Taiwanese Street Food (Part II)

Breakfast
Part of a complete Taiwanese breakfast is fried dough (I said "complete," not healthy). Turning a deaf ear to warnings about long lines, Mike and I went to Fu Hang Dou Jiang, the breakfast spot in Taipei. We waited about an hour, a quick 60 minutes when the line constantly moves and you have a Starbucks coffee in hand.

Essentially, there's sweet and savory. The sweet is a long piece of deep-fried dough the same shape as a churro, wrapped in sesame flat bread and dunked in sweet soy milk. To be honest, it's a lot of bread and if I'm going to have fried dough, I'd prefer it covered in cinnamon and sugar. To my surprise, I liked the savory better. It's a tasty bowl of soy milk curdled into tofu. Okay, maybe that doesn't sound terribly appetizing, but it was really well seasoned and I liked the floating pieces of fried dough on top.

Dinner
We had all kinds of street food items one evening: (clockwise in photo below) oyster omelet, ba wan (a mega dumpling of sorts), noodles, bubble tea and gua bao (a Taiwanese hamburger). My favorites: the tea and the burger. I know, the tea (aka, boba) is kind of a cop-out, but it's really good and it's different from ones you'd try at home (or in Shanghai). Taiwan is the birthplace of bobas, and they do them right, with soft, sweet tapioca balls swimming in milk tea.

The burger was fantastic: braised pork belly (minus the fat for me), pickled Chinese cabbage and powdered peanuts wrapped in a steamed bun. I loved the fusion of different flavors and textures. Every bite is salty, sour and sweet; soft, tender and crunchy. 

I know what I'm having for dinner the next time I'm in town.

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. 

Shenzhen Street Food, by Mike

For about a year and a half, I've asked Mike to grace this blog with a guest post. He's finally complied...

I'm really more of an eater than a blogger, so I decided my first post will be to take over the Fatty Tuesday column (You're not taking over anything. And you missed the Tuesday deadline anyway.).

After stuffing my pie hole this past weekend with a Thanksgiving feast and all of its leftovers, I went down to Shenzhen for one night. Not knowing the restaurant scene down there, I figured the best way to try different local fare was to hit one of its famous food streets.

The Dongmen area is known for being an old and well-established shopping area but also has very respectable street food. Here's what went down:

First up was a delicious tofu I kept seeing people walking around with. Not very greasy and with a good amount of spice, the dish was two large slices of tofu for less than a buck.

Given its close proximity to Hong Kong (just across the Chinese border by the South China Sea), Shenzhen's seafood is fresh and popular, so I had to give the grilled oysters and clams a try. For less than $2 per serving, you get three grilled oysters smothered in a slightly sweetened garlic mixture (imagine scampi with a touch a soy) or five clams covered with glass noodles and the same garlic mixture. I got both.

Not quite having my fill of noodles after the clams, I got myself a bowl of famous Chinese-style hand-cut noodles (dao shao mian) for $2. Super fresh with great texture and awesome with a beer.

Feeling pretty full, I was on my way out, but paused when I saw a long line at one of the carts. After realizing it was Chinese-style stewed pig's feet, who was I not to top off my night with some tasty trotters? I've had plenty of pig's feet before (not the crappy pickled-in-a-jar-at-a-bar kind), and these didn't disappoint, especially for about $1.50.

All in all, with two beers and five dishes for under $10, not a bad meal, or first post if I do say so myself (and he does).

Fatty Tuesday: Shanghai Street Food

It occurred to me that I've written about street food in Chengdu, Hangzhou, and even Seoul, but up until now, have left out Shanghai. It does exists here, and a lot of the time, outside of bars and clubs (kind of like San Francisco's danger dogs). What I find most fascinating about the street food here is the resourcefulness of the vendors whose mode of transportation and food prep/delivery mechanism is not a cart or a truck but a BIKE. Check this out:

Notice the plastic grocery bags of veggies, the makeshift cutting board, the red hose running from a tank of gas to a burner, on top of which sits a wok (being handled vigorously in the upper left). This was the noodle guy.  

Here's another example: a charcoal grill on one side (see it on the right?) and a whole bunch of skewers behind it (from fish-on-a-stick to a whole eggplant), soon to be seasoned and bbq'd. 

To answer the first question on your minds: Yes, we (as in Mike) has gotten a styrofoam container of noodles (with sausage!), and has also eaten a bbq'd eggplant. Both got his seal of approval (I had a few bites; I concur, although not enthusiastically).

And to answer the second question on your minds: No, we did not have to run to the bathroom immediately afterward (surprisingly). 

Fatty Tuesday: Hangzhou Street Food

We made it to Hangzhou over the holiday weekend, and although we got unlucky (again) with the weather, it's still a beautiful place and it was nice to get out of Shanghai.

For this Fatty Tuesday, I thought you might like to see what street food in Hangzhou looks like (notice the duck beaks, the gofer teeth, and the ever-so-popular chicken feet).