Beefy and porky

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It's the last day of my trip to spend some time with the Parental Units in Taipei, and I've pretty much eaten every meal at home so far. I would never complain about eating too much of mom's cooking, but I still want to have an occasional nibble outside. So I decided I should visit somewhere I haven't been for way, waaaay too long.

Fu Ba Wang (富霸王) is one of my favorite places in town for braised pork trotters, but it's been more than 12 years since my last bite. I knew that in the old days, they used to sell out of the choice part of the trotter pretty early, so I told myself I needed to get there soon after they open at 11 a.m. Well... I left home late, took the MRT, and arrived at noon. There was already a line of people waiting outside, so I dutifully waited my turn.

Thankfully everything was still available. Since it's been much too long since I was last here, I got a little greedy and ordered more than I should have.

Top section of trotter (霸王腿扣) - I'm really happy to have been able to get this. There is actually plenty of meat here, and they've cut it away from the bone and into slices, but still surrounded by a thick layer of fat and skin. You get the whole experience, which is how I like to eat trotters... thanks to growing up with mom's braised trotters at home. They don't braise it as much as mom does, so the skin and the fat still have a little more springiness.

Middle section of trotter (霸王腿節) - I love this, too, but here we've got mostly skin and fat with just a little meat. Love all the collagen here.

Braised pork rice (魯肉飯) - I used to think that just a bowl of plain, steamed rice was needed when there's already so much skin and soy marinade on the plates of trotters, but I still couldn't resist paying a little more for additional bits of soft, braised skin. After all, there's never too much skin and fat!

Very satisfying, and I left with a smile on my face. So happy to have come back, and I'll make sure I'm back here more often when mom doesn't have a pot of trotter in her kitchen.

Hours later I'm at Taoyuan International Airport getting ready to fly back to Hong Kong. A friend had discovered the existence of an outpost by Lin Dong Fang Beef Noodles (林東芳牛肉麵) inside Terminal 2, which had actually been open since 2022. Of course, since I pretty much only fly CX or CI operating out of Terminal 1, this is something I never came across...

After checking in for my flight and dropping off my luggage in T1, I took the train to T2... only to realize that the noodle shop was INSIDE the secure area. So I went through security check and immigration in T2, then went upstairs for my dinner.

Half tendon half beef noodle (半筋半肉麵) - I was so happy that I could eat this before flying, and I ordered my usual. Of course the pricing came at a significant premium to what I would normally pay in town, but many of us would happily fork over the money. I felt that the broth was nearly the same with the usual mix of herbs and spices, but somehow I felt the slices of beef shank were a tad saltier than normal. The noodles had a very good amount of bite, and overall I was still very, very satisfied.

We are kinda forced to take "set meals", which include a drink and a side dish of the day. Unfortunately we don't seem to be able to choose which side dish in the set, and I ended up with peanuts... and these weren't very good. Oh well.

A good day overall, having had some tasty, fatty pork along with some tasty beef.