Taiwan: "Small Eats"

Taiwan is best known for its xiao chi, which literally translates as "small eats." When I hear xiao chi, though, I think of any food or drink specialty sold from either street stands or tiny mom-and-pop stores. As with many Southeast Asian countries, Taiwan thrives primarily on fresh food cooked and served street-side by small, steaming, and efficient operations, often family run. It's what makes eating so unbelievably cheap and convenient there.

Everyone's favorite xiao chi turns them into a child again. Everyone has their favorite(s), the one (or two) thing(s) they just can't get enough of. I'll cover our favorite xiao chi here, and then cover the remaining categories of food, like breakfast and night markets, in my next entry.

I'll start with Mark's dad, because he was maybe the most enthusiastic out of all of us. He very deliberately sought out bahwan (meat filled glutinous rice ball) and eel noodles.

There are many variations of bahwan - some fried, some steamed, and each one with a slightly different sauce. We started the trip with the version Mark's dad had been talking about for months, a fried one from Taichung. Mark's cousin Ah-Ghen has a daughter that just happens to go to school in Taichung, and she graced us on our first night in Taipei, not only with her presence, but also with Taichung's famous bah wan.

I have to admit, the one from Taichung really lived up to the hype. It's all in the sauce! Let me just say how proud I am that Taichung is famous for something so yummy, because that was my birthplace (not literally in the bahwan shop, just the city).

I can't say the same for the steamed shrimp version we tried in Tainan, although Mark and his dad loved it. To each his/her own. I think it looked much better than it tasted, or maybe it's because we ate eel first (see below), and that sort of killed my appetite.

Mark and his dad tried a third version, steamed and filled with pork, at the Liouhe night market in Kaohsiung.

Then on our last day, cousin Ah-Ghen, knowing how much his uncle loves it, brought a Taipei version for lunch. (I didn't have any. I'd like to say I saved my last day for my favorites, but quite frankly, I was all out of appetite! Weak sauce!)

Bahwan is pretty filling, but Mark's dad always managed to eat a second one!

Onto eel. I love unagi, barbecued eel Japanese-style, but I was absolutely not a fan of the eel in Taiwan. Eel noodles clearly evoke powerful childhood memories for Mark's dad, however, because however unsanitary or unappetizing the eel stand or dish, he gobbled it up. He could not wait to show us the place he used to frequent thirty-some-odd years ago.

My mom later told me this sign said something about the bottom of a coffin, or something morbid like that. Anyway, it was about dinnertime, and we had just spent an hour or so driving to and through Tainan to get to this deserted food market and a very unsanitary-looking stand where Mark's dad apparently used to get eel noodles from twenty or thirty years before. I won't include here the picture of the raw eel - I don't want you to lose your appetite completely - but at least the owner/chef put on a show for us.

I was really hoping the crazy hot flame killed any germs that may have been in the eel.

It tasted okay. Just not something I wanted to drive an hour or so to eat.

We spent less than an hour in Tainan, which was a shame because I know there is a lot of good food in Tainan, and we didn't hit any of it.

I did manage to snap a picture of this drink shop with a sense of humor. I just thought it would be a nice place to get a drink in the future, but when my parents read it in Taiwanese, I cracked up. So this is for my fellow Taiwanese friends, who know how funny "black white drink" is when said in Taiwanese.

The eel noodles showed up one more time, thanks to cousin Ah-Ghen on the last day. Still not appetizing.

Tsua bing (shaved ice) probably turns lots of people into a kid again, and Mark's mom was a prime example. Our first opportunity came in Kaohsiung, at A-po (granny) shaved ice. Half the table ordered taro and red bean.

Cousin Mu-Tang and I ordered the mixed fruit, which was SO good. The fruit is SO fresh and SO ripe - mango, watermelon, guava, kiwi, banana.

Lots of shaved ice venues serve savory foods, too. While A-po is famous for their shaved ice, they apparently also have great tomatoes. Again, it's all in the sauce. Sweet, salty and ginger-spicy (I think it's ginger).

A-po is an old, famous chain, but 5th aunt claimed there was a better place, which we went to the next day.

Mark's mom was all over it. We went twice, and both times, she was the first one up to the counter, ordering her toppings before the rest of us even got to the counter.

The dark sugar syrup was their special touch (as opposed to the more typical sweet milk syrup), and their ice really was the finest shaved ice I've ever had.

Mark's mom likes to eat her tsua bing by mixing everything together into mush. She claims that's the "right" way to eat it, so you get all your toppings in every bite.

Mark and I liked to eat in a more controlled fashion. Mark's reason is simple - hates his iced-anything to melt before he finishes eating, and if you mix it all up, the ice melts quicker. My reasons were less specific. I just know that I love having a few first bites of just ice and sugar/milk syrup, and then slowly dig my way down to the buried toppings, eating each topping individually as well as together.

Apparently, Mark and I don't eat with enough abandon, because his mom watched us with disapproval.

We also tried a random place in Taipei near 6th aunt's house toward the end of our trip. We definitely don't need to go back to this one. The ice was not finely shaved (possibly even pre-shaved and then kept frozen), and the toppings were less tasty.

Finally, before getting to Taiwan, I had heard of a place called "Monster Ice" that was supposed to be the most famous shaved ice in Taipei. Well, I hadn't seen any Monster Ice anywhere in Taipei, but was told this new Yong Kang 15 mango shaved ice was all the rage.

It must have been. Not only was the place crowded, Taiwan's first lady was there with a large group of friends, sitting just the next table over from us!

It did not disappoint. Mango ice cream topped a layer of sweet, perfectly ripe, fresh mango, atop a perfect amount of finely shaved ice soaked in sweetened milk syrup.

This was my favorite shaved ice experience - well worth the extra few bucks it cost. The mango ice cream and fresh mango was delicious. I later found out Yong Kang 15 replaced Monster Ice on Yong Kang St., hence my difficulty with finding Monster Ice.

Speaking of my favorite things: I had my sights set on papaya milk from the outset. The best I had the entire trip was the first, in a cute neighborhood near Yanmingsan.

It had the best papaya flavor and was nice and creamy. Next time I go back to Taiwan, this place and Milk King are the only two places I want to go for papaya milk.

I had another one at the Dream Mall in Kaohsiung, which was also satisfying, but not nearly as good.

Finally, at Liouhe Night Market in Kaohsiung, I sidled up to what appeared to be a very popular papaya milk stand.

Again, it was not as good as my first one, but good enough to finish. :)

Mark didn't really have a particular xiao chi item he was aching for before he got there, but as soon as he saw a grilled corn stand, he found his thing. The first one we spotted was at the Shihlin Night Market. We called this guy the "corn master."

It cost over $3 (over 100nt), and we had to wait 10 minutes after choosing and ordering the corn while the corn master did his thing, but it was apparently well worth it. More on night markets in the next post.

In Hualien, there was another stand selling a similar style corn for about 1/3 the cost. Mark's dad ordered four, at a medium spice and medium softness (you could specify kernel texture - not sure if this translates to how long the corn is cooked), but they were too spicy for everyone except for Mark.

So Mark ate 3. (We had to toss the last one.) I'm sure he would have loved to return to Shihlin for another from the corn master, but we never made it back.

Mark and I were both bananas over the fruit in Taiwan. We knew we wanted to eat as much guava (me) and wax apple (Mark) as possible. Little did we know how good the bananas would be, too!

We were greeted on day 1 with fragrant, meaty guavas. So refreshing after a long flight!

For most of the trip, we ate the crisp guavas with the white meat inside, but on our tour of Northern Taiwan, I found a pink guava vendor in Jiu Fen.

They sold pink guavas both to eat and in juice form to drink. I chose the sliced pink guavas to eat, and she kindly sprinkled some dried prune powder on top. Oooohhh, so gooooooood.

This was my favorite fruit experience the entire trip.

Thanks to Mark's mom, we were equipped with a bag of guavas pretty much every car and train ride we took. On the train ride down to Kaohsiung, she added a bag of wax apples for Mark.

She also sent us onto the plane with a big bag of wax apples, and Mark ate way too many on the plane ride home (you can't bring them off the plane - they won't make it through customs). It wasn't pretty, but he got his fill.

Finally, I almost forgot, the bananas! While exploring the Taroko Gorge near Hualien, a random vendor on a hiking trail kindly gave us a bunch of freshly picked bananas. Unlike the ones in our supermarkets, these bananas were clearly tree ripened, and oh, what a revelation! I was skeptical (who just gives you some bananas while you're hiking?), but I did not regret taking the chance. As soon as I bit into it, I knew: this is what a banana was supposed to taste like; this is what all the bananas I've eaten before aspired to be (and never became).

Then, I discovered a different type of banana (the shorter, fatter variety in the picture below)!

It's called bah jiao (as opposed to xiang jiao), and it smelled like ... apples! Its texture was so smooth and taste so refreshing. Delicious!

Up next, breakfast, night markets and more!