Taipei - Mazu temple beer garden and Sushi Express

We'd read that there was a temple dedicated to the Chinese sea goddess Mazu in the Datong district near where we were staying that had a beer garden and street food court, so we stopped by for lunch one day.

The central courtyard housing the temple is lined with a large number of food stalls.

Inside the courtyard are a bunch of tables associated with various stalls - many full of groups enjoying lunch and/or a beer.

Only some of the stalls allowed alcohol at their tables. We sat at one that didn't (which was fine for us on this particular occasion) and ordered a couple of bowls of soup. Above is a "pork rib" soup - pieces of boneless pork that had been breaded and fried, along with daikon radish cubes.

The other bowl was shrimp, also breaded, and egg - again with daikon cubes. Both broths were mild, but tasty and refreshing. It was a simple, but enjoyable lunch in a nice setting.

Another evening, after days of eating mostly local old-school Taiwanese food, we mixed it up a bit with a visit to Sushi Express - a local chain that does conveyer belt sushi.

It was cheap and cheerful, with the sushi being nothing special and priced at $30-$60NT (or $1-$2 USD) per plate.