Fatty Tuesday: Taiwanese Street Food (Part I)

Now I get it, now I understand the love for street food in Taipei!

It was a little challenging to get it all in between family meals, but we did our best. In fact, I think we did so well that I'm going to have to make this a two-parter. Here are some of the most interesting (and delicious) items we tried during our short trip to Taiwan -- Part I.

Grilled rice cakes
Have you ever tried mochi ice cream? Usually served for dessert after sushi, it's ice cream wrapped in a layer of rice that's been pounded into a paste. Imagine taking a big, rectangular piece of that paste, putting it on a stick, and grilling it until it softens and forms a crispy outer layer.

Once grilled to perfection, it's removed from the fire and topped with a squirt of your choice of sauce. Sauces come in a variety of flavors; we tried brown sugar and Thai curry. Both were liquidy and subtly sweet, and curiously tasted just as described.

If I lived in Taipei, I'd make it a goal of mine to try every sauce. 

Sausage-wrapped sausage 
Yes, a sausage wrapped in another sausage. It's a salty, sweet Chinese sausage that forgoes the bun for rice stuffed in a sausage casing (see the "sausages" in the foreground?).

Once both sausages are ready, the grillmaster slits the rice sausage down its middle and inserts the meat one, adding various toppings (such as kimchi and pickled vegetables) and sweet and/or spicy sauce(s).

Ice cream burrito
How could I not try this one? It's like two of my favorite things rolled into one. The "chef" first shaves peanut candy from a large block (see bottom left of photo) and places those shavings onto a thin Chinese crepe of sorts. He then adds two scoops of taro root ice cream and tops it all off with cilantro before wrapping it up like a burrito.

I won't lie, this one was a bit odd -- the cilantro, I just didn't get. But it was worth a try! 

We found these all of these goodies in the Ximen neighborhood of Taipei, not far from the subway station there.