Goodies From Taiwan

In July Hubby went on a business trip to Taiwan. He came back with bags of goodies, courtesy of his colleague in Taiwan as well as the local hosts.

The irony was that in June we had just gone on a family trip to the very same country. (It seems that Taiwan seems to be having a renaissance of some sort when it comes to travel. In the last decade or two, many people were visiting China, its booming coastal cities as well as the more exotic places of attraction in its vast interior. But in the last two to three years, it seems an increasing number of people are beginning to go to Taiwan for vacations again, judging from anecdotes and the burgeoning number of blogger posts about Taiwanese trips. Which is a good thing, for Taiwan is a friendly and beautiful country. And getting around it is easy, especially for Singaporeans who speak Mandarin or Hokkien.)

Er hem, I digress.

Back to our Taiwanese trip. As we didn’t have much time (we went the inefficient and circuitous route of Taipei — Taichung — Hualien — Taipei in 6 days; don’t ask why, it’s a long story) and didn’t do much research beforehand, I didn’t manage to lay my hands on a couple of Taiwanese products that I’ve heard people raving and ranting about — the sun cakes ( 太阳饼 ) and the almond powder.

Imagine my delight when Hubby returned from his business trip lugging these amongst the other goodies!

The sun cakes were from Li Ji ( 犁记 ) and they were every bit as yummy as I remember sun cakes to be.

It seems that Taiwanese pineapple tarts ( 凤梨酥 ) tend to be more popular but I generally find them to be overly sweet, and more than a little synthetic in taste, including the ones Hubby brought back this time. But I have always loved the rich taste of sun cakes and the ones from Li Ji did not disappoint.

 Each cake comes with a red stamp on it, saying sun cake in traditional Chinese. So old-school that it brings back the memories. I used to loathe eating anything with red dye. Perhaps because the young me associated the colour with blood, and being no vampire, I didn’t find the idea of ingesting blood the least bit attractive. In fact, it was revolting.

Fortunately the old me has no such qualms. I wolfed down the sun cakes all right, and found them to be utterly delicious, the buttery fragrance mixed with the complex richness of malt sugar. The pastry was just the right thickness, not too thick but thick enough to prevent the mixture from being overpoweringly sweet.

They have a branch in Shanghai too. So the next time you are in Taipei or Shanghai, pick up a couple of boxes of this. I assure you they’ll disappear real quickly.

The other gem from the bags of goodies was this:

Instant All Natural Almond Powder from
Golden Mountain

To prepare this, add three teaspoons of the powder into a cup of cold or hot water. Then stir until all the powder has dissolved. And you’ll end up with a smooth, creamy cup of almond milk.

I’ve been drinking it hot. And I like it thick so instead of three teaspoons, I add three tablespoons  :)

I find that immediately after adding the hot water, there tends to be a bit of burnt taste but that goes away pretty quickly. So I’m not sure if it’s my imagination. Taste is pretty good too. Mildly sweet and if you like the fragrance of almonds, this will be a hit with you.

There are supposedly a ton of benefits associated with this drink too. It is supposed to give a radiant complexion (no wonder the girls always buy tons of this when they visit Taiwan) and helps to boost your memory too. Tastes good and is good for the brain. What’s not to like?

I was told that a different brand of almond powder can be purchased in the NTUC in Jurong Point, so I’ll be trying to hunt it down. I’ve already finished this can. If anyone knows where else in Singapore I can get my hands on instant almond powder, kindly drop a comment to let me know. I’ll be eternally grateful.

For any Chinese reader who
may be reading this   :)