One of the places the Missus really wanted to visit was Taroko National Park. It was nearest big city was Hualien, so I hired a driver for our visit to Taroko Gorge and we had a rather easy three hour train ride from Taipei. We stayed fairly close to the train station at the Kindness Hotel, which actually lived up to their name. The folks working were really nice.
The city, at least for us, had a real small town feel, though it seemed to be rather sprawling. Once we checked in, we decided to head out in spite of the damp and drizzly weather to explore and get some dinner.
I had read that a must try in Hualien was goose. I had Mr Goose on my phone. Of course there were distractions along the way. On Jinfeng Street we passed this wonderful looking temple and decided to take a look.
From what I could gather, this is Dijun Temple.
It was something to see……
It was quite impressive, though there's not much in English on this temple. I'm in the process of trying to find a book or publication on these temples of Taiwan.
Along the way we passed a couple of food streets like this one, along Gongzheng Street.
Apparently, this baozi stand is quite well known.
We really wanted to try some roasted goose in Hualien, so we headed over to the very popular Mr Goose only to find it closed for the holiday. So, I had to find a plan B. We did enjoy shopping at this dried veggie/fruit shop.
While shopping, I found another possible goose restaurant so we headed on over.
Right next to the shop and the closed Mr Goose was this interesting looking church.
After "Googling around", I found that this is the Hualien Port Church.
From here, we pretty much headed back in the direction of the hotel.
Out on Jianguo Road was a place I saw as A Cheng Goose Meat on the map, though the English sign said "Happy Town Goose".
The place was empty when we arrived, but slowly filled during our meal.
The Missus placed our order and our "stuffs" started arriving.
The bamboo shoots were simple, but well seasoned, crunchy, and full of flavor.
The goose intestine with preserved vegetable was interesting. The goose intestine was very mild in flavor and quite crunchy.
The Missus had ordered the goose two ways; salted and smoked.
The dish came with two sauces which we didn't need. I expected the goose to be gamier than duck, but it wasn't. It did have some nice gaminess, was super tender and moist, and nice and rich. The "smoked", which was more like roasted to me had a stronger flavor profile, though the salted version seemed more moist. Both versions were tender and I'd have this again in a minute!
We loved the veggies in Taiwan and here was just another example; the wonderful, tender, mildly sweet – chlorophyllic baby fern shoots.
And the very "ong-choyish" stir fried yam leaves. So tender and grassy-nutty. Just simply seasoned and perfectly stir-fried.
When you have good ingredients, simple is probably the best.
We enjoyed our meal at A Cheng and like I wrote earlier, we'd return in a heartbeat!
A Cheng Goose Meat
No. 85 Jianguo Rd.
Hualien City, Taiwan
After dinner we strolled around a bit.
Before heading back. The Kindness Hotel, like other places we stayed at on this trip has a buffet breakfast. But they also serve snacks and drinks during the day, and what we were told was a evening "snack", which was more like a full on buffet dinner. As you can imagine; it was quite popular with hotel guests.
Of course we'd already eaten; but the Missus couldn't resist getting a snack; Taiwanese shaved ice.
After which we took a ice stroll. It was kind of interesting. We hadn't seen too many bars and such in Taiwan; but the area around the hotel seemed to have quite a few bars. I'm thinking it might be all the hotels, thus tourists in the area?
We headed back to our room excited about our upcoming visit to the Taroko Gorge the next day.
With dreams of goose dancing in our dreams……
Looking at the dumplings gave me pause. Look at the color; it's very "light", and as I thought, these hadn't been fried long enough and were hard and chewy, rather than crisp. The tops should be somewhat pliant with a slight pull to it. These were a bit on the brittle side. The filling was decently seasoned, but had too much napa cabbage for my taste.
This was pretty bad; the "skin" was hard and brittle. The filling seemed to be half cabbage, the pork mealy, dry, and was quite tasteless.
So, I hunkered down and took a sip of the broth and shook my head. It was really thin, lacking in beefiness, with just a hint of metallic-anise tones. It was in need of more richness. At least it wasn't salty….but on second thought it could have used more sodium and white pepper.
I would skip the "chili sauce" which wasn't particularly spicy, just kinda oily.
Man, this was a nice surprise. The pork was tender, not overly fatty, and braised well. Mei Cai Kou Rou can be overly sweet, but this was nicely balanced, good salty-savory-ginger-anise-sweet balance. It was also not overly greasy and we could taste the preserved vegetable, which added pleasant sour notes, and a slightly crunchy texture to the dish. This also had julienned napa cabbage, which one could complain is filler, but it added a hint of sweetness and a nice contrast in texture. This dish got the Missus to exclaim, "when we're done with the roast duck exploration, let's do Mei Cai Kou Rou!" Be still my arteries!
The yeasty, standard Amoroso roll stood up well. The meat was decently shaved, fairly tender, moist, and beefy, the mushrooms earthy, and the white American cheese added a complimentary, not overwhelming milky gooeyness to the sandwich.
Before returning to our table, right below the statue of "Lucifer". We had already placed our order. Our Server, Jacob was amazing, he encouraged us to check things out. Though I kinda wonder about working with all of this around you! The place was quite quiet, and to be perfectly honest, kinda spooky, before the crowds descended on the place.
I didn't care for the fries which quickly got limp and were over salted. 
