Taipei Thing #20: Eat peanut mochi

花生麻糬

Summer has wreaked havoc on my plans to finish writing these posts within a month, but I seem to have found a free moment to get back into the swing of things. The delicious treat you see above was suggested by Jesse, though I’m sure just about everyone who made suggestions seconded this one as soon as they read it.

I must make a confession about the peanut mochi above, however. If you’re from Taiwan or are familiar with important names in food, this photo might give you a hint:

陳記 brand!

Yes, that’s right, my 5 Days in Taipei included a treat from down south: Taitung’s mochi masters, 陳記. When I visited my food-loving friend Christine on this particular day (Day 3 of my “trip”) and mentioned some of the food tasks I had left, she immediately brought out these snacks, which had been brought up to Taipei by her brother that day. So, though it’s technically a Taitung mochi, I did consume it in Taipei – that counts, right?

The good news is that, even if you live in Taipei, as long as you can read Chinese (or have someone who can help you), you can get your own 陳記 mochi delivered to your nearest 7-11 if you order through their website at: http://www.machi.net.tw/index.htm.

And how did it taste? Well, mochi is one of my favorite desserts in Asia, and this one didn’t disappoint. I brought some Japanese mochi home to my family in the US a couple of years ago, and they weren’t impressed, but I’m thinking they might have had different impressions of mochi had they eaten this one. Recommended! And I’ll definitely be making a stop to the original store in Taitung when I visit there this fall. Can’t wait to try the other varieties.

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Taipei Thing #4: Shop at neighboring 7-Elevens

7-11 and 7-11

Lily Y.’s suggestion was to find two convenience stores (same brand) on the same block and make a purchase at each within 5 minutes.

It’s not surprising that the first incidence of this that I came across involved 7-11. For those who have never been to Taiwan, you may be surprised to learn that Taiwan has the highest concentration of 7-11 stores per capita in the world. In fact, there are, as of March 2010, 4,744 7-11 stores in Taiwan (see Wikipedia). That figure might not seem like much at first, but think of it this way: that’s like shoving nearly 5,000  7-11 stores into an area roughly the same size at my home state of Maryland, the 9th smallest state in the U.S. Also keep in mind that this figure doesn’t even take into account all the other convenience store brands in Taiwan, like Family Mart, Hi-Life, and Circle K.

Let’s get back to the adventure, though. It wasn’t but a block or so after I came across the half pigs that I realized I was about to pass by 2 7-11 stores within a block of each other on opposite sides of the street. Here’s how things turned out:

Proof of purchase!

I wonder if any of the handful of people milling about at the first 7-11 noticed me drive directly to the next one. In any case, I came home with a coffee and a milk tea, along with these two receipts timestamped as 00:05 and 00:08. Lily, if either of these receipts turn out to be a lottery winner, I’ll split the proceeds with you!