Wanghai Banai Restaurant (望海巴耐)

For lunch, a restaurant overlooking the sea of Hualien. Built on a cliff, Wanghai Banai (望海巴耐) has a dining room with its windows flung open and the ocean stretching endlessly beyond. On the glass door at the entrance, a menu listed indigenous dishes such as free-range chicken, stone-grilled meat, bamboo-tube rice and wild boar.

Since this is a restaurant by the sea, I ordered the recommended seafood fried noodles. In the kitchen, the cook was busy with a large pan. The plate arrived piled with big prawns and clams. The noodles, coated in the rich flavor of seafood stock, were truly delicious, a taste I could keep eating forever.

After the meal I went out to the terrace, leaned on the railing and gazed at the Hualien blue sea. The lemon juice so common in Taiwan came here as passion-fruit lemonade (百香檸檬), with the seeds floating in it. Soothed by Hualien blue and the refreshing lemon juice, I spent a slow, luxurious moment.

Read this scene in the full journey