Leaving home at 12:00 PM sharp, we arrived at Xinpu, Hsinchu (新竹新埔) well before 13:00 PM, still in time for lunch. Our first stop was near Jiuqionghu (九芎湖), at Liu’s Roast Chicken (劉家莊燜雞). This is a popular local attraction due to the traditional roasting techniques they use, and it is not your normal roasting methods. The chicken are cooked in iron boxes, surrounded by legit burning wood.
Costing 700 NTD (around 24 USD) per chicken, it weighs at roughly 4 Taiwanese catties (equivalent to 2.4 kg). With its stomach stuffed with scallion, garlic, and more seasonings, the chicken has crisp skin and tender meat. The taste and smell are very mouth-watering.
Knit work gloves as well as plastic ones are provided along with a knife for you to slice the meat off its bones. As a fairly large whole chicken, the price is acceptable. And tasty enough, too.
Liu’s Roast Chicken sells other Hakka dishes as well, but we didn’t order much besides the famous roast chicken. After finishing our lunch, we continued uphill and arrived at Chen’s Farm (陳家農場), a place to experience the making of Hakka tea (擂茶) and mochi. If you prefer not to labour that much, you can also order ready ones with the same pricings.
Upon entering, you see aboriginal-themed furniture. Why? I do not know. There are other old-fashioned gears hanging on the wall, such as straw raincoats and shoulder poles. We seated ourselves and ordered DIY Hakka tea. It consists of three snacks and three cups of Hakka tea with the cost of 230 NTD. Not cheap. But since Hakka tea is famous for its rich ingredients, and the fact that I have always loved it, there was nothing to complain about.
In Chinese, Hakka tea is literally ‘ground tea’ and requires mortar and pestle to grind the various seeds and other ingredients. When the shop owner delivered our DIY set, the mortar already contained black and white sesame, peanuts, and green tea leaves. There was also an additional bowl of pre-ground grain powder. You can only add it to the mortar after the shop owner checked your ground contents. To have the DIY part ready, you have to grind the four ingredients with a wooden pestle in a circular motion, and they should end up looking slightly wet and feeling like some sort of paste. After adding the powder, mix it with a spoon and divide them into 3 cups. Add some hot tea to the cup, and you get the aromatic Hakka tea. So strong and nutty-flavoured.
It was a bit rainy that day, so after enjoying the hot tea, we left Jiuqionghu without hiking the trails. Going back to the more populated Xinpu town centre for a walk, we discovered that flat rice noodles (粄條) are famous there. Even the sidewalk manholes showed so.
Sure enough, as we strolled down the streets, we encountered a friendly local who suggested us to have some flat rice noodles at Risheng (日昇飲食店), a noodle shop specialising in just that. Risheng is a small shop sitting inside a morning market and has a history of more than 70 years. They sell three kinds of flat rice noodles: fried noodles (60 NTD), noodle soup (50 NTD), and dry noodles (50 NTD). We ordered the latter two, and both are pretty good, though some may find the dry ones a bit too salty. The noodles are well-cooked with seasonings rightly-done.
Our last stop was a traditional bakery called LuShunXing (呂順興西餅蛋糕). We passed by it and saw that it was founded in the 2nd year of Tongzhi, Qing Dynasty. That was more than 150 years ago! So we went inside to have a look.
Famous for their traditionally-made cakes (Taiwanese pastry, not like birthday cakes), we bought some Zhuqian cakes and sweet potato cakes. The name ‘Zhuqian’ comes from an old name of Hsinchu, so the cake literally means ‘Hsinchu cake’. Personally, I do not like them, regardless of manufacturers. The sweet potato cake, however, is not too sweet and tastes fresh while the traditional flaky crust makes it more sensually enriching.
Apart from selling baked goods, LuShunXing showcased some pastry-related equipment since its founding: traditional cake moulds, bamboo baskets and more. More interestingly, the shop owner told me that one of the baskets is exactly 60 years old. What’s so special about that? Since Chinese year names repeat every 60 years and 2018 is Year WuXu (戊戌), that basket has ‘WuXu’ on it!
After buying pastries to serve as future breakfast, we head back to our home and arrived before six o’clock. Our Xinpu, Hsinchu trip lasted for less than 6 hours, but it left our memories as well as our stomachs richly filled. [21st Feb. 2018]
