Travel: Take Me To Tainan!

Photo Credit: TakeMeToTravel

As my schoolmate currently interns at TakeMeToTravel, I have been helping with her online content by contributing articles every now and then. And as it turned out, they organised an online contest that focused on food and travel experiences, so I submitted an entry to try my luck!



Mooo-licious Cow Tongue Biscuits @ Tainan, Taiwan

"Since young, my parents had always taught me: Don’t play with your food. But seriously, the girlfriend and I couldn’t resist posing for this shot in Taiwan.

While we were at their ancient capital city of Tainan (台南), we discovered a local pastry called 牛舌饼, literally meaning “Cow Tongue Biscuit”. These elongated biscuits were soft and chewy with a buttery aftertaste, some having additional flavours such as coffee or cheese. The ones in our mouth happened to taste of strawberry, further resembling the colour of a tongue. Now let’s look at this from a new viewpoint: If you can play and eat your food, why not?

Just don’t ask me to demonstrate french kissing with this please. That will be wrong parenting already."

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Photos by Weiliang, during our first trip in 2009

Writing that entry did (yet again) bring back wonderful memories of the days in Taiwan. Tainan was a much smaller city than Taipei with a slower pace of life. The 安平古堡 counted as one of their must-visit attractions, with the fortress first built by the former Dutch colony masters, later home to the Chinese conqueror 郑成功 and then used by the Japanese as an observation post.




The nearby 延平老街 also sold many local specialties that were worth bringing back for family and friends. The cow tongue biscuits were only one of their many specialties, as pastries of all shapes and types were enticing us! By the way, the cow tongue biscuits in Tainan were a tad different from the variants in 宜兰, which would be more crunchy in texture.




Another of my favourite snacks there were the homemade egg rolls. Prepared and packed immediately before you, these were as fresh as they could get!



Each had a wonderful eggy aroma and crumbled easily by nibbling, as the light, creamy taste could easily spurred you on to eat a few more. Available at NT10 (SGD 50cents) each or in gift boxes, they would make excellent gifts but only if you were delicate enough to let it survive the plane ride back!

安平古堡/延平老街
台南市安平區國勝路82號
Note: The place can be a little troublesome to reach by public buses, but relatively cheap and fast if you hailed a cab from Tainan Train Station.

Lastly, a shameless final call for (perhaps my first and last in a popularity contest) my submission, do like the page if you well, like it!

Taken with Nikon D70