Third stop: Lunchtime (Yangming Creek)
Our tour guide Xiao Hei drove us a bit to a place he said served “local food fare”. Great, I’m all up for it. It’s cold and raining. Might as well get something warm down my belly.
After parking the vehicle near the road (seems like a pay-per-park vacant lot) in Zhuzihu at Yangming Creek, he led us to the restaurant nearest to that parking lot. It’s called Ji Yuan Pu. Again, really homely resturant for me. Very similar structure and setup as any Kapampangan roadside resturant I could remember back home. The smell of cooked food wafts throughout the restaurant, and was sufficiently warm for me to finally ditch my jacket. It felt great and warm inside.
As I was a solo traveler, my tour guide assigned me to a table alongside two other paired groups. Fortunately one of them was a Filipino couple. The other pair was a married retired couple from the UK. We were to order as a group of one, but the bill we have to pay individually.
I immediately perused the menu, and afterwards zeroed in on mee sua bowl. Noodles, basically. I decided to ditch rice and go for the noodle-soup bowl instead. The biggest reason for that (besides me fearing the rice would take too much space in my stomach) was I wanted to try a dish I saw straight away – stir-fried ostrich meat. It was the most exotic dish I’ve seen that fit my two criteria – something I won’t see or be able to eat in Chinatown in Singapore, and something from an animal I haven’t had the pleasure to try before. When I saw that, I immediately scanned the rest of the menu, and after that I was like, fuck the rest of the menu, this one I want. However… the size of the dish. It was meant for two people! Man. So that became the biggest reason why I went for the mee sua option. If I am to eat this protein spread, I’ll have to shave the calories somewhere else.
The mee sua bowl came first. Man, this blows. I wish it came together with the meat dish. I do appreciate they loaded it generously with fried garlic, shallots and spring onions, and the broth it came with was light but tasted of chicken bones. Very scrumptious. But I don’t have meat, and I don’t want to eat this bowl of noodles without it.
It also didn’t help that our group’s table and seat was windowside, and the window had, say, inadequate protection against the winds outside, so occassionally some gust of wind comes blowing by with some wet specks of rainwater, right to my face as I am the one closest to the window.
So to spend a while, I chatted with my new tour mates. The Filipino couple hailed from Pangasinan, but they were living in America. They were basically enjoying an extended “vacation” outside of the Philippines for a bit of time. The other couple was a sweet elderly British couple that was touring some Asian countries. They came to Taiwan after visiting Thailand and Malaysia. The lady was open to eating “native” foods while the dude seemed to be a fussy eater that, while still will eat a couple of native foods if given little choice, he would likely rather retreat to comfortable options. Well, fine and dandy then. We chatted for a while, drinking our table-provided black tea, until our main foods arrived. The Filipino couple had this big dish of fried chicken chunks mixed with greens into something like a stir-fried dish into a medium pot, and the UK couple had a lovely spread of seafood dishes and a roast chicken dish. Me, I finally can have my exotic bird.
The ostrich meat was, in a word, amazing. The texture of beef but much softer and less fibrous, like duck meat. No taste of blood at all. You can taste it blind and think it’s beef because of the texture. Mix in some gravy, scallions, leeks and some mushrooms, man, it was tasty. And sufficiently warm too, my noodles got cold already so pairing them with the piping-hot food was good enough. Man, how many calories will this be, I was thinking. I ate a solid two servings, maybe three. Meh. YOLO for now. This is rare shit. I pegged it at 1500 at my meal tracker. And a mental note to walk some more for later.
After that hearty meal, we chatted up some more, and once everyone was ready, we got up and paid our dues at the counter. Our tour guide Xiao Hei was there to help translate, and help us point as to which dishes we ordered and how much we should pay. Very thankful for that.
Once we were out, Xiao Hei told us that we have some leeway time, and there were some flower farms nearby. We could walk around the place, and reminded us where the car park was. We were to meet back at the car in around 30-40 minutes. Sweet then.
I found one nearby flower farm a couple of blocks north where the restaurant was, but seems it had paid entry. Fortunately Xiao Hei was there nearby as well, and he gladly pointed us to where we could take a walk instead and still have *some* views of the flower fields.
We walked into this pathway near a water pond and beside a creek, and while the place looked nice despite the weather, the flower garden proprietor clearly did not want free views of the monetized area, so they erected these big green canvas covers atop the original wire barriers, so people passing by the creek could not get a roadside glimpse.
But they clearly missed that there were a few makeshift stone seats near the yard barriers, fashioned to be benches. All people had to do to get a decent view of the flower farm was to stand on top of those stone seats. And maybe be at least 5’10”. But for me, I also had a long selfie stick. I was able to get unobstructed views of the flower farm by sticking my selfie stick above the canvas covers atop the wire barriers. So I just went ahead and did that a lot.
Once I got my fill of the flower shots, I walked back to the main road. Whew, it was cold, even with my jacket on. Me wanted some warm food again. Good thing I wore denim for insulation. Fortunately, there was a roadside stall nearby selling freshly-brewed coffee. Like, real fresh brew. Got the roasted beans, proper equipment and everything. No cold Americano this time for me. I ordered one latte with no sugar.
Once I finished sipping my coffee near the restaurant (there was a small shed outside for people to take shelter from the elements), I went to the carpark to our tour car. Surprisingly, the other folks in my tour were punctual this time. Xiao Hei asked us all to stand in the middle of the road with the north road as a backdrop, and took our obligatory group photo. After that, we went back inside the car, and our tour guide got us back to the road, for the next tour stop. Hopefully, with nicer weather. Rain completely stopped as well. Fingers crossed!
Briathrail // Albert 2MNG 
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