Taiwanese Cuisine Part 3 - Shin Yeh Restaurant

I wasn't so keen to eat at Shin Yeh Restaurant (欣葉台菜料理) at first.

For one, we had a very heavy breakfast that day before we met my friend, T for lunch at Shin Yeh. And then, I know that Shin Yeh is a chain of fancy restaurants serving Taiwanese cuisine, with restaurants in Taiwan, Singapore and even Beijing. A few of the guidebooks refer to Shen Yeh as "classy and relatively expensive Taiwanese cuisine". Somehow, that doesn't sound particularly appealing to me. I would have preferred words like "wholesome", "homecooked", "simple" etc.. much more than "classy" and "expensive"

And yet the food at Shin Yeh was pretty good. The food is pretty down-to-earth after all.. and not the pretentious kind that I thought a "classy Taiwanese restaurant" would serve up. I liked the place a lot more when I heard that they served plain porridge with sweet potatoes.

We had Deep-Fried Oysters seasoned with Salt and Pepper (which is like oyster tempura flavoured with a very typical Taiwanese seasoning - salt and white pepper), Braised Intestines (I don't really eat intestines but The Husband and my friend seemed to like them), Fried Prawn Balls (Prawns, onions and water-chestnuts mixed with batter and then deep fried) and Towel Gourd cooked with calms (This is very good - the towel gourd soaked up all the sweetness from the calms)

 The Husband and I really couldn't eat very much due to our heavy breakfast.. but we still managed to almost finish up all 4 dishes. I would be looking forward to trying out the Shin Yeh at Liang Court in Singapore - to find out if it is as good.

Shin Yeh Restaurant 欣葉台菜料理

Various stores in Taipei - check out their website for details
I went to the one near Taipei 101, at 信義新天地A9
Address : 台北市松壽路9號8樓（新光三越信義新天地A9館8樓
Tel: +866(02)87861234
Website: http://www.shinyeh.com.tw/

Taipei Flower Expo - Apart from flowers

There were various exhibition halls at the Taipei Flower Expo. Apart from the fields of flowers and outdoor exhibits, there were lots of interesting things to see in each of the exhibition halls.

Most had long queues outside though, even though we arrived early that day. But we still managed to go into a couple of exhibition halls.

Here are some of the photos I took of everything other than flowers at the expo.

I found the outdoor exhibits of the various countries pretty interesting.. Most display the characteristics of the countries.

This is is a fun one of Belgium..

Of great disappointment is the one from Singapore - 3 big laterns and some iron-like structures.. Where is Merlion?

Taipei Flower Expo - Flowers and then more flowers

The Taipei Flower Expo is held in Taipei from 6 Nov 2010 to 25 April 2011. We were really fortunate to be able to be in Taipei for this because it was really a pretty sight.

I'd just let the pictures do most of the talking..

There were a lot of flowers..

Some were rather strange looking.. but nonetheless beautiful..

There were just lots of flowers everywhere..

There were "fields" of flowers.. "walls" of flowers.. and flowers everywhere..

And lots of people too, if you can see from this picture below.

Actually, the flowers were much better looking in real life. Somehow, my photos do not do all those flowers justice.