What We Ate In Taiwan, Part 10 - Milestone in Tainan City

For those of you familiar with my Excel schedule of Chinese restaurants I have eaten at, I like to make each "hundred" restaurant special, particularly making it one I would be unlikely to revisit by being geographically distant.  I knew that number 7600 would be on this Supera/Signet tour of Taiwan, and indeed, I didn't find out which restaurant it was until after I returned home and tallied all my eating visits on the trip.  Number 7600 turned out to be in Tainan City and appropriately was another one of the exceptional meals planned by the Supera/Signet (www.superatours.com) tour organization.  

Dinner started out with the fried sticky rice with fish roe cubes.  This was a very interesting dish because I had always associated fish roe with round little balls, but here all we saw was what appeared to be small chunks of dried meat.  But that was the fish roe, which we actually saw for sale the next day in the Lukang Old Street Market.

Next up was the equally interesting fried dragon balls.  What may you ask are dragon balls?  Well it's probably good I didn't ask at the time because dragon balls are made out of squid mouths.  Actually I think I knew it was squid.

Then came the squid balls, presumably from the rest of the squid.

A nice bowl of bitter melon soup, our first taste of this vegetable on the trip.

 Some nice sliced Chinese sausage.

Tofu with ginger and scallions.

Grilled chicken was presented differently and delicious.

Clam and pineapple soup was, uh, well, different.

Very nicely presented grilled cod.

And such interesting needlefish skewers.

Finally dessert time with a taro sweet pot.

Another fantastic meal thanks to Supera/Signet Tours.  We'd never find any of these places on our own.  And would you believe afterwards we went on our own to the Tainan night market?  But we didn't eat anything because we were so well fed.

What We Ate In Taiwan, Part 11 - Regional Cuisine of Lukang

To repeat a comment previously made, I was grateful for the ability of Supera/Signet Tours (www.superatours.com) to identify interesting and outstanding food outside of the major cities.  Another improbable location was the city of Lukang, with a population of about 80,000, where we had yet another outstanding meal featuring the local cuisine of Lukang.  First came a pot of cabbage soup with quail eggs.

Next, a dish of thin oyster noodles.  Closest thing to this I ever ate in the US was oyster sauce noodle and there's absolutely no resemblance.

This looked like ong choy (water spinach) except that it was a miniature version.

Who's ever eaten taro stuffed with ground meat?

Tofu, oyster and bamboo casserole.

More sticky fried rice.  I don't think I recall seeing much regular fried rice on this trip.

Perhaps the shock of the evening was this dish of stir fried thousand year old eggs.  Not that thousand year old eggs are an unusual item in a Chinese meal.  But finding thing stir fried as an entree was a stunner.  And a delicious one.

Yet another interesting dish, chestnuts with garlic and basil.

And yes, this is dessert.  Looks like an onion pancake which it is.  But it's filled with sweet bean paste.

After such a distinctive and delicious meal in this small city, nothing about the food in this trip would surprise me?  Or would it?

What We Ate In Taiwan, Part 12 - The Unexpected Star Of The Show

After rolling into a small city in Central Taiwan after visiting the Taiwanese mountains where the food was decent, but not memorable, my expectations were low for our lunch in this little, apparently undistinguished city.  But was I wrong, as our visit to this vegetarian restaurant was the highlight of the culinary attractions put together by Supera/Signet Tours (www.superatours.com).  Every dish was a big winner, something I would not have expected from a vegetarian restaurant.  Lunch began with a vegetarian lettuce wrap.

I've had "vegetarian duck" or "vegetarian goose" at many Shanghai style restaurants, but nothing was like this vegetarian Peking duck complete with wrapper.

I passed on the mushroom soup since I dislike mushrooms, but the mushroom lovers were pleased.

Not just fried sticky rice, but truffle fried sticky rice.  Yum!

Who would even think about fried water bamboo?  Certainly different and fantastic.

Chive and tofu dumplings.

Hunan style tofu with pine nuts.

The absolute star of the show (and a main course, not an appetizer), chilled mountain yam with passionfruit sauce.

And the real dessert, sugar cane jelly osmanthus.

Despite the consistently good quality of the food on the trip, there was typically some uneaten food left over.  Not today.

What We Ate In Taiwan, Part 13 - Sun Moon Lake

While most foodies are snobs when it comes to buffet food, for some reason I love buffets, even where the food might appear marginal.  Indeed my love of buffets was so well known that when the late Pulitzer Prize winning Los Angeles Times food critic Jonathon Gold received an inquiry on Chinese buffets, he referred it to me.  Consequently when I stepped into the Crimson Restaurant in the Fleur de China restaurant at Sun Moon Lake, my eyes lit up because this was the Grand Central Station of buffets, and another tip of the hat to Supera/Signet Tours (www.superatours.com).  Seemingly hundreds of people filled the dining room and most of them seemed to be in motion much of the time.   Here are some of the more interesting selections, and I didn't bother with the sushi section or the desserts under glass, as I didn't partake of these.

Have you ever seen roasted garlic as a main dish?

The roasted quail was really good.

Fried mushrooms anyone?

Mackrel.

Gua bao.  I skipped the bun and headed straight for the pork belly.

Smoked meat potato bread pudding.

And how about all the red dragon fruit you would ever want to eat?

I was too busy eating to take any more pictures.  We had our only stinky tofu of the tour and there were  naan, tandoori chicken, curry beef, tomahawk pork chops, and a steak station.  

What We Ate In Taiwan, Part 14 - Farewell Luncheon In Taichung City

The last meal of our Supera/Signet (www.superatours.com) tour of Taiwan was in Taichung City, which I didn't realize we visited in our 1980 visit to Taiwan until after we got back home.  The lunch employed a cooking method which I had never seen.  In the center of every table was a deep built-in vessel with water filled in on the bottom.  There was a flat steaming plate inserted near the top of the vessel, and a dish of raw seafood placed on top of the plate.  One of the diners noticed that as they were setting the equipment up, there was rice in the water at the bottom of the vessel.  The vessel was covered and a digital control on the edge of the table was set to the proper cooking time.

Then the parade of seafood started.  First the squid.

Scallops on the shell.

Grouper.

Shrimp in the shell.

Abalone (!!!)

Crab.

When the crab was finished, the steaming plate was removed to reveal a large, delicious portion of seafood congee on the bottom from the rice that had been placed there in the beginning.  What an unexpected surprise treat.

As an extra bonus, there were some non seafood eaters at our table so there were dishes made especially for them in addition to the seafood dishes, which everybody shared.  This included marinated tofu.

Fried mushrooms.

And chicken with cabbage.

One issue with the meal was that you ended up with steamed seafood, which because of its blandness, you have to rely on dipping sauces for flavoring.  However many Chinese like this method of preparation as it permits you to experience the true flavor of the seafood, and most of the guests thought this was a superior meal.

What We Ate In Taiwan, Part 15 - The Rest Of The Trip

Obviously not every venue on our tour organized by the Supera/Signet Tour company (www.superatours.com) warrants a separate write-up, but it doesn't mean that these eating places weren't worthy of a mention.

Boba.  Mention Taiwan to any Asian American under 40 years old their first response is likely to be "boba."  We couldn't visit Taiwan without visiting at least one boba shop, so we used one of the rare free moments on our Supera/Signet Tour to grab a drink at Ho Tea in Hualin.

For those of us used to paying $4 and up for a single boba drink in the United States, the local price of about 80 cents was a welcome surprise.  Also surprising was the elongated shape of the cup, as demonstrated by our tour guide, Tom.

Beef Noodle Soup

Another iconic Taiwanese favorite is the beef noodle soup.  Even though located in the Taroko Gorge National Park, Mei Yuan Restaurant in Silks Place Hotel was home to a version of beef noodle soup that was an award winner in an annual national competition for the dish.   No, this was not a small portion of soup--rather it was a huge bowl, probably 4 to 5 inches high.  I have to say, however, that this bowl wasn't any better than what I've had back home.  The rest of the meal was assorted small plates.

Nothing noteworthy at the breakfast buffet in the Wellesley Restaurant also in Silk's Place except this black bean green tea bread.

Hotpot

While hotpot is certainly not a dish solely associated with Taiwanese food, Taiwanese hotpot was early in the forefront in the United States.  Physalis Restaurant at Ming Ging Farm hotel had hotpot as one of their dinner offerings, which made this an obvious choice in this food centric tour of Taiwan.  Their version, however, wasn't especially notable.

Fortunately the breakfast buffet at Physalis was much better.  I loaded up on some pretty good chicken dumplings, a rarity in any Chinese restaurant in any location in the world except the Middle East.  Other winners included their turnip cake, red bean bun and hot dog danish.  But my favorite was this item--no, not a chicken nugget, but a nugget filled with corn pudding!

Noodle making, Chihshang rice fields

A very interesting motorized bicycle tour of the Chihshang rice fields culminated in a rice noodle making demonstration and tasting.  Tour members were able to push a rice flour ball through a grater which produced rice noodles which were then cooked and served to the group.

Ta Tung Night Market - Tainan City

While the tour did not take us to the night market, dinner ended early enough to give us plenty of time to explore the Ta Tung Night Market.  Though Taipei's Shilin Night Market is much more famous in the United States, indeed probably the only Taiwanese night market with a recognizable name, the Ta Tung night market was the real deal.  Wall to wall people with numerous merchandise and food booths.

Unfortunately we had one of the fabulous Supera/Signet dinners that evening, so we basically could only look at the interesting food booths, like this one offering squid.

 So we had to settle for a refreshing papaya milk.

Cafe at Far Eastern, Shangri La Hotel, Tainan City

In some respects this was my favorite hotel buffet, though the food, while not bad, was not terribly memorable either.

There were potato omelettes.

More fried gluten.

 Taiwanese egg pastry.

Ham omelette.

And vegetarian goose.

But what I loved was the piped in music–old time rock hits like the Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” the Rolling Stones’ “Miss You,” and Earth Wind and Fire’s “September” sung by a single female vocalist, 1940s standards style.  And similar rock classics sung by a male singer with a Latin arrangement.  I kind of wish I could get that sound track.

Taiwanese "snow" shaved ice.

Though lunch was the final meal on the last day of our Supera/Signet tour, there was one last culinary treat, the finely shaved snow ice at Ice Monster in downtown Taipei.  Taiwanese shaved ice is not uncommon in the United States, but it is shaved plain ice infused with fruit or other flavored toppings.  Ice Monster's version is significantly different in that the flavored concoction itself is frozen, producing a colored shaved ice.  This is Ice Monster's famous mango shaved ice, so fine it's like cotton candy.

Ice Monster serves several flavors, including maple, which isn't nearly as visual, but also quite tasty.

And they even serve a few warm desserts, like this peanut butter soup.   But frankly, if you come here you only want the shaved ice.

Unless, of course, you order the fruit avalanche like the people at the next table.

Taipei Airport

Last meal was at the Taipei airport at Founder Hong Dan Zhai Noodle, a branch of one of the original Tainan noodle shops.  I thought the signage was rather elaborate, as I did not know of the origins of the restaurant at the time.

This is the milkfish dish I ordered.  Not sure what the attraction was in Central Taiwan for milkfish.  Maybe that's all fish they have there.

Never have I had such a traveling culinary experience as wonderful as this Supera/Signet tour of Taiwan.  And oh yeah, the tour was awfully good, too.