Google says its a taiwanese version of japanese ‘oden’ the pics of that do look similar to tian bu la
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Wouldn’t oden be 關東煮?
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Well yes because minced fish paste can also be used in oden 關東煮, so yeah. Again, weird logic, I know.
So tian bu la in Taiwan now is basically just a mushy food made of fish and flour, whether it was grilled, fried, boiled or cook in a soup like oden/關東煮/ guan don zhu
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I am reminded of the tragic story , penned by K-Man .
A Man , later identified as Artie Fisher ,an American teacher , walked into the Taichung Costco store and went crazy . He put his hands round a customer’s neck and demanded money . He strangled the customer , who had refused , and moved on to another customer , who tried in vain to escape . He demanded money and she gave him 100nt …all she had in cash , but he strangled her anyway. Staff eventually held him until Police arrived.
K-Man’s headline
“Artie chokes 2 for 100nt at Costco”
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That was totally believable
I think it’s ONLY really tian bu la when it’s been stewed in broth and there’s an assortment of minced fish shapes and flavours and maybe pig blood cake AND you got to have big chunks of white turnip, which is where this all started.
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Not exactly. Oden refers to a cooking style, rather than an item often found in that cooking style. Just like tempura, there are regional differences within Japan when it comes to naming Oden. In the Kansai region, it is usually referred to as Kanto-ni (關東煮).
You would see both Oden and 關東煮 used here in Taiwan, with Oden (御田) often written as 黑輪, pronounced as Oo-lián, which is a Taigi transliteration of the Japanese word Oden.
The fried minced fish paddies, as I’ve mentioned before, is called Satsuma-age (薩摩揚げ) in Japan, at least in Kanto, and tempura in Kansai, just as it does here in Taiwan.
During the Japanese era, most Japanese in Taiwan came from the Kansai region, as a result Japanese loan words in Taigi usually took on the Kansai flavor.
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Does your nickname shiadoa means “是阿兜仔” ?
Using Google did not help me there? 
阿兜仔 is a “wrong” way to write the Taigi word A-tok–a (阿啄仔), commonly used to refer to white Europeans.
Oh so I made a mistake there. Thanks my fellow Taiwanese whale.
I was toying with Dwokordai, but I am not fat 
Menkeke, Gong sun cho
Ah, I see you’re a man of Taigi as well.
I love Taigi . Struggle with Mandarin . As you say , You can take a cow to Beijing…but it’s still a Cow. I seem to get tones and pronunciation no problem. Just not seen as “trendy” by Taipei peeps
Unfortunately it’s common place to appropriate Taigi words by transliterating them with similar Mandarin sounding words.
Tok (啄 or 喙) refers to bird’s beak, and refers to human nose by extension. A-tok-a means one with prominent nose.
啄 (Tok) has entering tone, notice the “k” at the end, while 兜 in Taigi is pronounced as “tau” or “too”, without the “k”, and means a type of outer wear.
兜 is the wrong match phonetically and etymologically for A-tok-a, and is only commonly written that way because people are using Mandarin to write Taigi.
I always thought the translation was more "Dead foreigner " ?
As a K-man story.
Nope, it just means “big nose.” Some would insist it’s an endearing term. I’m not so sure about that. It’s still a stereotype when it’s used in a well meaning way.
I’ve seen grilled 甜不辣 plenty of times.