The Taiwan Food Section
Ah...the food. Everyone who visits Taiwan raves about the food. There is a good reason for this: food is varied, plentiful, cheap, and delicious! There is so much material here, that I will have to break it down into sections:
- Shopping and Markets
- Fruit
- Noodles
- Seafood
- Dinner
- Breakfast Foods
- Breads
- Dumplings
- Desserts
- Western Food/Convenience Food
Click on thumbnails to see larger pictures...
Shopping and Markets
While there are a few supermarkets around, this is not the preferred nor the most convenient way to shop for food. Local family-owned grocery stores, markets, and fruit stands are the way to go. The food is usually fresher and cheaper.
Fruit
The first two photos are of lianwu, a delicious crispy fruit known in English by the unfortunate name "wax apple". They don't taste anything like wax, though. Next are little tomatoes, surprisingly sweet, and a plate of very fresh lychees.
Noodles
Here are Taiwan's best noodles:
Taiwan's Best Handmade Noodles
Here you see "knife-shaved" noodles being made by hand. This restaurant owner has been making these for 20 years at this location. Newell Ann was a regular patron here over a decade ago.
The noodle dish on the plate is Van's favorite type of vegetarian noodles.
Seafood
Squid is very popular in Taiwan ... with good reason: it's yummy! Here is Clara eating fried squid, squid on a plate, and a squid-on-a-stick vendor. Fish is frequently cooked and served whole, steamed or (as in this photo) pan fried.
Van's departmental trip to Keelung (Jilong) for really FRESH seafood:
Click here to see the seafood expediton!
Dinner
From left to right: deep-fried miscellany, hot-pot dinner at our friend's house, congyoubing ('onion-oil flatbread' -- much nicer than it sounds in translation!) and zongzi, wrapped and unwrapped. Zongzi are made of sticky rice filled with pork, peanuts, mushrooms, etc. and wrapped in bamboo leaves. They are traditionally eaten on the Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu Festival).
Breakfast Foods
Some of our favorite breakfast foods can be seen in the first picture. There is hot soy milk, danbing (scrambled egg with green onion rolled in a thin pancake), luobo gao 'white radish cake', and mantou (steamed buns). We can get this hot -- enough for our entire family -- from the local market for NT$78 (about US$2).
Breads
Dumplings
Desserts
Western Foods/Convenience Foods
