What Taiwanese food/drink makes you want to retch?
chicken feet
stinky tofu
chicken butts on a stick
oyster & intestine soup
fermented tofu
spicy blood chunks and intestine soup
crunchy little fish (in anything)
1000 year old egg
pearl milk tea
kaoliang
moon cake
di hwei gwei (blood & rice popsicle)
bitter melon
bird’s nest soup
it’s all awful
it’s all delicious
0voters
They just gave me the most hideous lunch box today at the office which made me think of this poll. I pulled a face and traded it with one of my colleagues. Not much better, mind you…but I could eat bits of it.
What food or beverage in Taiwan (whether you’ve tried it or not) do you find the most revolting?
Please elaborate.
Anything in 7-11 (except for the cold noodles), anything on a stick and steeped in pond water, and any dish with bitter melon (okay I had a decent bitter melon dish maybe once or twice.)
it’s hard to choose between the chicken feet and the 1000-year-old egg, but the clear winner in my case is the spicy “fermented bean curd” cheese thing that comes in the little jar. absolutely rancid. makes roquefort seem mild, have never tried limburger to compare.
I chose the blood/intestine soup, but really, I think the blood rice popsicles have got to be pretty close… Yuk.
Then again, I think many cultures have equally revolting food options. my ancestors may have some scottish blood, but you would not catch me eating Hagis anytime soon!
i love the little fish with the hot peppers, slam down clots of them practically every restaurant i go to.
yeah sea slugs! now there’s a wtf for you.
kaoliang is a good addition to the list, like a bit of hard liquor now and then but the taste of that just kills me. like shaoxing though, not with a whole bag of plums in it though, maybe one or two.
My vote goes to the stinky doufu though I have to admit I’ve never tried it. People tell me it tastes just like it smells. Neither have I tried chicken butts on sticks, fermented doufu or the oyster and intestine soup, so I can’t really tell. I don’t care for chicken feet or the spicy blood chunks but can eat them if I have to.
I absolutely LOVE crunchy little fish, 1000 year old eggs, pearl milk tea and moon cakes. My sister thought I’d become really weird when she came to see me :? Surviving in Germany will sure be hard without a regular dose of those things
I like stinky tofu, but I haven’t eaten it again since someone told me how they make it!!! Chicken’s feet are quite delicious imho. It makes me wonder why they don’t eat them everywhere. (Aside Taiwan’s chicken’s feet are much better than Thailand’s). I also love the cakes made of blood and sticky rice.
I think the main reason people don’t like these things is the idea of them, rather than the actual taste. People are conditioned to believe that certain things are disgusting (and in some cases, e.g. stinky tofu, they are!).
Bitter melon is the worst. Chicken feet are preferable to duck tongue. Sea cucumber has a pretty disgusting texture, but it least it’s fairly innocuous. I love pearl milk tea.
[quote=“Sharky”]I chose the blood/intestine soup, but really, I think the blood rice popsicles have got to be pretty close… Yuk.
Then again, I think many cultures have equally revolting food options. my ancestors may have some scottish blood, but you would not catch me eating Hagis anytime soon![/quote]
Man, I love that blood rice stuff! On a stick, dropped in a hot pot, deep fried and covered in pepper – YUM!
HaGGis, too, is wonderful stuff.
Bitter melon is foul, unless its mixed with carrots and pineapple in a juicer, then its pretty good.
Yes it is. The swallows use the spit to glue their nests together, then some mean men come and take away the nest so the poor swallow has to start all over again, up to three times I have been told during a visit of a cave in Thailand where they harvest the shit, sorry, spit.
See! That’s what I hate. The folks who serve this vile disgusting dish have the nerve to call it “sea cucumber”, as if it were some form of sea vegitation.
You forgot the Chicken Nuggets - and I don’t mean the KFC or Mickey D’s variety…
Had the misforture to be presented with a bowl of these made into soup. Got the usual “good for man” speech and didn’t really have a way out so …yes I ate the roosters balls. Like the sea worm thing - it’s the texture that gets you, oh and the taste … and of course the way they burst in your mouth…
[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]
…and since when is kaoliang a dish?[/quote]
You telling me you never had a liquid lunch Wolf?
Love 1000 year-old eggs, hate stinky tofu (though it tastes better than it smells), don’t eat any dead animal parts, but especially frown on those we only feed to our pets in the west. Little crunchy fishies rock, especially the way my mother-in-law does 'em
