Egg rolls in Taiwan
Egg rolls everywhere else
As came up yesterday, translating bing as “cake” is pretty problematic, since dan gao is more accurate to the Western idea of “cake”.
Yeah, I know what egg rolls are in Taiwan… although I didn’t know that anywhere else in the world egg rolls were those other things in the second picture.
I confess judgment that most of you guys leave me in the dust about food knowledge, and not just Taiwan food, but any kind of food.
But there are certain foods here, some of them seemingly pretty simple, that I have very much enjoyed. I don’t recall going out looking for stuff (not that that’s a bad idea), but I just more or less stumbled onto some kinds of food, or someone gave it as a gift at work–stuff like that.
But this newcomer, it may take him/her a while to find food that he/she likes.
Specifics?
The specifics are excruciatingly boring, but I’ll give a couple:
When I first got here, on the street where my cram school was located there was a little fried cuttlefish stand. They put some kind of leafy stuff in with the cuttlefish while they deep-fried it. I would say coriander/cilantro, or whatever it’s called, but it made the cuttlefish taste minty, and there was some other taste that varied back and forth with the mint taste–kind of a “Yanny/Laurel” thing, only with flavors instead of sounds. I think that stand moved away within a month or so of my coming here.
Also, not too far from my old workplace there was a biandang place that I nicknamed the Meiyou Restaurant because they had niuroufan (that’s probably not the right way to say it) on their menu, but they never served it, which hacked me off. I don’t know why I got so mad about that, but I had such a rishus that it took me several years to figure out that they had arguably the best chicken I’d ever eaten anywhere. It just looked like one of these deals where the guy (probably the owner) would take baked jitui and deep fry it briefly to warm it up. I think the flavor must have had something to do with what the jitui had been soaked/marinated in–I guess. Like I said in another post, I’m no gourmet. Only thing I know is, that was really good chicken. The weird thing is, because early on I got the chou rouge about the lack of beef rice, I didn’t go there very often, so I never got tired of that chicken, which was a good thing, I think. They closed down a couple of years ago, even though they were doing a brisk business.
There are other examples, just as boring as or even more boring than the two above. 
I almost fell asleep reading that! ha, ha. What’s up with all the food threads?
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My theory is that cosmic rays are making us all hungry.
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That looks fancier than what I had, but I’d like to try that.
It’s one of the few seafood dishes I can actually stand. 
Along with this one:
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More like Taiwan calimari, with the basil deep fried.
Common rechao dish. Although there are many seafood dishes down south and even in places such as Yilan and Keelung which are very local and quite unique to the area. Some are very challenging for western tastes.
wow, pretty rough. possibly a bit outdated nowadays though. there are a lot of koreans coming here recently, check out ximen carrefor. everytime i go there i see mass amounts of koreans. so i think taiwanese have quite a positive view of them nowadays.
although i have heard some stupid shit. i’ve heard of one korean girl dating a taiwanese guy and his family giving her hassle about eating kimchi every day…
Where can one find those delicious looking fried egg rolls in your picture?
Madness how many Korean tourists go to that store!
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Closest would be Hongcouver…
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My parents told me kimchi gives you liver cancer.
I’m looking over my shoulder to make sure my GF doesn’t see this…
I have to kinda agree with you. What I want to know is… what food are you so dearly missing?? I’ll share my sob story. Moved here 'cuz of love and frankly SICK of the USA.
I used to cook EVERYDAY and have oh… more than 30 years of experience. During the season, I shopped every weekend at a green market. I care about the quality/freshness of what I cook with. I’m ok with the food here, but I find that few people have a connection with their sources of food production. There is nothing here like the NYC green market in prime summer season. That fact kills me.
Good post. Can I ask in which city you are now living? There are in fact farmers’ markets and other options here in Taipei. Others may have suggestions for you about other places if applicable.
Guy