Biz Trip Taipei - Zhi Char

As this was my 3rd trip to Taipei, I've made some friends among my colleagues and vendor. I was thrilled when they invited me out to a local place for dinner cause I knew I would be eating good food at a local ambiance location. And from the photo above, I hit jackpot! This place was quite near where our office is via train or taxi, and it was a girl's night out with my Taiwanese girlfriends.

Above is my first time eating rice with minced meat in Taiwan. They are famous for it, but this was the first time I tried it. It was delicious! I had two bowls of it. And my Taiwanese girl friend had seconds too! I knew I was in good company when the girls are not afraid to enjoy their food! And if you look behind, there is a plate or a rather pale looking fried cabbage. I didn't know why my colleague would order such a boring dish, but when I bite into them, OMG, they were so sweet and fragrant and crunchy! Why is it vegetable always taste so much better outside of Singapore? Super super love it. I would have been happy if that was the only two dishes I ate that night and no! There were more! For 4 ladies, we did order a lot, even if the serving was rather small. 

Above is my favourite of the dish ordered, pig intestine with chives stuffing. I thought I've died and gone to heaven. I would have given this dish a Michelin star if I could. Super super lovely! 

We also had bitter gourd chicken soup. This was the first time I ate white coloured bitter gourd. The soup was nice, although I suspect there were some ginger in it. But there was a touch of chinese wine inside it, so I was ok. But with so much good food on the table, it seemed senseless to fill my stomach with so much soup. The sinful looking peanut dish in the photo is actually fried baby squid with salt and better. Needless to say, delicious! If only I had a cold beer then....

We also ordered big head prawn cook in the same salt and pepper flavour. They were also delicious!

But a part of the lovely food, what I enjoyed was the lovely company of my Taiwanese girl friends. Although I can't really understand mandarin that well, and stayed quiet mostly in their conversation, I can understand enough to appreciate it. And I find that they can talk about any topic without being taboo about anything, something which I miss in my Singaporean friends who are always politically correct and never speaks their mind. I find Taiwanese much more often, much more comical, much more warm. 

One of them visited Singapore recently, and I took the trouble to meet up with her and my other Taiwanese colleague who is working in Singapore. It was just as fun. I missed honest conversation, especially with girlfriends cause seriously, I am short of girlfriends, what with me being in the IT industry and growing up with a brother and spending my holidays with my male nephews...