The first half of the day was spent working, and then our generous business partner treated us to a nice full lunch course at Chamonix 夏慕尼- apparently belongs to the same parent company with Ikki - the one we went to on our first night for dinner.
This restaurant is slightly more posh looking when compared to Ikki. We sat right in front of the chefs and watch the skilful chefs cooked. It's a really interesting sight to see how the chefs cook various food in different techniques on the big iron griddle.
A bit of google and I found the following info on the restaurant. Chamonix is a mixture of traditional Teppanyaki and French Cuisine. It's a part of Wowprime corporation which is the largest and the most experienced local dining group in Taiwan.
Click HERE to view the set menu in English.
First they served Appetizers. It's not written in the menu so I think the appetizers change from time to time.
2 spoonful of appetizers: one with fresh rolled fish with a dash of caviar and fruit cubes;
the other was jelly with fresh shrimps and fruit cubes I think.. The waitress did explain, but they spoke in fluent Chinese and I couldn't pick them up! Nevertheless, 2 very refreshing and yummy appetizers there...
Bread was toasted on the iron griddle before being served with mayo and fish roe.
Soup was next. I chose Truffle-Infused Onion Soup as opposed to the other Seafood soups 'cos I'll be having lots of seafood later. :)
My choice of salad was Truffle and Mushroom Salad - lovely!
Thereafter, we were served with free-flow Lemon Sorbet to ease our digestion as well as to cleanse our palate for the next course. Sounds familiar? Same concept with Ikki (place we had dinner last night) because they belong to the same parent company.
That's our Chef preparing DH's dish - Grilled Short Ribs with garlic, and that's my fresh fish being fried, and somebody else's chicken.. My Taiwanese companion told me that it's an Ice Fish - meaning that the fish was caught in the ice. I'm not sure how true is that though.
My Main Course is an assorted Fresh Seafood Combo - a whole fresh 'Ice Fish', with one fresh oyster, and a fresh scallop.
The Chef served me the fish first after deboning the fish.
Fried Rice with crispy fried shrimps was served after. I couldn't finish it even though it was served in a small bowl only. Passed the balance to DH.. :P
Then I was served my Fresh Oyster and Fresh Scallop and they were simply heavenly!
Just as I thought I couldn't stomach anymore, the remaining of my fish was deep fried (the bones, to be precise) and was served to me! My companion warned me this was coming and I thought he was pulling my leg. But no! The Chef served it to me and said every part of the fish could be eaten. Nothing goes to waste!
I feel like a cat eating the bones of my fish.. But yea, it was so crispy that everything breaks easily in the mouth without trying too hard. The taste.. just merely tasted a bit like fried bones, a bit burnt taste, even. I didn't quite enjoyed it but was impressed that no parts of the fish goes to waste this way.
We were then moved to the dinner table on the other side of the restaurant for our desserts.
My dessert: Dark Chocolate Ice Cream served with Hot Passion Fruit Sauce. This was pretty cool. Vanilla Ice Cream was served in a ball of dark chocolate which will melt partly when the hot Passion Fruit Sauce is dribbled over it.
Last but not least, I had some hot herbal tea in my attempt to balance out my meal. Tasted funky.. :P
All of us were given a survey form with a free pen and some Lindt Chocolates after the meal.
Here's a list of the things we ordered in Chinese.
All in all, DH and I were very satisfied with our lunch. Only drawback was, the lunch took about 2 hours and we were super full after the lunch around 2.30pm.
Jesse (Taiwan Biz Partner) then drove us to a shopping mall (forgot the name) near his company (near Costco and Carrefour) to buy Almond Tea for my MIL.
At Yongkang Street...
We went to Yongkang Street (short walk from Dongmen MRT Station) after Jesse drop us off 2 stops away. Yongkang St is where the Original Ding Dai Fung is. We were there looking for a pharmacy/ beauty shop called 小三美日 'Little Three Everyday' at Yongkang St 2. This particular beauty shop chains are generally smaller than more popular ones like Watsons and Cosmed; but they do carry a wide assortment of brands that the former two pharmacies don't carry Eg: Annie's Way, 1028 (makeup line created by local celebrity), 3 Concept Eyes (3CE) just to name a few.
After searching for 15 min, a local from nearby 7 Eleven told me that the 'Little Three' moved to another location but not sure where exactly. So we gave up searching and went back to our hotel to freshen up before heading out for another round of makan trip - to the Shih Lin Night Market.
Shih Lin Night Market
Our trip wouldn't be complete without a visit to this famous Shih Lin Night Market, similar to our local 'Pasar Malam' or Hong Kong's Temple Street ('Miu Kai') and Ladies' Street ('Lui Yan Kai')- but Shih Lin is much more organized and has many more street snacks.
How did we get there?
We took the Taipei Metro to Jiantan Station on Tamsui Line (Red Line). There's only 1 exit once you reach Jiantan Station and you can actually follow the crowd towards the market from there. The market is said to operate from 5pm to about 11pm or some say 1am.
If you think you are lost, rest assured that there is a Visitor's Information Centre to your left once you exit the train station. Just for the record, Taipei Metro uses a blue coin instead of a ticket or card.
We bought this custard filling thingy in the shape of fish from the 'Sushi' store right outside the Metro Station as we couldn't resist the strong Waffle-like smell it creates. 8 pcs for NT$50 and they were yummy! Hot and sweet.
Once we're out of the station, walk straight and you will see the Metro Tracks above you, heading towards the next station - ShihLin Station.
Cross the road and you'll see shops and street food stalls along the main street already.
Our first stop was at the colourful fruit stall. We usually don't buy and eat fruits that are already cut 'cos they are exposed to all sorts of pollution and bacteria. After seeing the special types of fruits available and the large crowd purchasing them; we thought eating some cold juicy fruits in the warm weather isn't a bad idea after all.
Look at the colourful array of fresh fruits!
Taiwan's version of bitter gourd I think. Apparently less bitter than what we get here in KL.
Such cute Heart Shaped Guavas - they're my favourite! And large pink guavas next to them (not so sweet). We also bought Mangoes (super sweet and juicy), Starfruit (to reduce my body heat), and Milk Pineapple (another favourite - only available here and first time trying the pale coloured pineapple). Prices in this fruit stall is severely overpriced and they go by the kilograms, but at that moment, we didn't care so much.
Funky umbrella invention being sold - creative though!
Some R-rated snacks - and NO, we did not try them!
We bought the Deep Fried Ice Cream for NT$25 each. Nicely fried, but the ice cream wasn't flavourful enough.
There's a Food Court at B1 somewhere in the middle of Shih Lin Market.. We had Milk Ice Shavings with Mangoes and Oyster Omelette.
Milk ice shavings with sweet mangoes
'Or Jian' or Oyster Omellet - not as nice as the ones in Malaysia. Not as fragrant, but the many oysters were given, as compared to the Malaysia ones whereby you're lucky if you can get more than 4 or 5.
We didn't eat that much as we were still full from our heavy lunch.
Besides food, there were many shops (proper rented shops - not street stalls) selling a variety of things - clothes, shoes, ABC Mart, handphone covers, accessories, selfie sticks (the IN thing nowadays), bags, and etc.
We left the place around 11pm and were really tired. The crowd too has lessened by then.
Off we go to department Stores and Xi Men Ding the next day!
To be continued... (Part 3)
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