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I was blessed to have been able to spend 3 weeks in Taiwan after having been away from 2½ years. The long absence meant that I missed a great many things about the people and the food. Not surprisingly, I took the opportunity to retrace my steps over the years, which included grabbing a few bites which brought back memories and emotions.
In addition to the specific meals which have already been recorded, here are some of the little, more humble bites:
Uni-President Big Pudding (統一大布丁) - this was the very first thing I bought and ate after being allowed to leave the apartment at midnight after 3 (actually 4) days of quarantine. It's a childhood memory. I loved eating this as a kid, and I especially loved the dark caramel at the bottom of the plastic tub. In the old days there was a little "stick" at the bottom, which you could break off to make a hole at the tub. If you flipped the tub over and placed it on a plate, then broke off the stick, you could let in some air and the pudding would slide (relatively) easily out of the container. Smart, huh?
I always thought of this as "egg pudding (雞蛋布丁)", but didn't realize until this time that they could not make that claim and had to call it "egg flavored (雞蛋口味)", because no eggs were used in making these. It's true. I checked the list of ingredients. Eggs aren't listed. But I still love it.
Of course, the
crème caramel that Sankala made for mom - with quality eggs, high-fat milk, and real Tahitian vanilla - were much, much better.
Crispy shortbread with spring onions (鹹酥餅) - I have been patronizing this food truck near the Parental Units' home for probably 25 years. This is one of my favorite street foods to grab in Taipei, along with their spring onion pancakes (蔥油餅). Just had to do it.
For breakfast, I couldn't help going back to
Fu Hang Dou Jiang (阜杭豆漿) to grab some
sweetened soy milk (甜豆漿) and my usual
baked thick flat bread with deep-fried crullers and omelette (厚燒餅夾油條蛋餅). Somehow I felt the flat bread this time wasn't as toasty and fragrant compared to what I remembered from past visits. Thanks to the complete lack of foreign tourists, and since we visited on a weekday, the wait was only 15 minutes.
I also had some
deep-fried crullers wrapped in omelette (蛋餅夾油條), which was certainly lighter.
During the short time I worked in Taipei, I would probably visit
Wangji Fucheng Zongzi (王記府城肉粽) once every couple of weeks for lunch. Their
Taiwanese style thin noodles (大腸麵線) - vermicelli with pork and pig intestines in thickened broth - is such comfort food for us Taiwanese.
I also took their
bowl rice cake (碗粿), which had big chunks of pork along with dried shrimp, egg yolk, and deep-fried shallots. Not something one finds easily outside Taiwan.
One childhood favorite street food is
oyster omelette (蚵仔煎), and this time I got my fix at
Yuan Huan Pian Oyster Egg Omelette (圓環邊蚵仔煎) in
Ningxia Night Market (寧夏夜市). My last visit here was with the Hungry Hungarian
One last thing I hadn't expected to come across was found at
Burger King. Due to the ongoing pandemic, I did not feel comfortable visiting Taipei's famous night markets and eating on the streets, so one thing missing from my hit list was
guabao (割包). Well... it so happened that Burger King was offering a
peanut and cilantro gua bao burger (花生香菜刈包烤牛堡). OK... so the pork patty wasn't the same as the fatty pork belly in a
guabao, but the addition of peanut candy powder plus the coriander really did get the flavors kinda close.
It's been a good 3 weeks. Hopefully I'll be back soon for more goodies.
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