Why these Chinese and Taiwanese dishes have such weird names?

Cuisine Food & Drink
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1. Ants Climbing a Tree 螞蟻上樹

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Crystal noodles with ground pork.

Reason: By blending with soy sauce, glass noodles itself will turn into a darker color. When tangled with ground meat, it just looks like an image of tiny black ants clinging to the branches.


2. Old Skin Soft Flesh 老皮嫩肉

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Delicious fried egg tofu.

Reason: This is a metaphor of a young girl/boy with wrinkle skin… Kinda like what happen to the fair tofu after being fried.


3. Happy that We Meet 喜相逢

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Fried smelt. A type of fish that has lots of eggs in its belly.

Reason: The name of this dishes came from the similar pronunciation as it is in Japanese “Shishamo”.


4. Flies’ Head 蒼蠅頭

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Yes, we don’t eat ants, but we definitely love flies. No I’m kidding. This is a dish of ground beef stirred with garlic bolt.

Reason: Cooked with minced beef, chopped garlic and fermented black beans. It goes really well with white rice. But I do remember how terrified I was when my dad first order this weird dish in a restaurant.


5. Fried Dragon Eyes 酥炸龍珠

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Fried squids’ mouth. No dragon here, sorry to let you down.

Reason: People give this dish such a fancy name due to its chewy and crystal texture. Usually stirred with spices and peanut pieces, this is also a must-have.


Find out more in the original post for 5 other dishes:

  • Three-Cup Chicken 三杯雞
  • Kung Pao Chicken 宮保雞丁
  • Five-Geng Fat Intestine 五更腸旺
  • Mapo Tofu 麻婆豆腐
  • Garlic Mud White Meat 蒜泥白肉

Hope I successfully make you guys hungry. Peace.

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Uh, it’s not a Taiwanese thing, it’s a Chinese thing. Check China and it’s even more crazy.

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I like the chicken here that’s actually frog legs.

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Yeah, I like the name “field chicken”

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Six of those ten dishes are Szechuan dishes. It’s insulting to call them Taiwanese…Szechuan food is so much better.

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I actually haven’t had authentic Sichuan food here. They don’t capture the spice correctly. It’s not just spicy, there’s that one herb or whatever that makes it tingle.

But yes, dishes like mapo tofu is a famous Sichuan dish.

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That’s the 花椒 (Szechuan pepper). There are places in Taiwan that do it right, but most places don’t.

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This place is worth a visit. The chef is from Sichuan.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/天府家常菜/180516278655647

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Yeah, that’s one of the places that does it right.

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whats the deal with those squid mouth/ octopus mouth (i’m not sure what) things? i thought those animals had some sort of beak? when i had that dish it didn’t feel that abnormal.

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My teacher friend always called that dish “squid as*holes.” Maybe he was right?

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There was a place I found near Linsen Bei where the boss was a middle age lady from Chongqing. Would say authentic

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There’s a little fingernail of cartilage in there that is the beak proper.
You aren’t meant to eat it. :open_mouth:

Also, FWIW, I’ve never heard of #4 with ground beef, it’s always ground pork

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Anything more specific? Thanks if you can.

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Going to say it was here https://g.co/kgs/Zy6hQE

Actually pretty certain it was. Was a random find we stumbled upon. Surprised how authentic the food was

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Good catch. This one actually is an authentic Taiwanese dish, and as such is of course made with pork.