Taiwan Trip -- Day 4

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[youtube=EbIwl0UvpN4][youtube=gqEi51JNvGg][youtube=K9_lmW0muU0][youtube=3hQNyqHxn1k][youtube=rAIJAxhtNww]

Today is dedicated to gluttony.
Ambassador Hotel has excellent breakfast. They have their own bakery, so it goes without saying that their breakfast pastries were excellent. Which made me want to try more bread and pastries in Taiwan so we headed out to "Breeze" shopping center on Fu-Shin North Road. A very high end shopping mall (think Prada, Gucci, Loewe) and a high end bakery that complements. Can't remember the name (sorry!) but their Cookie-Croissant was just wow wow wow. Imagine your favorite fluffy airy buttery croissant, topped with a thin layer of crisp sweet cookie, baked together such that in every bite, you get a perfect harmony of cookie and croissant together. Match made in heaven -- an interesting mix of two distinctive types of crunchiness, the airy croissant and crispy cookie, not competing, but truly complementing. Ahhh. Sorry for no video either, I was just so lost.
After I woke up from the sweet coma, we headed out to Yung Kang street for the world famous shaved ice. Hot day, big line, lots and lots of people. It was good, as good as cubed mango on top of a bed of shaved ice with layers of sweet syrup and condensed milk can be. Simplcity at its best.
However there is truly nothing that can top the five thousand years of Chinese culture on a plate -- Peking Duck. We arrived at this restaurant (Tau Ran Ting) on the second floor, relatively small, can this place really be that good (it's been around for 50 years, I heard)? Appetizer would be a good precursor to how good a place is -- oh man, the flavor! Spice from the garlic paste mixed with strong vinegarrette marinated into thinly shredded cabbage and bits of chili peppers, hint of cilantros, and a subtle sweetness from the rice wine. Is this how the duck going to taste like? The owner's son carved the duck for us (watch that video! He is awesome, and did you see that steam coming out from the duck?) and I just realized that hey, Chinese heaven has multiple layers!!!! The exquisite combination of texture and flavor -- cripsy greasy duck skin, gamy chewy duck meat, light refreshing spicy scallion, sweet salty fruity sauce, thin moist warm tortilla, do I need to describe more? Yes, you eat all these together and you taste all these at slightly different pace but almost alltogether, depending on how your taste bud reacts to each different element of this tiny dynamite. Did I mention that I gained three pounds?

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