Monday, March 23, 2009

The Dream Mall

1/29/09 For dinner and entertainment that evening, we decided to head to the Dream Mall.

The Dream Mall is one of the most popular shopping destinations in Kaohsiung. We took a taxi to the Dream Mall, and before even approaching, I discovered that Kaohsiung streets are all wider by a lot compared to Taipei City.

The Dream Mall is HUGE!!! What's more, as soon as I stepped into the lobby atrium, there's the Cold Stone Ice Creamry! What can't you find in Taiwan these days!?!

We were quite hungry and headed for the restaurants within the mall, almost all of which were on the same level. WELL!! We arrived a little bit behind the crowd, and as a result, many restuarants already were fully booked for the night! We found one hot pot+table top grilling restaurant which were still accepting walk-ins, at 45 minutes of wait time. Better than nothing, I suppose. We browsed for 45 minutes and then arrived at the restaurant to be seated.

The restaurant is nicely decorated, with fish tanks atop the dividing walls separating each seating booth. It's kind of an interesting experience cooking and viewing the swimming fishies at the same time.
The meal consists of two parts--a hot pot on my left, and a table top grill to my right. The wait staff started bringing enormous amounts of food to our table. This is Kaohsiung indeed!! Even food portions are larger down south. We had plentiful vegetables and slices of delicious beef. It was a very satisfying meal indeed.
After eating, we continued roaming around and came by a beautiful traditional Taiwanese pastry shop, Yu-Jen-Zai. The pastry shop is famous the island over and originated from my dad's home town in Zhanghua County. Even traditional pastry shops are franchised these days. So it is not strange to see one of their stores here at the Dream Mall. I saw one of my favorite snacks, Mua-Lao, which is this sticky-skinned pastry with foamy insides. The skin is sticky because the crunchy exterior of the pastry is covered with wheat-germ syrup and then coated with either sesame seeds or almond slices. YUM YUM!! Bought some, and moved on to the top floor.

2 comments:

Anna said...

Mail me some Taiwan pastries....mmmmmm

suewun said...

Nope, you have to COME HERE to get it yourself!!!!!!!