Vlog-style YouTube video by Nate Buchanan (with Kara Buchanan) documenting their last full day in Taipei. They get coffee, eat what they call the best beef noodle soup (single-menu restaurant, paid $13), then hike Elephant Mountain for city views (they note average daily step count ~17,000 and a day over 30,000). In the evening they sample Taipei street foods at a night market — quail eggs, pork buns, egg pancakes, and notably stinky tofu — and record candid sensory reactions (strongly negative reactions to the stinky tofu’s smell and taste). The transcript is conversational and focused on food, walking/hiking, and immediate reactions.
Questions this video answers
February 12, 2016
About 75 degrees (Fahrenheit).
$13
About 17,000 steps per day
Over 30,000 steps on one day
Chapters
Running across the street to the 7:11 to get Karen has some coffee. She hasn't had coffee and vet near as much as she did before we left.
Guilty.
It is our last full day in Taipei. It's like 75 degrees today.
We are going to attempt to go back to the beef noodles place and see if they're open Today.
After we eat, we are going for a hike up elephant mountain to walk off all of our food as well as get a good view of the city of taipei. There seems to be a little bit more activity on the street than there was the day before, but still quite a few buildings are closed. Oh, I see a lot of people. Look at all the people. Best beef noodle soup in all of taipei.
Here we go.
What do we do?
I don't know.
Appears as though we stand behind these people. I think we're waiting on that table to open.
The lady said beef noodles, and we said yes, and then she said thank you and walked away. So I think we just ordered. Seems like there's only one choice in this restaurant. This was ours.
I don't know if that's left over from somebody else's meal.
I wonder if we put that in.
Thank you.
She just said we don't know why. Beef noodles.
How is it?
It's really good.
What's it taste like?
The noodles are really thick.
Really good.
Shs and green onions.
Nate is over spilling soup on his khakis. He's created a barrier.
Waterproof and everything.
Waterproof backpack. No more stained pants.
Hey, Kara's enjoying her soup.
Check out this food elevator. They cook the food downstairs and then they send it up via this little elevator.
I can without a doubt say those are the best beef noodles we've had since we've been in taiwan.
They're also the only beef noodles we've.
Had, but they were really good.
Very low.
Also the most expensive, expensive meal we've had. They know what they have, and they know it's good, and they charge for it. Yeah, we paid a whole $13 for that.
We're getting one more egg pancakey thing.
Will you want the eggs? Okay.
An egg pancake for dessert before we start our big hike. We just justify all the eating by how much we walk and hike. Seriously. We discovered the other day on kara's iPhone that we've been walking an average of like 17,000 steps a day.
And I don't even bring my phone everywhere. So it's probably more than that.
It's a lot. We hit over 30,000 steps one day. Off to a slow start this morning. I'm sure we'll quickly catch up with the last few days.
It's official.
We're going short sleeves in wintertime in Taipei.
No words, but I'm pretty sure we made it to Elephant Mountain. Ah, nothing like hiking in nature by yourself.
Well, leading the pack, hiking up Elephant Mountain with a few hundred of our other closest friends we've made here in Taipei.
Slowly but surely. Have a good feeling. Kara's not gonna let me plan any more hikes.
This one as well. Just seems to be never ending. Stairs. At least we're in trees though.
Care. Was it worth it?
I think it was worth it anytime. And it really wasn't. As long as I thought it was.
The last stairs.
We made it. I'd say that was at least a couple thousand stairs. We deserve another ice cream cone tonight. Yes. We're out on the large cone, so we had to settle for the small.
Going out for some dinner minus hike. It's been a pretty uneventful day. And if you're sick of seeing a seat, you can just turn it off now because that's our only plan tonight.
Sorry.
There's a few things that we haven't tried. Quail eggs on a stick, Possibly stinky tofu. We'll see how we feel about it. Found the quill eggs, man.
I'm gonna Dr.
Whoa. Calm it down.
You want to go first?
Yeah, I'll go first. I assume it's gonna taste similar to a normal egg.
Not a big fan of the sweet and spicy sauce.
That's okay.
It's like an egg. It's very soft.
Yeah. Yeah, it was. It wasn't necessarily like a different taste, but a different consistency.
They look side. We do a bit of that.
You want to smell the other one?
No, I feel weird doing that.
I don't know what that is.
All right, easy.
We asked her what was in these and she went like this. We think it's pork.
They sear them on a pan here so it has a nice crispy outside. It's so good.
According to my nose, we have found it.
I so wish that you could smell through the camera right now.
Oh, look at all this soaking down there.
There it is. Soaking in all its stinky juices. Are you gonna order it?
I don't know if my body will let me order it.
Tara, how you feel about this?
I don't know if I can do it. I can hardly smell it.
Are we doing it? Are you okay with it? I don't even want to say You've tried stinky tofu?
Yeah.
I don't even like normal tofu me.
They're releasing the stink from the tofu.
Stand here beside it. Six pieces. Can you finish them all?
See, I think you just coat it with enough stuff that you can't really taste.
Looking pretty excited about.
I don't know if I can do this.
All right, thank you. Thank you.
We got it.
Here we go. Drawing stinky tofu.
You first.
Let's do it together. We're going to go for the whole piece?
No, Gosh, no, I'm not throw up. You getting any toppings?
Yeah, I'm going to try here. Let's see if I can kind of break this thing. I think you have to eat the whole thing.
No, I just want to buy it.
Kara, before we eat this, tell us what it smells like.
It doesn't look that bad.
It seriously smells like sewage that's just been, like, boiling in the sun.
That's a pretty good description.
Like, hot. I'm not exaggerating.
That's what it smells like when it's wafting down the street.
And dirty gym socks that a dog peed on. These are all the scents that I'm getting.
Okay, we're gonna do it. You ready? Maybe it doesn't taste as bad as I suppose.
I hardly.
You gotta eat at least half of it in this bite.
Can I spit it out if I'm gonna.
Yeah. Ready?
One.
Tastes like his mouth.
I'm trying not to breathe.
Yeah, okay. That's terrible. All right, Good to go.
I took the tiniest. Oh, I still taste it.
That is going in the trash can. Oh, my gosh.
I think I cat pee in my mouth.
Oh, it doesn't go away. Oh, I really didn't think it was going to be as bad as the smell. It was just as bad as the smell.
I think it was worse.
Oh, my gosh.
My hands don't let you know.
Yeah, we got. I think. I think our mouth is going to taste like this for the rest of the. That was so bad.
Let's go buy some gum.
Toss them out. Here is quickly going to get onion buns to get this taste out of our mouth. Yeah, we're looks better.
I'm hoping it overpowers the tofu flavor right now.
That is incredible. So oniony. This is going to be great.
I think this is how they make the noodles. They jump rope with them a few times to lengthen them and then they put them in the bowl. Kara's enjoying the jump rope noodles.
You can just taste how homemade these noodles are.
Can you tell that somebody did double unders with them?
This is a serious workout regimen.
Must be part of crossfit taiwan.
Kind of blocking the stairway for everybody else there, buddy. Happening again. All the street vendors are running away.
Literally there were like 10 right on this street and now they are all gone. Like.
As soon as the white people order from you, you have to move your car.
Something about us.
But the good news is the ice cream stand is stationary.
I hope they have these in other Asian countries.
Why aren't these everywhere?
We'll bring those back to us. The pork buns. Pork buns. And these delicious egg pancake things with anything. We're going to make a killing.
And carrot cake. Fried carrot cake. Are you serious?
