I would like to know where I can find real limes in Taiwan, instead ofthose green lemons that look like limes but taste like lemons. It seems that the Taiwanese have no idea what a lime is, thinking that it’s just a green lemon. There is a distinct difference in flavor, dammit!
I know, I know, I know. No one has a clue here. Try Jasons in 101.
You can find the real LIME in WET MARKET and some ORGANIC SHOPS.
you should also check the basement grocery stores at Breeze center and Sogo (on zhongxiao, don’t know about the warner area one tho).
we’ve had pretty good luck with those places. also, for some unfathomable reason one of our area Wellcome stores has had them sporadically - but that’s probably an anomoly 
Should be able to get them from street fruit shops, some, but not all sell them. I think I also saw them in Tesco once.
The Chinese characters for “lime” are 萊姆 (lai2 mu3). Hope that helps you find some.
Try the local Philippino shops. They have REAL limes.
They use lots of them for cooking. I hate those fake lemon/lime things too!
:fume:
Has anyone managed to locate limes in Taipei?
go to any super market and ask for a lemon.
And that’s what you’ll get – a lemon. Sure it’ll be a green lemon but it’s still just a lemon and tastes completely different from a lime. I’ve had limes from Wellcome on very rare occasions and I’ve seen them once or twice in Jason’s.
I don’t know why they’re so hard to get here.
I got them in Costco once for my G&Ts. Qing ning in Chinese.
man, there must be something totally wrong with my tastebuds, my whole life I figured the only different between lemons and limes was, indeed, color
I always assumed that what I have been buying in Taiwan was unripened lemons. Now a friend reckons they are actually limes, in spite of their name ‘ning meng,’ which sounds like a phonetic borrowing from English. Anyone have any information?
you do know the diffrence, don’t you? rub the skin and smell the oil. the shape is different (but the difference is less pronounced in young lemons), the skin has finer pores in a lime, and the skin is generally thinner in a lime.
it is very confusing as the lemons they sell here are generally green and under-ripe, or unripe. i have been served ‘lime this’ and ‘lime that’ on a rgular basis that are made from lemons instead. Bleargh!
i can barely find limes here. there is apparently no separate word in Chinese for lime and lemon, but i have bought limes occasionally. Welcome has limes infrequently, carrefour very seldom. Thai specialist food stores are nowhere to be found near me… when you find some, buy a whole bag and juice them and freeze the juice in ice trays.
Thai food is a shame with lemons instead of fresh limes.
What he said, cause he knows lots, actually. I’d just say that Thai food is a sham without limes, not a shame.
HG
[quote=“urodacus”]
there is apparently no separate word in Chinese for lime and lemon[/quote]
I think Lime is “Lie1 Mou2” and lemon is “Ning2 Mong3”
(My Pinyin and tones suck)
I have a private student who works for the Department of Agriculture and we were talking about this.
I’ll ask my gf/chinese teacher about it and report back.
please tell me, my (taiwanese) wife and her friends don’t know any other word… which makes shopping hard.
來母 Lai mu - Lime
檸檬 Ning meng - Lemon
(Help with the tones somebody?)
http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/Citrus_1.html
This link might help with all your citrus translational needs
I typed in “Chinese Lemon” to Google images and came up with this.
Thanks for that. So they are lemons. That what I always thought until the the idea that they might be limes was planted in my head. I am not very familiar with limes anyway. But lemons in Taiwan do taste more bitter and are less juicy compared to lemons that I remember but I put that down to being unripe. And they have quite thin skins compared to some yellow lemons. And they do look very similar to the picture on this site: foodsubs.com/Fruitcit.html
My wife (Taiwanese) and I have been going round & round about this for 3 + years.