Taiwan/Hong Kong Trip
Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2019 3:11 pm
Overall my trip to Hong Kong and Taiwan was great! I really enjoyed my time in Taiwan and it gave me whispers of a past trip of Japan given some of the cultural influence. I enjoyed staying and hiking in Taroko Gorge - it was very beautiful.
I visited Wistaria tea house and enjoyed it. The quality of tea was better than NYC tea houses. No I would not buy tea from there, but since I am visiting and can't really have a good session while traveling it is nice to have a place to sit down and drink. I felt the same way about Lock Cha teahouse in Hong Kong (the puers I had there steeped forever, it was rather impressive). I didn't really have a chance to drink much of my favorite high mountain gaoshan. This wasn't necessarily a tea trip. Though I did end up buying a nice amount of teacups and tea accessories in Yingge which made me happy. I'll be testing the cups and such in other posts. My tea table is being delivered tomorrow after 2 months of waiting. I was able to find 3 potential candidates for sheng puer teacups that I'd been searching for for a while, though it was hard to find the right size and material even in this town completely filled with ceramics lol. I visited one of Bok's friend's teaware stores and bought the 2 items on the left there. I'll post better pics eventually through future tea sessions.
There were certain areas of Taipei that were very tea-focused and I thought it was interesting to see tea being so integrated into a culture and city. I enjoyed the food in Taiwan very much. There were a lot of healthy food options. I really did not like the food in Hong Kong and that was the biggest let down of the trip for sure. My expectations were so high for the cuisine there. I really like eating at Madame Zhu's in NYC and thought the quality of Chinese food would be pretty high in HK, so we had planned to eat at a lot of HK Chinese restaurants that had Michelin stars and really good ratings. All I can say is what a let down. I never want to even look at Cantonese food again for the rest of my life. We tried to eat at various types of Chinese cuisine but they were all relatively similar. The restaurants there would not have gotten Michelin stars in NYC. The food there had the same low quality cuts of meat and sugary and greasy sauces that you'd find in most cheap Chinese restaurants in NYC. It's also pretty much impossible to find leafy green vegetables to eat in these kinds of restaurants, the closest you'll receive are the stems of water spinach with the leafy green tips cut off for some reason... My skin had pretty bad breakouts from the food and probably water and I got weird rashes on my body that took a few days to clear up. I don't recommend going to HK at all, I really hated the food and the atmosphere. Eating at Duddell's was the only redeeming experience I had there. Even the sushi in HK was a joke. It was really lacking refinement and quality in just about every way. Ok that's enough hating on HK for one post.
The cuisine in Taiwan was much more my style. I was able to eat a lot of wild greens and herbs that you can't find in a supermarket, which I loved. I love Japanese food so the influence on the cuisine was a welcome change. I'm very jealous that there's no such thing as Shin Yeh Japanese buffet in NYC. I ate that right before heading to the airport -- completely stuffed and blissful. As for tea served with meals, it was what you would expect. Nothing crazy. Mostly teabags of unimpressive quality. I can't wait to try out all of my different Taiwanese tea accessories. It was a good trip overall with some good experiences. I'm going to miss not being able to hang out with my boyfriend all day long for weeks at a time.
I visited Wistaria tea house and enjoyed it. The quality of tea was better than NYC tea houses. No I would not buy tea from there, but since I am visiting and can't really have a good session while traveling it is nice to have a place to sit down and drink. I felt the same way about Lock Cha teahouse in Hong Kong (the puers I had there steeped forever, it was rather impressive). I didn't really have a chance to drink much of my favorite high mountain gaoshan. This wasn't necessarily a tea trip. Though I did end up buying a nice amount of teacups and tea accessories in Yingge which made me happy. I'll be testing the cups and such in other posts. My tea table is being delivered tomorrow after 2 months of waiting. I was able to find 3 potential candidates for sheng puer teacups that I'd been searching for for a while, though it was hard to find the right size and material even in this town completely filled with ceramics lol. I visited one of Bok's friend's teaware stores and bought the 2 items on the left there. I'll post better pics eventually through future tea sessions.
There were certain areas of Taipei that were very tea-focused and I thought it was interesting to see tea being so integrated into a culture and city. I enjoyed the food in Taiwan very much. There were a lot of healthy food options. I really did not like the food in Hong Kong and that was the biggest let down of the trip for sure. My expectations were so high for the cuisine there. I really like eating at Madame Zhu's in NYC and thought the quality of Chinese food would be pretty high in HK, so we had planned to eat at a lot of HK Chinese restaurants that had Michelin stars and really good ratings. All I can say is what a let down. I never want to even look at Cantonese food again for the rest of my life. We tried to eat at various types of Chinese cuisine but they were all relatively similar. The restaurants there would not have gotten Michelin stars in NYC. The food there had the same low quality cuts of meat and sugary and greasy sauces that you'd find in most cheap Chinese restaurants in NYC. It's also pretty much impossible to find leafy green vegetables to eat in these kinds of restaurants, the closest you'll receive are the stems of water spinach with the leafy green tips cut off for some reason... My skin had pretty bad breakouts from the food and probably water and I got weird rashes on my body that took a few days to clear up. I don't recommend going to HK at all, I really hated the food and the atmosphere. Eating at Duddell's was the only redeeming experience I had there. Even the sushi in HK was a joke. It was really lacking refinement and quality in just about every way. Ok that's enough hating on HK for one post.
The cuisine in Taiwan was much more my style. I was able to eat a lot of wild greens and herbs that you can't find in a supermarket, which I loved. I love Japanese food so the influence on the cuisine was a welcome change. I'm very jealous that there's no such thing as Shin Yeh Japanese buffet in NYC. I ate that right before heading to the airport -- completely stuffed and blissful. As for tea served with meals, it was what you would expect. Nothing crazy. Mostly teabags of unimpressive quality. I can't wait to try out all of my different Taiwanese tea accessories. It was a good trip overall with some good experiences. I'm going to miss not being able to hang out with my boyfriend all day long for weeks at a time.