"Ta-daa!" I am come out of my home this morning to scooter off to Uni and behold, the road is re-surfaced. I think they must have been working past 9pm last night. (And a possible point of minor interest, my car/scooter garage and house is the one with the green traffic cone outside)

Ok, that's enough about food for now. As I was composing that last blog I heard the noise of workmen outside. So with camera in hand I stepped outside. Now please remember it is 8pm and these guys started working on the roads nearby at 8am! I am constantly impressed at how hard the Taiwanese work! They can strip 500 metres of it's top layer and have it resurfaced in a few hours. In fact my options to get home this afternoon were to either play 'chicken' with the heavy machinery or to walk over recently laid tarmac (in flip flops!). I chose the later option, it was, shall we say, a 'warming' experience.

 One of my favourite meals. Beef and Rice. Served with spicy black pepper sauce, onions and a fried egg. In fact it comes out of the kitchen sizzling and the egg cooks as you eat, the cast iron plate is that hot. Tea is also included, and all for the price of just £1.90. 

 And this is how the little restaurants are often set out. Plastic chairs and tables. Plus a TV, playing a continual loop of the days news.

Two of my favourite places. The steak & rice restaurant on the right. And to it's left is a fancy bread and cake shop (I hope you can read it's sign!). Both less than five minutes walk from home. 

Lots of fancy cakes in the fancy bakery shops. They look very tasty, and yet somehow the Taiwanese manage to extract a lot of the sweetness as they make them. Having said that, this strawberry and chocolate little thing was very nice. 

(Note: There must be a retired British Health & Safety "expert" living nearby, as you can see from the reverse of the 'Happy Time' sign)

Sad to say that there is no Greggs in Taiwan...sigh...but they do have plenty of bread & cake shops and here are a few snacks, that in the interest of research, I had to try.

A sausage roll, Taiwan style. Very tasty and the sweet glazing adds a certain "je ne sais quoi".

 One ring donut, which was ok. But never as good as a Greggs Belgian Bun!

And here is the odd one. A simple sponge cake you would think. But I had my suspicions the moment the sales assistant told me it was a Taiwanese speciality. The stuff sprinkled on top and making up the filing is not fine brown sugar, rather it is called "rou" which translates as "meat". And that is meat, not 'meat like appearance' or 'brown like meat' but 'meat because it is meat!' The smell was all wrong, but the taste truly horrible. This is the first thing that I have not been able to eat since I arrived.

The mountains of Taiwan are beautifully green; and such a refreshing change from the cities. I stumbled across this place, a family run restaurant where they serve their own organically grown products. The pork just melted in my mouth, and went perfectly with the rice, bamboo (yes bamboo...and so tender) and pumpkin (there is a pumpkin growing in the second picture).

I have found myself longing for a Wagamama Katsu Curry. Good News! In Taiwan there is a chain of curry restaurants called Mr 38. The pork (not chicken) dish is equally scrumptious and for half the price.

This company needs to have serious words with it's marketing department if they ever want to start selling these biscuits in the UK!

Lunch one Saturday after a busy morning. The rice (right hand dish) was delicious. The left hand dish was a noodle based meal. The brown 'things' in the noodle, which I was told were a Taiwanese speciality, looked like mushrooms. Wrong! After I had eaten most of the meal I was told they were in fact pigs intestines. Pigs intestines, hmmm, slightly chewy, but actually quite nice. So does it pass my 'would I have that again?' test...yes.