Hello.
I have just arrived in Taiwan. I came here to teach and I plan to live here for the next 2 years at least… Possibly as long as 4 years.
I am vegetarian. I do NOT eat Fish, Pork, Beef, Chicken, Fowl, Seafood… This does include Chicken Broth, Fish Sauce, Fish Broth…
I KNOW this will be difficult. However, I have already lived in Thailand for a year teaching, so I also know it’s possible. Although, in Thailand I was still eating fish…
I DO eat dairy and eggs. I expect here in Taiwan Tofu will be my staple protein…
[color=#0000FF]What I am looking for here is SPECIFIC Dishes that I can order, of course with the Chinese name for them (and a phonetic spelling if possible).[/color]
In other words, if you can respond with specific vegetarian dishes, and their names, and of course basic descriptions, that would be really really helpful!
Something like Tofu/Rice/Vegetables… Noodles w/Vegetables…
Also, just very basic how can I order plain Rice with Fried Eggs (this is what I ate in Thailand every day for breakfast). And basic things like Veg Fried Rice… Stir Fried Veggies w/ rice.
I don’t know any Chinese words yet, but plan to buy a Language book over the weekend…
Thanks much!
[color=#008000]Mod note: title changed from “Vegetarian in Taiwan” and color added. [/color]
The swastikas could face wither way. In any case, be aware that they are Buddhist vegetarian restaurants, so they contain no garlic or chiles, and as such can be quite bland. Bring your own garlic and spices!!
Often stir fried rice and veggies will be cooked in animal lard or will be cooked in the same wok that did meat dishes so you do need to watch for that. Vegetarian restaurants are pretty common. There are millions of Buddhists in Taiwan, and lately many people have started going without meat at least one day a week. Look for Buddhist restaurants (they will have a swastika symbol outside, or be obvious in other ways), and organic shops, and veggie restaurants which will often have an English sign. Where are you living?
Of course, that doesn’t guarantee that you won’t be served chicken or fish (which don’t count as meat in the eyes of many), or be given a plate of veggies cooked in lard with bacon bits that you can “just pick out”!
Learn and look for the character
素
, for starters, on restaurant signs and windows, as well as on menus. This means vegetarian and is pronounced su4, with a falling tone like a command in English (like the sue in “You should sue!”) Also look for the swastikas, as others have mentioned.
Useful phrases:
我吃素 Wo3 chi1 su4 I am a vegetarian (literally “I eat vegetarian”)
有素食嗎? You3 su4shi2 ma? Do you have vegetarian food?
我不吃海鮮. Wo3 bu4 chi1 hai3xian1. I don’t eat seafood.
我不要海鮮. Wo3 bu2 yao4 hai3xian1. I don’t want seafood.
You may also want to read these threads on vegetarian restaurants.
I don’t have specific dish names for you, however.
If you mean numbers in something like chi1 su4, those are tone numerals to tell you which tone to pronounce each syllable in (Mandarin is a tonal language). If you mean you see numbers here: 吃素 where I typed Chinese characters, then you need to check your browser’s encoding. In IE, for instance, go to View, then Encoding. I have mine set to Unicode and can see the Chinese characters.
or if the SU 素 is vague for some eateries (or not to your specifications), then you can always say:
Wo yao chi qing cai. 我要吃青菜。
basically, means veggies straight up (e.g. can be garlic stir-fried style: a popular choice) (which is different from buddhist restrictions on garlic etc). the eateries usually then list what they have that day. A common Taiwan choice would be:
A cai (Vegetable A is how I think of it) and eat with rice, tofu, etc. And there’s many kinds of tofu dishes, some are served with meat, etc.
If you’re planning on speaking Chinese to order food, then yes, you’ll need to learn the tones; you’ll also need to learn how to pronounce the phonetic system (Hanyu Pinyin) that people are using in the above posts; there are big differences for some of the symbols from their English values, and the vowels resemble the clean vowels of Spanish or Japanese, not the English versions. You’ll be doing yourself a big favor if you learn the pronunciation correctly from the start, with for example a one-on-one teacher who can teach Pinyin – locals often only know another system, Zhuyin, aka Bo Po Mo Fo, which I don’t recommend; you can see our arguments and ask questions about that and other topics related to learning Chinese over in the Learning Chinese forum area.
Quick answer: forget about looking for specific dishes; look for vegetarian restaurants instead.
If you’re a STRICT vegetarian, then you’re basically going to have to go to only vegetarian restaurants - at a typical eatery, even the vegetable dishes will often be non-vegetarian due to the broth or bits of pork added for flavour. Going to a normal street restaurant and asking for vegetarian food probably isn’t going to work out for you.
Dish names aren’t really going to help, because at a vegetarian restaurant, you might see “Seafood Curry” on the menu, but there won’t be any real seafood - it’ll all be tofu-derived imitations. So the same dish may be vegetarian at one place, and non-vegetarian in another.
On the plus side, if you’re in a vegetarian restaurant, you know that everything’s safe for you.
As others have said, look for the swastikas. You can be pretty sure everything in those restaurants will be vegetarian.
If you’re near Main Station: there’s a decent vegetarian restaurant in the food court on the second floor - northeast corner, if I remember right. That’s a chain and you can find branches at a number of the department stores. The menu will confuse you, because I believe it includes chicken pizza, but it’s not really chicken.
What lostinasia says – even a dish labelled this or that kind of vegetale or doufu may be made with a bit of lard or fatty pork added for flavor in the average place, so just the dish name may not help. You’re going to be better off going to dedicated vegetarian places. And if those are too bland for you, you’ll soon learn to bring your own spice, garlic etc…
If you are staying close to Taipei Main Station, you will see the NOVA shopping center. Right behind there is a street with a bunch of cheapie vegetarian places. You can start there. There are a bunch of vegetarian noodle places nearby, too.
On the corner of Zhongshiao and Linsen -two important streets very close to the Main Station- there is a McD’s, and next to it, one of those serve yourself, pay by weight vegetarian places. The more you add, the more you pay.
Also within walking distance, there is the upscale Taiho supermarket, where they also serve meals and sandwiches, using organic stuff, and mostly vegetarian.
As Dragonbones says, be aware that some local veggie fare is quite oily.
If you don’t mind me asking, are you allergic to seafood? I was surprised my allergy extends to seaweed as well. If you do have an allergy or if you want to emphasize the point try saying that you can’t eat certain ingrediants. I say I can’t eat fish, seafood and seaweed. I’ll attempt to write it phonetically. Wo bu nan chi yu, hai hsian, hai tai.
This is how my wife taught me to mumble it. I’m sure Dragonbones would be happy to correct the sentence.
If you are hungry you could get some vegetable fried rice at many stands. Be sure to choose an open kitchen so you can watch them. If you are charming enough, ask them to wash the wok and be sure to ask them use Salad oil. Otherwise they’ll use lard
That said, you are best keeping your eating to those restaurants with the swastikas. The Taiwanese remind me of my friend’s traditional itlalian grandmother. She assumed that if you don’t want something it is because you haven’t tried it yet. She would try to sneak it on you.
Seriously, I’ve had restaurants of varying qualities from Taipei 101 to the local whole in the wall. Each insisted the food was “fish free” and each ran out later saying don’t eat that **** and many a romantic dinner ended with a trip to the hospital.
(It was not my bad Chinese either. I’ve had flash card to show them, taiwanese ordering for me and the like.)
For get the “look for the swastika’s” comments. Very few veggie restaurants have these. As has been said, look for 素 and learn to recognise it in different styles.
As someone said, learning the names of the dishes isn’t very helpful as they mostly have the same names as their non-veg counterparts, and secondly something like ‘vegetable soup’ in a non-veg restaurant, may very well contain meat.
Welcome! One of the greatest places in the world for us herbivores. Although still way below Southern India .
Here’s a 2010 list of Taipei veggie places.
[url]Recommended Vegetarian/Vegan Restaurants in Taipei
Now go check out the pig carcass thread.
[url]Pit Roasted pig
“I do not eat seafood” is wo3 bu4 chi1 hai3xian1.
“I cannot eat seafood” is wo3 bu4 neng2 chi1 hai3xian1.
Fish is yu2, and seaweed is hai3tai2 (paper-thin sea moss, usually packaged in dry sheets in the snack section of a store) or hai3dai4 (kelp, which is a thicker type, served moist, often in small rectangles a bit bigger than a stick of gum, and sometimes tied in a knot in the center, served as a side dish at many local eateries).
You can add ‘…, you3 guo4min3’ at the end to say that you’re allergic.
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