Day 5: Happy Discovery of Roti Canai in Taipei~!

~18th March 2014~

After spending an hour or so under the hot sun outside the National Palace Museum, we went to the bus stop to head on to our next destination. This time round, I was not very sure which bus to hop on. Well, we could always ask the bus driver.

The sparkling clean public bus...

The public bus was really clean. The body of the bus might looked like some old piece of junk, but don't you think the interior look nice? It's as clean as our Rapid buses. Where were we going? We're going back to where we came from. I suppose it was the metro station at Shihlin. 

Watsons.... Watsons everywhere...

The bus will drop you at the opposite road. Before we walked towards the station, we stopped by at 7-11 and bought a whole lot of cold drinks. You will need that on a hot and humid day. There seems to be Watsons everywhere. Not to forget, too, I saw a Proton Waja car making side-parking. I never know that our national car was sold in Taiwan. Should have taken a photo of that but the driver might not like it. Going back to the main topic, you know I've been eyeing for that roti canai since I saw it first.

Chinese pizza??? Chinese pizza??? Seriously???

I know I hardly recommend any sort of food to the world. It's because I hardly dine outside. I have my own kitchen that works wonders. So, here goes... Lin Chinese Pizza aka Penang's famous roti canai. I really do not know how could Penangnites live outside the island for so long. I was craving for Penang food since the first day I flew out of our little comfortable island, also a well-known food haven. The smell of roti canai or roti telur couldn't escape from my sense of smell. I was surely happy that we didn't find any eateries along the way. Good to be back to this street with familiar smell.

Two boxes of roti canai dough out from the refrigerator...

 I was actually waiting for the lady to flip the roti canai like how the mamak would do it back home. Mamaks are Indian-Muslims and those who sell roti canai has the skill of a professional in flipping the dough in the air. It was an acquired skill and their bare hands could stand the heat from the flat pan. I love the roti telur at the flats where I stayed. It was the best I've ever tasted and this new discovery in the heart of Taipei City, gave me the warmed of being back home, not to forget the hot weather that made such good reminder. The taste of roti telur or the Chinese pizza was similar to the one at home. The only missing part was the spicy gravy or we just simply call it 'kuah' not the Kuah Town in Langkawi Island. Oh, well. The lady was not gonna flip the dough in the air. You see that machine? That machine was used to flatten the dough, so no bare hands required to make roti canai. I believe that if I'm able to flip the dough in the air, I would have attracted all the attention there and then. The machine to flatten the dough was wrapped with a layer of plastic so that the dough wouldn't stick on it.

I can even imagine the aroma.... if only food can be downloaded straight from the screen...

There were additional stuff used in the making of the Taiwanese's Chinese Pizza... *sigh* I still prefer calling it roti telur. Sounds odd to call it a pizza whether it's the Chinese pizza or an Italian pizza. I realized that Taiwan food has lots of spring onions to enhance the taste and that leaf on the roti telur should be basil? Now, I seriously recommend this roti telur to those who miss home or to those who never had the chance to visit Penang Island, the island where food is famous for. If you're not sure of the place, you can call them up. I bet you can see that photo bright and clear. You might chance upon this roti telur by the roadside as well but well, just stop over this place for a slight taste of Penang Island.

Yo~! Use bare hands la...

The amount of heat they are not touching. The lady even had plastic glove on. That's for cleanliness and hygiene. If you look at how our roti canai is done, the health freaks would have fainted long time ago and vowed never to eat hawker food ever again~! Our roti canai tosser would sometimes wipe his bare hands on his shirt tail, then wipe his oily hand on his sweaty forehead. When you pay for your roti canai in your crisp Ringgit bill taken from the change given to you by the fishmonger, our dear roti canai tosser would use that same hand to accept the Ringgit note with a smile and thank you and continue flipping and pressing on the roti canai on the flat hot pan. Then you might think that you will get a diarrhoea after eating food prepared by unclean hands, but you are mighty wrong. We, the Penangnites have such strong stomach, nothing would make us sick and definitely I've never come down with diarrhoea after having that. No precautions needed for Penang's hawker food~! *I have a strip of charcoal pills brought along just in case we got diarrhoea in Taiwan**chuckle chuckle chuckle*

I would opt for roti telur back at home, done with such professional tossing skill, but since I was in a foreign land, that would do just fine to satisfy my craving for food back at home. I found roti canai in Shenzhen years before which they changed the name to whatever bread, not even knowing the origin of the food. *tsk tsk tsk* Please, even if you don't have the courtesy to mention Penang Island, Malaysia as the country of origin of the roti canai, at least don't change it's name. But at least in Shenzhen, the chef did toss the dough like how we did ours~! I don't know about our neighbour Singapore, you call that roti pratha right?

I'm craving for roti telur now... *slurp slurp slurp*

I remembered this. Again, we shared this piece as well. If given a choice, I would have chosen to spend the whole afternoon sitting there chewing on one roti telur after another. I missed home more than I do when I last traveled. At least there's free connection and I got to chat with hubby every night. 

Cold barley dessert with grass jelly....

The shop selling roti telur has cold desserts as well. No need to look for any drinks from outside. You can get everything from the same shop. That's why I highly recommend the air-conditioned place for you. That's a really nice bowl of barley with grass jelly and taro cakes. I think it's taro cakes coz I made them before. Definitely used taro with tapioca flour to mix them with.

Ice shaved with more pearl balls.... doesn't sound right... who cares....

Don't like the previous one, get this bowl of shaved ice with pearl balls. I like both very much. It's a hot afternoon, anything cold and sweet would do. Gosh... I'm craving for roti telur in the middle of the nite now.... will go and have one soon...