I first discovered the whole honey toast (Chinese is known as 蜜糖吐司) ordeal from a Taiwanese travel show. It looked so pretty and yummy through the screen, so I had to mark it down for my future Taiwan trip. The exact name of the cafe/restaurant was not listed but with the help of Google, nothing is impossible with Google, I found the cafe. Through Google, the honey toast extravaganza exploded for me. Honey toast originated from Japan and was first introduced in Taiwan in 2010 by a Taiwanese socialite, and the very first Dazzling Cafe opened in 東區 (Daan District). It was an immediate success and they only took reservations once a month and it would usually fill up very quickly. Nowadays, they have opened 6 other locations to fill any girl's craving for a pretty and yummy dessert. I visited their original location called Dazzling Cafe Pink and there was still an 1hr wait around 7pm.
This was a very girly pink cafe, but don't get me wrong, there were still guys in there, most likely accompanying their girlfriends though =P There were also male waiters. There is a minimum charge of one drink per person in addition to whatever else you wish to order. The drinks were around $4-6CDN and the honey toasts are around Demetres' pricing more or less. I would say this is quiet pricey in Taiwanese standards, reasonable in Canada. I was previously told by a local teen saying that ordering one is good enough for 2-4 people depending if you have ate previously and it is very sweet and filling. The drinks were really meh. Now on to the good part, the honey toast. Upon presenting your pretty dessert, the server will let you know that they will come back and serve the honey toast to you once you have taken pictures of the massive toast. Nowadays, camera eats first! That was very considerate of them to avoid any awkwardness of them waiting for you to finish taking your pictures.
The inside looks like the below once it's dissected by the server. Inside it was filled with sticks of crispy toast. It was funny how we didn't end up using the honey for this "honey toast", it was already sweet enough. It was filled with custard and ice cream. So you take a piece of toast stick and spread some ice cream and custard with a piece of strawberry and VIOLA, heaven~ It was delicious! The toast sticks were toasted to a crispy coating and soft interior. It was not overly sweet since we didn't pour the honey on top. It was AYCE custard, just ask the server for more. I was happy with my first experience with honey toast and I would definitely have it again. In fact, I want to introduce this to Canada. Anyone with me?
One of my favorite foreign food blogs to read is a hungry girl's guide to taipei. I obviously made good use of that while planning to trip to Taiwan. My hotel was in the Ximen area so I looked up all the good food places around there, and upon came this, highly recommended by hungry girl. It's an ice cream shop with 73 flavors everyday.
If you read Chinese, you can see all the cool and interesting flavors they have. All the flavors are house made. For those who don't, some examples are tomato, corn, milk, lotus seed, wasabi, curry, hot pepper, beer, brandy, pig feet and sesame chicken just to name a few.
In the end, me and friend decided to stay safe and picked fruit flavor such as watermelon and lycee. Both were really delicious and tasted like the real fruit. The store owner also advised us to eat the watermelon first and then the lycee since lycee had a stronger taste than watermelon. Check out this ice cream store the next time you are in Taiwan! Do it! Seriously. Hahaha~
