Chinese Food- the good, the bad, and the ugly!
One of our favorite things in Taiwan is the food, so I figured it's about time I share some of it with you.
We frequent many restaurants in town, but our favorite is this place, where we get steamed dumplings, salty-spicy soup, purple rice, and bitter melon. Bitter melon (pictured right) is NASTY- don't ever try it!- but Mark likes it for some crazy reason.
During Dragon Boat Festival season, you can see these triangular shaped sticky rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaf everywhere (it has historical reference to the festival). I love these things and I have found places where I can get them all year round.
My favorite fruit looks like it's straight out of a Dr. Suess book. The english name for it is 'Dragon Fruit'. The insides are either white or bright purple. If you eat the bright purple one, you'll probably be a little surprised every time you go to the bathroom for the next few days.
We went to a Chinese wedding, and I was lucky enough to be sent off to the buddhist vegetarian table. Mark was not so lucky, and ate all sorts of crazy stuff, including chicken testicles.
Crab and Shrimp.
Chicken Testicle Soup and Whole Chicken Soup.
Yvonne's daughter ready to dig in to the lobster. And a whole fish.
Fancy misty japanese food, and some meat stuck on a fake drumstick.
Dessert- some sort of soup with some jelly and peanuts.
Here are two more things for shock value:
Mark chowed down on these pig brains complete with a straw to suck out the bone marrow (left), and to the right is Yvonne, offering Mark some chicken feet. Chicken feet must be bad, because it's the only thing that Mark ever said he "didn't really like".
And here are some food stalls we've come across.
Snails & Squid
Taiwanese Junk Food & Orange juice
Corn & Dragon Beard Candy
Cakes & Bitter Melon
More Shelled Beasts & A Giant Mushroom stand
Pastries & Seafood
And, while this is not quite a 'food', it is referred to as "Taiwan's chewing gum"- here's Mark with his first (and, so far, only) try at a Betel Nut.
