Arrived at the next city of our Taiwan Tour — Chiayi! Our hotel welcomed us with a happy and cute french puppy.. so cute! Chiayi is a very small town but its full of friendly local residents, everyone seems so helpful and I enjoyed just hanging around there. Oh! can please read til the end of the post for the most worth trying which is also my favourite food in Chiayi!

We had our first meal trying the Top 1 chiayi must eat food — Braised turkey rice 鸡肉饭.

We went to 呆狮鸡肉饭 located just around the corner of our hotel. Braised turkey rice is like our kolo mee in Kuching, everyone got their own favourite braised turkey rice in town, too many to choose from. I personally rated just 6/10 for this braised turkey rice but happy enough for filling our hungry tummy!

Introduced by the locals but you can try it yourselves.

Next up to the Top 2 must eat food in Chiayi – Taiwanese style cold noodles. The one different that makes cold noodles in chiayi so special is because cold noodle in chiayi comes with a special sauce called white vinegar and its actually mayonnaise. You don’t normally get mayonnaise in your cold noodles, only in Chiayi!

We approached this famous outlet selling Chiayi style cold noodles and cold meat balls.

We ordered each to try : cold noodles, cold meatball and their today’s special braised saba fish. Verdict of the food : We absolutely love all the food here. Throughout the whole chiayi trip, guess this will be the second best food I’ve eaten in Chiayi! 9/10 for my liking

And then we walked randomly and passby this stall selling cold yam dessert. I’m a yam person and this delighted me a lot!

We continue our food hunt to the south circle of chiayi town where it stands some of the most popular food recommended by the locals. One of it will be this Mr.Black Braised Food.

The queue is long and this stall has been advertised and introduced by a lot of local TV shows and highly recommended by the locals there. They are famous of their fresh and homemade food. Lets try!

The tables are full so I opt for a take away. I specially love the fried pork but other than that I am not so used to the taste yet. Nevertheless, the food is all so fresh!

Along the south circle gate lies a very very low profile stall selling BBQ corn. I search in the google map and it says Grandma sweet corn 阿婆玉米。

I love how old school everything is and the grandpa is just too friendly talking to me while the wife is BBQing the sweet corn. Thats one thing i love about small towns. Full of human interactions.

We went back to our hotel for a rest. Kudos to our hotel it is located just along side with WenHua road night market and to the famous circle gate of Chiayi where all famous food gathers!

Tada! WenHua Road Night Market. I google search for the must eat food and it jumps straight to this Lin’s Claypot Fish Head. No kidding they have like a while row of shoplots as their restaurant and yet there’s still a queue out there. Talk about Famous!

Here’s what we’ve ordered!

Claypot Fish head being the must order dishes and it absolutely captured our heart. You can ask for the refills for the soup and yes everyone did. Give it a try. Now i know why this is the must eat food here!

Another weird thing we had is the pork parts. They called it 天梯。Ladders of the sky. Can you guess which part of the pork it belongs to? Yes yes the upper jaw/roof of the pig’s mouth. Not much taste to it. Just chewy in texture.

Look at the size of the turkey feet!!!!!!

We then walked around the circle gate and tried 2 of the famous drinks in town. The pomelo tea which i forgot to take pics and the papaya milk. Both are good and recommended.

And here’s some of the food I had at WenHua Night Market.

I personally wanted to recommend this fresh milk. Its as good as those I had in Japan. Please try! And of cause my favourite fresh cream crepe which i had both nights at Chiayi but the amount of cream make me sad during the second night. So little. Hmpf! The whole trip of chiayi sounds more like a food trip + a day trip to Alisan.

The second day mama and I woke up extremely early with the mission to try the BEST breakfast in Chiayi but it was closed or should I said by the time we reached there it is already 10am and they have finish selling. NEVERMIND. I will come back the next morning. Stay Tune!

We then proceed to the morning market at South circle gate to try the famous beef soup but it was ok for me.

I prefer my fried pork rib soup with glutinous rice! Hahahaha!

It was all last minute. I asked if the hotel would arrange a taxi doing a one day trip to Alisan but the hotel mentioned there will be extra charges if they were to call a taxi. So then I googled, called and asked if they can bring us for a day trip and that’s probably the best experience I had for the day trip. It only cost 4000 twd for a day trip and the female driver is more than helpful and friendly to bring us around! 10/10 for your service!

I can’t remember her contact number and i sucks in using LINE. So this is all i have for the info of my 10/10 day trip driver. Her name is 仪儿。

She bought us to the place which she think its nice and normally where people would love to explore eat and take pictures. So glad to have her throughout this trip! It was such a blessing!

She also stop by the tea plantation area for us to visit and then guide us to Alisan recreation park to have lunch and to explore around the area.

We randomly select a restaurant to have lunch. Maybe its at the very high mountain so all the vegetables taste so sweet and crunchy! Love the veg!

And this little chicken. So tiny!

And so i came across this local donut stall selling a very unique donut. Its cream cheese and strawberry fillings. oh nom nom nom! Oh.. I forgot to mention… wrong move for wearing just Tee and short pants because its freezing cold up there! I din think of it because its very hot at Chiayi and i totally forgotten about the cold weather when you are way up the mountain. I was freezing cold throughout and when I am ordering the donut… the lady aunty ask am i cold wearing so little at this weather.. I said I am freezing cold and she offered me a rice milk when handle me the donut. She say is to keep me warm. Why you so good aunty!!!!! It warm my heart!

There’s a railway station in the recreation park and we can buy train tickets to bring us all the way up the hill. These are how beautiful Alisan look like. I ran out of words to describe but you will see from the photos! All i can say its.. its a like paradise. Mother nature is a blessing from God.

We ended our trip around 6pm and our driver even drive us around to buy some local snacks as requested but without additional charges. Why they all so good one……

Last night in Chiayi and we went to try out another night market call 嘉乐夜市 but it was rather disappointing. Featuring food we had:

We walked for a while and went back to our Wenhua Night Market 文化路夜市 for a last feast before leaving to Kaohsiung the next day!

Last dinner at Chiayi — The famous seafood porridge stall. We had their seafood porridge, oyster omelette and pan fried milk fish. Decent but not overwhelming. BUT.. queue is damn long lah.

To the NEXT MORNING!!! This is probably the MAIN REASON WHY I SLOT IN CHIAYI TO THE TAIWAN TRIP – The roadside roasted almond milk breakfast!!! THIS IS THE ONE! This is the best food i had in Chiayi and the most satisfying one. Best experience too!

Now allow me to talk a little bit more about this roasted almond milk. It has been selling their homemade roasted almond milk for almost 100 years!!!! When i was there, he told me the family has been selling the roasted almond milk for 97 years already. OH MY GOD! so impressive. They do not have any signboard nor off days for selling this. Basically they start selling around 4am or 5am until finish.. and like my previous experience I arrived around 10am and the uncle went back already.

It was located at the south circle gate and you just have to see if there’s any chairs around to determine whether you have the luck to try this or not. I was extremely excited when mama and I woke up super early that morning around 6am to try our luck for the roasted almond milk. I am glad I insist to go.

Selling only roasted almond milk and fried dough. Simple as that. You can opt for an egg yolk in your roasted almond milk or without. We tried both and I love the one with egg yolk more. Creamier and richer in taste.

Uncle…I just wanna tell you… If I stay at Chiayi, i’ll most probably went to look for you every 2 to 3 days for your breakfast!!!! I’ve never been so touched trying out food like this. PLEASE TRY!!!!!!! Xie xie mama for the adventure to try out this one!!

It was still so early after we finish the roasted almond milk and so we went to the morning market to do some take away breakfast for my brother and papa who are still sleeping soundly at the hotel. Look at the fruits. So beautiful.

We went to the morning market and take away this very old school noodles and pork blood soup.

Another try of the braised turkey rice..I prefer this one over the first one we had when we arrived in Chiayi. Eat it with a sunny side up with running yolks. perfect!

Oh.. meat dumplings too from the market.

And its time to say Goodbye to Chiayi! You took my heart! <3