JmeWhyte

Per­haps the clos­est the Tai­wanese get to a national dish is Beef Noo­dle Soup but even this isn’t eaten uni­ver­sally as many of the country’s Bud­dhists won’t eat beef. Instead the coun­try has a vast snack­ing cul­ture where you can buy all man­ner of street food for next to no money. Unlike Japan, which spe­cialises in intri­cate pre­sen­ta­tion, the Tai­wanese care lit­tle about how things look. Mak­ing sure the food tastes great is the main pri­or­ity as com­pe­ti­tion for busi­ness is so fierce owing to the fact that barely any­one cooks at home.

Case in point is the oys­ter omelet. Oys­ters, eggs, spring onions, a lit­tle spice sound great, but when it looks like this, would you order it?

Then there is the fried food. If this ever fell into the wrong hands (Amer­i­cans), the con­se­quences would be dire. Heart dis­ease would no doubt tre­ble overnight with the result­ing deaths extend­ing into the hun­dreds of thou­sands. The main threat comes from Pai Ke which is on paper just bat­tered chicken but is one of the most addic­tive foods out there. The thick bat­ter is both spicy, a lit­tle sweet and ultra crunchy and when com­bined with suc­cu­lent chicken is a heart attack in a paper bag. Approach with cau­tion.

Accom­pa­ny­ing the Pai Ke or Ji Pai are fried sweet potato, mush­room, taro (squidgy great­ness) and tem­pura. Tem­pura in Tai­wan dif­fers to the Japan­ese bat­tered prawns, by instead tak­ing the prawn and mash­ing it up with the flour. Then the result­ing splodge is cooled, chopped up and then deep fried. The end result is a airy light crispy shell that becomes slightly chewy when eaten. Tossed with light chilli, it is as moor­ish as pop­corn. Again, all of these fried foods are no good in any way but are per­fect when eaten after a long day with a beer or two.

Then there are the more tra­di­tional of Chi­nese snacks; the meat buns, the dumplings, pan­cakes and some kind of mys­tery meat and rice.

Finally these lit­tle hot cakes can be filled with cus­tard, taro or red bean but really if you’re devi­at­ing from the cus­tard ver­sion, you’re doing it wrong.

It’s easy to graze in Taiwan :)