黃媽綠豆蒜 Madam Huang's green bean sweet, 恆春, 南台灣

The web for Kao Hsuing travel highly recommended this shop due to a few TV actors visiting this shop. So we asked the driver to get us to this place. When we saw the long queue, we subconsciously jumped to the line. We waited for about 20 minutes but then it turned out a waste of time.

1. the green bean is in a sweet thick soup. The green bean was first boiled and drained and then put in a soup thickened in yam powder. Supposed the green bean already has its nice aroma but for sure gone with the drained boiled water. Besides, they just use white sugar. What do you think for a sweet being so tasteless with tasteless sugar? 2. if you want it cold, they just put a bed of ice on it. Nothing special at all. I have no idea why it can be famous. I noticed not just we couldn't finish the dish, but also there are quite a number of other customers leaving with a half or 70% left. By the way, the above bowl is just 6 inch in diameter and 2 inch depth.

3. the shop.

Wan Luen Pig Knuckle restaurant 萬巒豬腳, 恆春, 南台灣

Got told by the local driver about this famous Pig Knuckle restaurant on our way into Kenting 墾丁. The shop is like a huge canteen of a big corporate and the name (the sound) reminded everyone about the famous British soccer team Manchester United and wondered if that was purposedly related to "foot". Of course, we know in Mandarin it doesn't sound like Manchester United.

1. A very interesting dish. The prawn is with heavy starch coating and put with some artificial flavour mayonaise and the most interesting is the little colourful candy sprinkles. 2. Pig's knuckle - it's just so so to us.

3. deep fried spare ribs in sweet vinegar sauce. The spare ribs were indeed over-cooked and much too dried. The sauce is quite ok. 4. Baby bamboo - it's very soft but the heavy gravy made me lose my appetite. Besides, I noticed this shop are in a massive "production". Yes, I can say it's a "production" - not cooking. I found most of those "hot" eating places are like this - doing massive "production" to cater the large no. of customers. I would say it's a common mistake for those famous shops turning themselves into "production".

5. clam and winter melon soup - a bit too bland indeed or another "production". 6. stir fried beef.

7. Spare ribs in "hot burnt" (紅燒) sauce - supposed the hot burnt sauce should have the burnt aroma but this one didn't have any at all. The hot burnt sauce should be first with a chunk of rock sugar to be brown in the wok and then put wine/water/soy sauce together to create that "burnt" aroma. I don't think this one can be called as "hot burnt". 8. Tofu in "hot burnt" sauce - another disappointing dish. If you like heavy gravy, this is the one.

9. stir fried squid - no comments. 10. the pig knuckle.

11. stir fried Yam leaves - this one should be a symbolic dish for Taiwanese veggie but the shop didn't get the essence of stir frying at all. 12. see how crowded and busy it is.

13. the shop outside.