........................................................
........................................................
Taiwan is not exactly what I would call a street food paradise, do not be mistaken however, there are plenty to choose from as night market and street food culture are alive and well. The problem seems to be picking the one that suits your taste!
The best of Taiwanese street food must be all the Taiwanese "Muay", or rice porridge if you will, that could be found in many alleys. It is so good it's finding its way to other cities in the region! The hot rice porridge(don't be surprised to find sweet potatoes mixed in) comes with an assortment of small dishes (much like dim sum) consisting of meat, vegetables and many preserved items. The same type of food is popular in Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian province in mainland China. (The Taiwanese speak the Fujian dialect afterall) Except for a few dishes that seem consistantly too saltist to my taste, all the dishes such as steamed fish, stewed pork and steamed peanuts are excellent. The only problem seems to be the polystyrene plates that comes with every little dish compounding to the already serious environmental problem facing the country. After each meal, as many as 15 polystyrene plates go into the trash can!! Sorry if I contributed to the pollution problem but hey! I'm just a tourist!
Another dish worth mentioning is the beef noodle soup, unlike the beef noodle soup of Vietnam and Singapore, the beef noodle remotely resembles that of Cantonese stewed beef noodles with chunks of beef and a wonderful broth top with a film of chili oil. Homemade noodles is pretty rare these days, hm ... yummy!
Seafood are fresh and plentiful on this island, however the style of preparation is not quite as great as in Malaysia. Steamed seafood is by far the best I've tried, as the saying goes ... best seafood are steamed! Talking about seafood, the oysters are small, shelled and used in a number of dishes and absolutely wonderful. The "oh jian" (fried oyster) is great except for that red sweet sauce! The locals seem to love it, so it's just a matter of taste!
Snacks are great, "mua chee" (steam glitinous rice balls) coated with peanuts is great and "red bean ice", an assortment of ingredients in a sweet soup with ice is very interesting!
For the adventurous, try the fresh snake blood with venom at the night market!! Yes, it's the poison I'm talking about here!! It's potent and loved by the soldier boys! I must confess that I have yet to try it. So do let me know the effect!
Enjoy!
Thian
........................................................
email: thian@blauwbrug.nl . designed by Zanzibar
....................
Click on the photo for a larger version.
Start!
....................
These photos were taken in Taipei and Kaohsiong several years back.