub a walnut on damaged wooden furniture to cover up dents or nicks.

I just tried this myself on my main door, as the area around the doorknob is full of scratches. It worked ridiculously well considering how cheap the solution is.

Before:

Scratches-galore

After:

(Almost) as good as new!

2) If you are in a hotel and run out of chargers, the TV usually has a USB plugin which you can use to charge your phone, tablet, etc.

3) To get the built up residue off of your shower head, tie a bag of vinegar around it and leave it there overnight. Everything will be gone by the next morning.

4) To cool a drink quickly, wrap a wet kitchen towel around it and leave it in the freezer. In about 15 minutes it should be almost completely ice cold.

5) Use a bread tab to hold your spot on a roll of tape, instead of having to find where it is and use your fingernail to pry the tape out.

6) Use a spring from an old pen and wrap it around one end of your charger to prevent it from bending and breaking.

App shopping spree

Square Enix recently launched Final Fantasy IV on the iPad and iPhone, and slashed prices on many of their other apps. Being a Square Enix fan, and considering that Square Enix doesn't come out with discounts too often, I took the chance to (almost) sweep their store clean. 

Chrono Trigger (iPhone) - S$12.98 to S$8.98
Final Fantasy I (iPhone) - S$10.98 to S$4.98
Final Fantasy II (iPhone) - S$10.98 to S$4.98
Final Fantasy III (iPad) - S$21.98 to S$12.98
Hills and Rivers Remain (iPhone) - S$5.98 to S$3.98
Secret of Mana (iPhone) - S$10.98 to S$5.98
Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes - Encore (iPhone) - S$12.98 to S$5.98

Quite a good bundle for less than fifty bucks! And they should provide me with easily more than 250 hours of entertainment in total.

Tori King @ Amara Hotel

From its name, it wouldn't be difficult to guess that Tori King was affiliated with Tonkotsu King. Located just a few steps away from the latter, Tori King is situated at Amara Hotel. According to the owner Keisuke Takeda, each outlet has a theme, and unsurprisingly, Tori King specialises in chicken. And just like its other sibling outlets, this one comes with a free flow of marinated beansprouts and hard boiled eggs.

Tori King Ramen with flavoured egg, $13.90

Being my first visit here, I ordered their original ramen with egg. The broth was saturated with chicken flavour, and even though I chose the 'thick' version, I still thought it wasn't too salty. The egg was good as usual, but I found the chicken thigh a bit overcooked - it was a bit too dry on the inside. Nevertheless, this was an excellent bowl of chicken ramen which was better than Marutama's.

I also had the luxury of trying their other flavours - green (wasabi) and black (pepper). I wouldn't say that they were not good, but the original flavour was still the best.

Should bus fares go up?

Today, the Straits Times had an article called "Bus fares may go up to help improve drivers' pay". In it, it states that our Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew expressed that drivers need to be paid more, and that public transport operators will be allowed to do so in the ongoing fare review. 

The name of this article is obviously to skew the reader's opinion - in that, bus fares will go up to help the drivers. It shifts the attention from the profits of the public transport operators to the plight of the bus drivers, who are not getting paid enough, apparently. But as a member of the public, why should I care? SMRT, as a group, still made around S$120m of profits in their financial year 2012. Why are we forced to pay more just because you can't make money? For other goods, if merchants were to increase prices, customers have the option not to buy it. But for public transport, this isn't possible. 

But the intention of this post is not to complain about SMRT raising fares. Enough has been said (or is it complained?) on this - on social media, forums, etc. But what if we look at this from the perspective of a private company?

A private company's purpose is to make profits. From SMRT's annual statement, one can see that SMRT has several revenue divisions, namely trains, LRT, buses, taxis, rental, advertising, and others. The bus division lost S$1.7m in FY2011, and S$11.6m in FY2012. If I run SMRT, would I still be willing to increase costs when the business is not making money, and is not foreseen to turn profitable anytime soon? And for SMRT's benefit, group profit after tax for their financial year 2012 has gone down rather significantly (although it is certainly still positive).

FY2008: S$149.9m

FY2009: S$162.7m

FY2010: S$162.9m

FY2011: S$161.1m

FY2012: S$119.9m (25.6% drop from FY2011)

FY2012 also coincides with a big increase in capital expenditure, increasing from S$100m to S$190m in the previous four financial years to almost S$500m in FY2012. But one thing to note is that FY2012's revenue is actually the highest since FY2008 (I didn't bother to look before FY2008). If revenue was highest and yet profits were lowest, we can deduce that costs would be the main determinant, although this is spread out across all their divisions. 

The public would demand SMRT to cut costs and be more efficient. From the top of my mind, here are some of the costs I can think of when it comes to the bus division: wages (bus drivers and other staff), depreciation of buses, motor insurance, employee insurance, cleaning services, petrol, inspection, bus maintenance and servicing. It doesn't seem like these can be cut so easily, assuming that they have already looked into cutting them. They stated that they are exploring vehicles using alternative energy, such as electric buses, but this does not seem possible to realise in the short term.

So what is easiest would be to increase revenue. Advertising is one thing, which they should already be doing. Another is to increase bus ridership. But the more direct measure would be to increase bus fares. Let's take another look at the bus division's numbers.

FY2011: Revenue was S$213.1m, while earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) was -S$1.7m. 

FY2012: Revenue was S$220.4m, while EBIT was -S$11.6m.

Simplistically speaking, we can assume that costs were S$232m in FY2012. If I am able to increase bus fares by 8%, this would point to a revenue of S$238m with S$6m profits, or a profit margin of 2.5%. This doesn't look too unreasonable. But how much would be a 8% increase in bus fares?

From their website, bus fares range from $0.73 to $1.96. In practice, if bus fares were to increase, it would not go up uniformly across all distance tiers. But a simple calculation would give some insight. Fare increases would range from 6 cents to 16 cents. And according to LTY, fare increases have only been 0.3% cumulatively over the past five to six years, while operating costs have risen by about 30%.

However, SMRT reports advertising revenue separately from the bus division, so perhaps it would be fairer to allocate the advertising revenue from buses back to the bus division. There is no breakdown of advertising revenue, so I am unable to determine how much of their FY2012 advertising profit (S$19.2m) came from the bus division. But if we were to allocate it proportionately, it should make the real figures look better, and perhaps fare increases need not be 8% but 6% to 7%, for example.

So from the perspective of a private company, I would not necessarily support the fare increases, but I would at least understand the rationale behind it. Of course, whether SMRT should be publicly or privately run is a separate issue entirely.

Taipei (Nov 2012) (3/3)

Day 4

Had breakfast at a nice and quaint cafe, Second Floor Cafe, which was around 5 minutes away from our hotel by cab. I have actually visited their Daan outlet last year and it was quite a good experience, so this time we included it in our trip.

Entrance of Second Floor Cafe

The interior, taken using the panorama camera function on my iPhone 5

Smoked Turkey Focaccia, NT$220 (S$9.32)

Simple and good. The fries were great, just as I had expected.

Both our meals came with soup and bread

The Perfect Morning Breakfast, NT$280 (S$11.86)

Bacon, hash browns, scrambled eggs, and a bagel. And it came with yogurt cereal too (below), so it was really value-for-money. 

Yogurt cereal

Restaurant name: Second Floor Cafe
Address: 台北市中正区罗斯福路三段316巷9弄7号
Tel: 02-2364-1666

The cafe provided free wifi, so we stayed there for some time before taking a train to our next venue, 赵时机担仔厨房 for lunch, since there was nothing else to do meanwhile. We were still quite full, so we made sure we ordered less this time.

玉米鸡, NT$300 (S$12.71)

This cost more because I ordered the thigh portion, though I can't recall how much more it cost. If I were to compare it to Singapore's Pow Sing, this was considerably tougher and drier. But taste-wise it was quite different, and I found it to be tastier and with more "chicken" flavour. 

担仔面, NT$60 (S$2.54)

One of Taiwan's local foods. It was okay, but nothing special.

卤肉饭, NT$40 (S$1.69)

Another one of Taiwan's well-known local delicacies. If it is not clear enough, the topping on top of the rice is actually fatty pork, so the health conscious can steer clear away from this dish. I have eaten other versions which were basically 90% fat, but this one had much more meat - maybe only 30% was fat? So this was 'lighter' and not that filling.

So far, we haven't tried any local Taiwanese food that truly impressed us. So this could be considered the best thus far. We had wanted to try other dishes such as their 卤鸡脚, 手工香肠, 猪肝 etc, but there was really no more space in our stomachs...

Restaurant name: 赵时机担仔厨房
Address: 台北市大安区延吉街177号 (Nearest MRT is Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall station)
Tel: 02-2752-0057

Next stop was Danshui, a long 23 station train journey that included one transit.

Along the harbour

It was relaxing walking along the harbour, taking in the scenery and enjoying the cool breeze.

淡水老街

阿婆铁蛋

阿婆铁蛋 was the most well-known store that sells 铁蛋, but it comes at a premium - their eggs cost much more than other shops. We bought quite a few back to Singapore as gifts. On our way back, I bought some grilled squid from a stall which was manned by a rather rude woman. But the squid was so damn good that I almost doubled back to buy another one!

We bought so much stuff that we decided to return to the hotel before going for dinner. So it was a non-stop 22 station train ride from Tamshui to Taipower Building station.

Dinner was at 宁夏夜市.

Entrance of 宁夏夜市

Packed with people and stalls

Oyster mee sua

We ordered a variety of food, but nothing really impressed us except for the oyster mee sua, which was really nice! Looks like it was a good idea to order it after we saw some people (who were sharing our table) eating it with relish...

Passed by this place selling Taiwanese oyster omelette. From what I recall during my first visit to Taiwan six years ago, I didn't enjoy their oyster omelette at all. But the sight of this man frying it with gusto right at the entrance was quite a drawing factor - that, and the fact that my gf has never tried it before. So we joined the queue.

Taiwanese oyster omelette

Okay, now I am 100% positive that I do not like Taiwanese oyster omelette. It was a bit too gooey and the sauce on top was too sweet. Give me Singapore's oyster omelette anytime!

宁夏夜市

Address: 台北市宁夏路34之三号 (Nearest MRT is Shuanglian station, around 600m walk)

Day 5

Our flight was at 345pm, so we planned to eat lunch nearby, then take a cab to Taoyuan International Airport. My gf found this place called I Swear Cafe on the internet, so we decided to give it a try.

I Swear Cafe

It turned out to be major letdown. The cafe serves Western food - low quality Western food. We ordered steak and risotto, and both were so bad that I wouldn't bother posting the photos. The only comfort was that the prices were not too high.

After that, we returned to our hotel and did some last-minute packing before taking a cab to the airport. The cab driver was extremely friendly and chatty, and through our conversations, we learnt that out of the standard cab fare rate of NT$1,200 (S$50.85) to the airport, the taxi company pockets NT$400 (S$16.95). So if we were willing to call him directly next time, he can offer us a rate of NT$1,000 (S$42.37) instead. It would be a win-win situation for both of us, since I would pay less and he would earn more. Of course, the taxi company would lose out, but who cares?

Planning for another trip to Taipei next year, probably with my family and relatives since we are all foodies. Taiwan is really a perfect place for cheap and good food, especially when it comes to Japanese food.

Taipei (Nov 2012) (2/3)

Day 3

On our third day, we had planned for something which most people would not recommend for Taipei - a visit to their zoo.

We had our reasons for doing so. Firstly, although everyone was against us going, no one had even visited their zoo before. Secondly, it was one of the few places that we could visit in the morning at 9am. 

Located at Taipei Zoo MRT station, which was at the other end of the brown line, we arrived there three transits and 13 stations later. We planned to reach there at 9am but was half an hour late, and when we reached, the zoo entrance was, to my utmost horror and disgust, packed with hundreds of primary school children yelling and screaming. My enthusiasm dampened somewhat, but we still proceeded.

The entrance ticket costs only NT$60 (S$2.54) per pax, compared to S$20 for the Singapore Zoo. Took a lot of pictures, and here is just a small fraction of them. 

Taipei Zoo entrance with just 1% of the bratty kids

So that's how turtles do it

We spent quite a bit of effort to get the picture of the giraffe. My gf had to climb up a rather high ledge and take the picture with me supporting her from below.

We left the zoo at around noon, and took a train to Daan MRT before taking a 20-minute walk to 王品 (and where the gf complained non-stop). The menu is still roughly the same as during my previous visit, with a fixed price of NT$1,300 (S$55.08). For this price, you get a salad, soup, main course, plum juice, fruits, desserts, and drinks.

法式杏鲍菇沙拉 - Shrimp Cocktail with Fruit

Something light and refreshing to start the taste buds going.

燻鲑鱼焗牛肉洋菇 - Smoked Salmon & Beef with Mushroom Gratin

Whatever positive traits about this dish were overshadowed by the numerous fingerprints on the plate... eww.

酥皮海鲜清汤 - Seafood Consomme with Pastry

My gf ordered this. It turned out to be a clear soup (I had forgotten that consomme = clear soup), which definitely didn't go well with the pastry on top. So far, I have only seen soup pastries with creamy soups! This aside, the seafood soup was also flat and uninteresting.

法式菌菇浓汤 - French Mushroom Bisque

This tasted rather different from other mushroom soups. It was much sweeter, for one thing, and I found that it didn't really agree with my taste buds.

Roast Beef Fillet with Nuts & Lamb Chops

This was actually a 'customised' dish, because we swapped the cuttlefish with lamb chops. The roast beef fillet wasn't really good - I suspect that it is New Zealand beef - and the lamb chops were only average.

台塑牛排 - Wang Steak

Their trademark dish. This time, the waiter told me that I could choose between US beef and NZ beef. The former would be more tender while the latter would be more chewy. Without hesitation, I chose the US beef. Fortunately, this dish was still as good as ever! The beef short-ribs were separated into the meat and tendons portion. The meat had been stewed until it had soaked up all the flavour, and was extremely tender.

烤浓浆巧克力冰淇淋 - Chocolate Lava

I have never really liked thick chocolate, but the ice cream was still okay. The waitress even came over to offer us some free refills of ice cream, but we were too full to eat more.

红石榴慕斯 - Pomegranate Mousse

I preferred this dessert to the previous one. This was better - it was only mildly sweet and had the right balance.


To sum up, I wouldn't rate 王品's food too highly. It is all right, but not fantastic. Their service is something different, though. For tourists, I would suggest just visiting it once, and do order their 台塑牛排. For me, I would probably give it a miss during my next visit.


Restaurant name: 王品
Address: 台北市光复南路612号 (Nearest MRT is Daan or Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall station )Tel: 02-2325-3478

Taipei 101

Just like my previous visit, we walked to Taipei 101 after 王品. Unlike my previous visit though, where I spent 90% of the time sitting somewhere and playing my iPhone, this time I actually did quite a bit of shopping. A pair of Burberry cuff links caught my eye but cost more than S$200 (ouch), so I gave it up. We spent the most time in Zara, where I bought a wallet (NT$690 - S$29.24) for my brother, and a pair of shoes for only NT$990 (S$41.95).

After shopping, we had coffee at a cafe and sat there for a while with our iPads and magazines before taking a cab to our dinner venue, 巧味食堂. We were still pretty full, so we went there prepared to order less. It turned out that there was no menu; customers could just order what they want and the kitchen will see if they can prepare it. I told the owner specifically to cook for just two pax, but we ended up with too much food again. This is becoming a common affair. 

The food wasn't really too good honestly, so I won't bother posting the pictures. We didn't finish everything so that we still had space for 卤味 later at 师大夜市.

师大夜市

Another night market, which is located just five to seven minutes' walk away from our hotel.

灯笼加热卤味

Ah, the main purpose of our visit to 师大夜市 - for 卤味!

Lots of ingredients to choose from

Busy cooking the ingredients in their special gravy

卤味 for 2 pax

This still tasted as good as ever. Some of the ingredients I chose included meatballs, liver, pig intestines, and noodles. I can't recall how much it costs, but I think it's less than S$7. Why doesn't Singapore have any places selling this?

师大夜市
Address: 台北市大安区龙泉街106号 (Nearest MRT is Taipower station)

Taipei (Nov 2012) (1/3)

Fourth visit to Taipei in seven years, and the third consecutive one in as many years. This time, I went with my gf, who had never been to Taiwan. We booked our flight via Scoot, which cost us around S$380 per pax. Happened to bump into quite a few familiar faces at Changi Airport - one ex-colleague and two other colleagues (who were travelling separately too). 

While on the plane, I asked for a cup of water. The air stewardess told me that mineral water would cost S$4 per bottle, but if I had my own empty bottle, I could fill it up with drinking water (aka tap water) in front. It sort of implied that they didn't even want to provide me with a cup! But two hours later, I was so thirsty that I went behind to ask them directly for a paper cup. Which the air steward did give, albeit a bit grudgingly. Point to remember: bring your own empty bottle if you are taking Scoot next time.

Day 1

Our flight was at 1255am, so we reached there at around 5am. We had planned to take the airport shuttle bus out to Taipei city, since we had too much time and the cab fare isn't really cheap (NT$1,200, or S$50.85). But as luck had it, one colleague said that a driver will be coming to pick her up, so she offered to drop us off a MRT station in the city.

We got off at Taipei City Hall MRT station, and took a train to Daan station. From there it was around a seven minute walk to 永和豆浆大王. It was one of the few places I know that is opened for 24 hours, and since it was only around 7am, this was a perfect choice.

油条, 蛋饼, 烧饼夹肉松, 温豆浆

Dipping the 油条 into the soya milk

The 油条 was really good, but the rest were only average. Still, we were really hungry and wolfed down everything.

It was still too early to check in, so we went to a nearby Starbucks cafe and sat there for a couple of hours while using free wifi. Went to Sogo at Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station to buy some foodstuffs to bring home, and naturally, I grabbed a bowl of 阿宗面线 while we were there. Ah, I really missed this!

阿宗面线, NT$60 (S$2.54)

Lunch was at 鸡窝餐厅, which I had gone before in my previous visit. Their chicken soups are as fantastic as ever, and this time we even got a nice private room for two.

Entrance of 鸡窝餐厅

Panorama picture of our private room, which was too small and narrow for a normal picture 

原味鸡汤, NT$360 (S$15.25)

This restaurant is really under my 'must-go' list whenever I visit Taipei. The richness of their chicken soups is really out of this world, and I doubt if you can get this standard anywhere in Singapore. Even if there is, I am sure it would cost several times more.

Restaurant name: 鸡窝餐厅

Address: 台北市敦化南路二段81巷63号 (Nearest MRT is Daan station)

Tel: 02-2704-3038

It was almost 1pm by the time we finished lunch, so we went to check in at our hotel, Li Yuan Hotel (俪园饭店). It was situated at a rather good location, just beside Taipower Building MRT station and around five minutes' walk from 师大夜市.

The room is quite small but cosy

The most interesting thing about the room is the high-tech toilet bowl, which can help you wash up after you have finished your business, big or small

The hotel room wasn't expensive - it cost us NT$10,520 (S$445.76) for four nights, so it boils down to around S$111 per night. However, the room was full of mosquitoes when we checked in. After killing four, I decided that I have had enough and called the front counter to complain. They promised to help clear out the mosquitoes once we leave. I then took the chance to make reservations for some restaurants that were in our itinerary for the next few days.

Had an early dinner (430pm) at 金泰, another restaurant that I visited last year as well. It was located quite far away, so to save some money on cab fares, we took the MRT to Gangqian station, which was  11 stops away and required three transits. From there, we took a cab. They have actually increased their prices compared to last year, but that does not change the fact that it is still a fabulous deal for Japanese food.

鱼肚泥葱花盖饭, NT$300 (S$12.71)

I missed out on this in my past visit, so I made sure to order this as well. Gosh, this was superb! Other than all the ingredients being very fresh, the combination made this dish a must-try. In fact, they even had some suggestions on how to eat this. They specifically stated not to mix everything together as this will destroy the natural taste and combination of the rice. At this price, this is a stealer.

炒菠菜, NT$100 (S$4.24)

Some vegetables to neutralise all the meat that we have been eating.

海胆, NT$450 (S$19.07)

Unbelievably fresh and melts in your mouth! A real steal for less than S$20!

牡丹虾, NT$670 (S$28.39)

These are HUGE prawns. Fresh, sweet, and succulent. The prawn heads were very rich - so rich, in fact, that I felt full after sucking on two of them.

综合生鱼片, NT$250 (S$10.59)

A generous serving of assorted sashimi, sliced rather thickly. My gf has always loved sashimi. But today, this was actually rather neglected due to the other delicacies.

烤明太子, NT$230 (S$9.75)

Grilled mullet roe. This time, it was still a bit too salty even when taken with the sweet onions.

烤虱目鱼肚, NT$210 (S$8.90)

Grilled milkfish belly. Nothing too special about this dish. But the accompanying pepper really makes one choke easily.

The total bill came up to NT$2,210 (S$93.64), which was really value-for-money considering the quality and quantity (we ordered too much! Could have dropped the grilled milkfish belly and grilled mullet roe, actually). Another entrant on my 'must-go' list. For this visit, I actually made a reservation six weeks in advance, and the person who answered was really pleased when she learnt that I was calling from Singapore.

Restaurant name: 金泰

Address: 台北市内湖区旧宗路121巷34号 (Nearest MRT is Gangqian or Wende station, but still need to take a cab)

Tel: 02-8792-8167

Day 2

We started the day by going to 犁记 to buy pineapple tarts back to Singapore, before proceeding to 上引水产 for an early lunch (we skipped breakfast for this). 

Entrance of 上引水产, translated to 'Addiction Aquatic Development'

上引水产 is actually a high-class seafood supermarket with a small integrated restaurant.

I think that is Alaskan crab... it's huge

Fresh fish

Fresh oysters, NT$96 (S$4.07) each

Sea urchin going at NT$768 (S$32.54) per plate

Gigantic scallops! NT$246 (S$10.42)

Our breakfast-cum-lunch at their standing counter. No seats, no reservations allowed.

At the standing bar

The menu was a bit confusing (being all in Chinese doesn't help - I think I don't know more than half the fish names in the menu) so we just went ahead with one of their set menus (立舟套餐), which cost NT$580 (S$24.58). It was not fixed - rather, the restaurant decides on what to offer. Here's what we got:

海鲜沙拉

The starter - a seafood salad.

油鲔鱼葱花手卷

Minced tuna with spring onions, mixed with rice and wrapped with seaweed.

立舟握寿司

Assorted sushi. We were told to eat it in the following order: light coloured fish --> dark coloured fish --> fish roe --> prawn.

秋刀盐烧

Grilled sanma fish. I have always loved sanma fish and ordered or bought them quite often in Singapore. This was easily the best I have ever eaten; I suppose this is the difference between fresh and frozen fish! This was so much more tender and juicy.

鱼骨味噌汁

Miso soup with seafood. The soup was mixed with the right amount of miso and seafood such that it was slightly sweet and yet not overpowered by the taste of seafood.

For the quality and freshness of their food, S$25 was definitely worth it! Will definitely visit here again and order their higher-priced lunch set.

Restaurant name: 上引水产

Address: 台北市民族东路410巷2弄18号 (Nearest MRT is Xingtian Temple station, but still need to take a cab)

Tel: 02-2508-1268 (but no reservations accepted)

Next stop - 西门町. 

Shortly after we arrived, we were approached by this young kid who was probably around 15 to 16 years old. He greeted us enthusiastically and asked where we were from. When he learnt that we were from Singapore, he appeared to be rather delighted and started to ask more questions.

I felt wary. He was acting too friendly for my comfort, for one thing. And he was trying to act cute too, which I detest. I asked him bluntly what he wanted. He quickly assured us that he was not any “可疑人物" and then explained that he was a student who was trying to raise funds for something (he spoke too fast for me to catch). From his bag, he took out some souvenirs and asked if we were willing to donate for that.

We rejected his offer. He tried to sell us something different, and when we turned him down again, his face changed entirely - from all-smiles into a scowl - muttered something rude, and stormed off. We shrugged and continued walking. Saw someone else doing the same to other tourists - obviously from the same group too. 

There was a newly built Uniqlo here, and we spent most of our time in 西门町 here. They were having some opening sales, so we ended up buying some stuff from here instead of from the local shops. Grabbed a bowl of 阿宗面线 (naturally!), then took the MRT to Houshanpi station, where it was just a five minute walk to 五分埔.

One of the many alleys of 五分埔

五分埔 was a bit like Bangkok's Chatuchak Market, except that it was much smaller (and cooler!). The clothes they sell are cheaper than elsewhere, so I thought I would bring my gf here to shop. But the stuff there turned out not to be as cheap as we thought; additionally, nothing really caught her eye here, so we left before schedule for dinner at 桥头麻辣鸳鸯火锅.

Entrance of 桥头麻辣鸳鸯火锅

If not for the fact that I had been here six years ago, I would have been fairly dubious before going in. The entrance looked so shady!

麻辣 and 牛奶锅, NT$400 (S$16.95)

It didn't take us long to settle down and order our food. I had made a reservation ten days in advance, as this was a pretty popular place as well. And as usual, we ended up ordering too much food again.

What we ordered: 

- 沙朗牛肉, NT$380 (S$16.10)

- 猪肉, NT$250 (S$10.59)

- 手工鲜虾丸, NT$240 (S$10.17)

- 台南鱼丸, NT$80 (S$3.39)

- 鱼饺, NT$80 (S$3.39)

- 鱼片, NT$200 (S$8.47)

- 大白菜, NT$100 (S$4.24)

- 金针菇, NT$100 (S$4.24)

All were quite good (except for the vegetables - how good can plain cabbage and mushrooms be?) but the homemade prawn balls definitely deserved a special mention. One bite and there was an explosion of fresh prawn flavour. Superb! 

Restaurant name: 桥头麻辣鸳鸯火锅

Address: 台北市敦化南路一段157号2楼 (Nearest MRT is Zhongxiao Dunhua station)

Tel: 02-2777-5608