On Food and Beaches

Finally I'm on the beach! Having spent the last month travelling in two island states, it's amazing how seldom I've even seen the sea, apart from glimpses from train windows and such. But I'm taking it back now here in the Southernmost tip of Taiwan in Kenting national park. Biking around beautiful shores taking time to watch the surfers and count the waves every now and then. 

But since there is only so much ooohing and aaahing about sun, sea and sand that a person can do, I will move promptly to another subject of near equal interest; Food food glorious food----

Many of the great Chinese classics have landed here in Taiwan and made a tasty home for themselves. Wontons - or dumplings - how I love thee! 

Fried

or steamed,

it's all good! And luckily the tell tale round wooden steaming boxes are a dead give-away that dumplings are to be had, since these delicious little bundles are sold in street stalls, which never display any pictures, let alone texts in English.

Oh, and if you're not very comfortable eating with chopsticks, prepare to go hungry. Because chopsticks are all you're going to get. Try eating bacon and eggs with chopsticks.

Though actually that was an easy one, buy the crab in the shell I had for dinner yesterday was quite a challenge with just chopsticks!

However Taiwanese cousine is not without its land mines. The first of these is sugar. Not a bad thing in moderation, but moderation is hard to come by here. Sweet things are Sweeeeeeeet! But that I find easier to palate then the fact, that sugar is not limited to sweet stuffs. 

On the principle of "if there's a line for a food stall, then what they're selling must be good", I once wasted 10 minutes to obtain what looked lke a burrito, had bean sprouts and veggies and meat in it, but the horror! It was sweet! I mean seriously sweet. As was the steaming bowl of hot soup, which was, apparently, a local delicacy. And the chunks in the soup were not bits of vegetable as I had thought, but the other land mine in Taiwan cousine - grutenous, jelly-like, tastless... substance.

I know that the Japanese consider the texture of the food one important aspect, and even favour some relatively bland tasting foods, simply because their texture is pleasing to the palate. Well, maybe the Taiwanese share this interest in texture. However the texture of these little blobs is, well, unfortunate. Too reminiscent of something one may find in the mouth on the last days of a really nasty hacking cough. 

These little bundles of jelly joy are everywhere: hot soup, cold drinks, yoghurt. Also in "Taiwan's favourite drink", bubble tea. And the bubble in the drink? Let's not stop at just slimy glutenous bits shall we, but add some RED BEANS to the equasion to keep me really happy. Nemesis, oooooh, my nemesis. 

Having said this, Taiwanese cousine gets the thumbs up from me. It may be nearly as hard to order food as in Japan, but mostly the food is tasty and fresh, not too greasy and with more spices. Oh and joy of joys, tasty veggie dishes are easy to come by. I'm not losing any weight here I can tell you.