Taipei: Food

Street Food

The most delicious food in Taiwan is the street food. It's hot, fresh, and easily accessible - defining characteristics of all things desired by the carnal appetite. The vendors selling these foods often have no more property than a cart and a few dirty, plastic chairs in front; if lucky, the more established vendors occupy hovels that, in my mind, still qualify as street food establishments because they are frontless venues that open right onto the street. It's not unusual to see a street food vendor every few blocks are so here in the States, but in Taipei there are literally streets filled with these vendors. The most impressive setup of the food vendors is at the night markets, where hundreds of these vendors are cramped next to each other madly cooking and selling to the insatiable crowds of hungry shoppers. Here are the pictures that I shamelessly took of some streets chefs as they worked:

View from the inside of a "street hovel" looking out onto the street.

Onto the food itself. Street food is usually on the unhealthy and dirty side, but what it lacks in good nutrition and sanitation standards it makes up in taste and affordability. I will not directly translate the Chinese names of these food items into English pingying because 1) I can't remember most of them 2) I'm horrible at pingying 3) the translated name won't give any insight into what they actually are. Therefore, I will come up with my own names (in quotes) that are rough translation/descriptions of each food experience.

"Sticky Rice Chinese Tamales"

Stuffed inside with pork, pork fat, big shitake mushrooms, peanuts, an egg, and a chestnut, these "Chinese Tamales" are steamed in banana leaves. A sweet sauce is poured over the tamale and a sprinkling of peanut powder finishes off the dish. Imagine a sticky rice ball with pork fat and several other savory treats packed inside and you've got a pretty good idea of what this tamale is all about. I probably ate 10 of these over the course of a few weeks, and blame them for a large part of my weight gain during this trip.

"Savory Soybean Soup"
In America, we usually don't think of soymilk as something that is given a salty flavor, but in Taiwan/China they do it all the time and I love it! This soup is eaten for breakfast, and is often paired with some fried bread or fried eggs. While we were still jet-lagged my family would walk to the same street vendor at 6:30 every morning for a bowl of this stuff - so good! Think of this dish as a creamy soup with bits of shrimp, pickled veggies, green onions, and fried bread mixed in. The only way for me to describe this soup is nourishing, and it warms me even now to remember sipping a steaming spoonful of this on the Taipei streets.

"Sweet Potato Pork Bun covered in Red Chili Sauce"
We stopped by this place after a long, hot day of shopping, and I remember eyeing its fluorescent pink color with a great deal of skepticism. However, after several urgings from my mother I tried a bite and then continued to devour the rest of it with great rapidity and enjoyment. The bun is made with sweet potato flour which is clear in color (can't see this from photo b/c of the chili sauce). The bun is filled with a flavorful chopped pork mixture that includes veggies and spices; then the whole thing is thrown into a huge vat of hot oil for a quick fry. Plop into a bowl it goes, and is covered with a thick, sweet chili sauce. A bit of chopped cilantro tops off the creation.

"Rice Noodle Soup" & "Squid Stir-Fry" & "Fried then Stewed Tofu"
This meal was really good. So good that we had it several times during our Taipei trip. The soup is light yet flavorful and surprisingly filling. But the best part of the meal is the tofu. I'm not sure if it was actually fried or stewed, but that's how I imagine it was made based on the taste: its soft outer coating had the full-bodied taste of something fried but its delicate texture was like that of something that had been stewed for a long time. The inside of the tofu was softer yet and dissolved upon eating like a jelly-filled donut. Except that this wasn't a donut; it was tofu, and it was delicious.

"Modern Toilet Restaurant"
Okay, so this wasn't street food, but I wanted to talk about it because how often does one eat in a toilet-themed restaurant? Yep, that's right. Everything in this restaurant was shaped like a toilet from the seats to the dishes. And the things that weren't toilets were in poo-shapes (see the "pile of poo" lid next to my toilet entree). Initially, I was grossed out by the concept of eating out of a toilet even a fake one, but the food turned out to be pretty decent (even if it did resemble poo). This place was a fun and memorable stop in our sight-seeing travels.

"Starfish, Seahorse, and Scorpion on a Stick"
This is for real. These delicacies are available on the "snack streets" of the Wangfujing street in Beijing - a famous shopping street in the city. What you can't see from the picture is that the scorpions are still alive and actually squirming on the stick. I was a bit confused and concerned upon seeing scorpion being sold as food as I always thought they were poisonous. Maybe there are non-poisonous species?? I did NOT try these but saw some French people giving it a go. They seemed to survive all right.

Dessert!

I never thought I had a sweet tooth before Taipei, but now I think I may have to reevaluate that self-assessment. In my own defense, the streets of Taipei are lined with bakeries, cafes, and candy shops that could convert even the staunchest sugar abstainer to a dessert addict.

"Mango"

"Wax Apples"
I am putting fruit under the dessert category because Taipei had the sweetest, most delicious fruit that really it was more of a treat than "fruit" to eat. And eat I did. A typical day might include a fruit platter of papaya and globe grapes for breakfast, crisp guava after lunch, some fresh lychee and golden kiwi for snack, and finally cubes of creamy mango for dinner dessert. I think it's the tropical climate that allows for so much good fruit. Fruit-stands were everywhere in the city, and I probably would have experienced fruit overload if it just weren't so darn good. My one piece of advice to anyone who goes to Taipei: enjoy the fruit!

"Starbucks Black Sesame Green Tea Frappuccino"
Starbucks are not all created equal as I found out. Apparently this drink has been a huge hit in Taipei the past couple of months, although it's nowhere to be found in American Starbucks. Black sesame ground up into a paste is often used in traditional Chinese desserts; so naturally what better place to put black sesame than in a frappuccino - and better yet a green tea frappucino :) The rich creaminess of the black sesame was a nice complement to the refreshing green tea frappe taste. Oh how I wish we could import some of these!

"Taiwanese Shaved Ice"
Shaved Ice with fixings = yum. I don't even know where to begin with the ingredient list but I will try. First take shaved ice and add a passion fruit flavor syrup over it. Then pile on marshmallows, cookies, taro root jello, peach jello, mango ice cream, and tons of sprinkles. Gross or good? Maybe an acquired taste, but they have a believer in me. [NOTE: It's portion sizes like this that make me wonder how Taiwanese people stay as thin as they do...]

"Mung Bean Cakes"
I know there is no way that my description can do this dessert justice. I will begin by saying that Chinese people make a lot of desserts from beans, which might seem odd in America because beans are usually eaten as savory dishes. But really if you put enough sugar in something as tasteless as a bean, it's not difficult to imagine how beans could turn into dessert. Also beans have a natural richness to them that make them even more delicious as sweets in my opinion. A thin layer of mung bean paste composes the outer layer of this cake, while the filling is a dense and richly sweet red bean paste. What I loved best about these were they they were insanely soft and yet so decadent in flavor. I bought a box of these on two separate occasions and finished the entire case within an hour each time.

"Sweet Tofu Soup"
Again this may not be the most appetizing sounding of desserts because we don't eat too much sweet tofu in the States. But again, enough sugar in anything can make for pretty good eats. This is one of my mother's favorite desserts. Thin slices of the softest, most delicate variety of tofu is soaked in a syrupy soup; this dessert is as much about texture as it is about taste.

And there was much more than this, but these were all that I got pictures of. The food was definitely a memorable part of this trip.