Comedy Of Errors

Day 2 will always be remembered as the 鼎泰豐 debacle.  As always, mom was waiting for everyone else to pile into the car so that we could get to the restaurant before 11AM, which per 嬸嬸 was the opening time.  Long story short, mom didn't want to walk from the 中正紀念堂 MRT station to the restaurant, so we got off at a different station to transfer to a bus that would drop us off right in front of 鼎泰豐.  We ended up waiting 40 minutes for the bus, and to make matters worse the bus route had changed so that it no longer stopped in front of the restaurant.  Needless to say, we didn't get to the restaurant by 11AM.  By the time we got there the wait time was an hour.  At that point no one wanted to wait an hour, except for mom, so we ended up settling for something else.

The crowd outside the restaurant...

So a warning to those visiting in February, insist on getting off at the 中正紀念堂 MRT station and walk there.  It's really not that long of a walk as we ended up walking to the memorial after lunch anyway.

We got there just in time for the changing of the guards.

Poor mom.  Not only did she not get to have 鼎泰豐, she ended up walking more than she had bargained for, as we walked further to the Taipei train station and then took the MRT to 西門丁, and walked some more over there.  By then we had to put her out of her misery by telling them to go home.  The lady was exhausted.

Some of the sites along the way.

Mister Donut, recommended by the 'Hungry Girl's Guide', was absolutely awful!  Cute, but awful.  Tasted nothing like donuts; more like chewy fried dough.  Even dad who usually has a high threshold for bad food declared it a 'fail'.

So-so fried chicken

So-so cream pastry

Quail eggs

Sugar coated fruits

By dinner time we were all ready to finally have some awesome food.  So we headed out to 師大 night market.  This market is actually much better than the 士林 night market because of the variety of food and the younger crowd.

The crowd

Though the food still failed to impress any of us.

Green tea ice with red beans and green tea ice cream was actually quite tasty.

So the search goes on...