Eating My Way Through Taiwan: The Stink of Adventure



There is Adventure on the Horizon!

 I debated what to call this post. I toyed around with the idea of calling it, Eating Around. But there was more to it than just eating in a lot of different places. It was kind of a culinary adventure, so to speak. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t really all that adventurous, well not for me anyway. I’ll try eating just about anything once, maybe twice depending on whether or not I got the full gastronomical sensation the first time. (Some of these words make it look as if I’m getting paid by the letter.) I’m not like my children who consider mushrooms on their Pizza to be the worst possible hardship. I don’t even want to think about their reaction to Anchovies!


But on to the adventure…My family left for a visit to America, I was to follow a week later. So, I was on my own. When living in the same house and sharing space with my wife, I am required to follow certain rules and regulations, which are enforced for the good of my marriage. Aside from the obvious marriage breakers, my wife enforces some fairly strict culinary requirements. You may think that she’s thinking of my health, not allowing me to eat high cholesterol or fatty foods, ensuring that I don’t become a casualty to heart disease, cancer or diabetes. You might think that, but if you did you would be wrong. Her concern revolves around something much more sensitive than those things, her concerns are olfactory.

World Class "Xtreme Cooking" Practitioners

Taiwanese people occasionally engage in “Xtreme Cooking.” This kitchen-based sport revolves around liberal uses of odiferous spices, herbs and other things. It may even make use of foods, that in themselves, have a high stench coefficient. These types of foods have been included in the “illicit foods” list in our household. I have been told, on more than one occasion, that if I come home with the scent of any of these contraband food substances on my breath, in my skin or on my clothing that I will be sleeping folded into my desk chair, if I’m allowed in the house at all.

But for the moment, the storm troopers, er, uh…enforcement team was gone. So I did the only thing I could do, I immediately checked the “Summary of Forbidden Foods.” What should I do first…More Garlic snake? No, that’s too mundane. Do I need to make a trip through the night market, allowing my nose to guide me to the Xtreme Cooking experts? Completely unnecessary. A friend who had heard me speak wistfully of a food, which was at the top of that list, a sensitive person, who obviously cares for the real essence of manhood, solved the dilemma with two questions. Two questions which speak directly to the core of  mankind’s need for adventure. Two questions which were shockingly simple. They weren’t complex and requiring great thought. They weren’t like the question that caused Charles Mallory, an early pioneer of Mt Everest, to hesitate and shyly answer, “Because it’s there.” No these were direct, to the point, there could only be one answer for each of these questions. The first, was a call to adventure, it was framed, on the idea that the time was now…that opportunity may knock only once and then drift off to find someone who would answer more promptly. In other words there was an urgency to this question that could not be denied, “Did your wife leave for America, today.” I was tingling with expectation. The question that followed was so obvious that I was embarrassed not to have thought of it myself, “Do you want to try Stinky Tofu.” It was brilliant, I almost wept at the elegance of the idea.

Of course, I wanted to try it. Every time, my wife smelled it and wrinkled her nose and complained that the odor was the worst thing she had ever smelled, I had to wonder what something like that would taste like. The smell was like a siren call to me. It tantalized, no less than the mermaids of old tantalized the men of the sea back in the day. Although, I will admit that as food it is entirely appropriate in it’s name. But perhaps, to an adventurer that was the allure.

After all, what caused men to climb the highest peaks in the world? No one who has ever climbed a mountain has ever been heard to exclaim, “I want to do it because it will be easy and I just love a nice, cozy tent.” No! The cold, the danger, the difficulty, those were the things that drew men to death zone of Everest. The danger and the discomfort were the draw. This is what makes an adventure, an adventure. I was ready to throw aside the comfort foods, I cared not for the delicately flavored tasty combinations; I had a hunger for adventure. There are two ways to prepare Stinky Tofu, I had only to choose one, and my friend like a trusty Sherpa guide, would get me there.

What is Stinky Tofu? It’s Tofu with a twist. They take the soy bean curd, (that’s what Tofu is) and they ferment it. People in Asia do this with a number of foods. Kim chi is fermented cabbage. Thousand-year-old eggs are fermented eggs. Stinky Tofu is fermented soy bean curd.

They either steam it or deep-fry it. I have heard, from more than one source, some of them were even Taiwanese, that, steamed Stinky Tofu, tastes exactly like it smells. I’ve seen it, and it looks like it smells, as well. Hey, in food, even for me, presentation is important. So I opted for the deep fried type. The lust for adventure runs deep in my family…but not that deep.

Stinky Tofu, at Arm's Length

I found it to be surprisingly tasty. It was covered with sauce and topped with cabbage and raw garlic. In Xtreme Cooking using odor combinations garners bonus points, for style.  I have spoken to a number of Taiwanese people about food. In fact, I talk to everyone about food. Most of the Taiwanese people I speak to name Stinky Tofu among their favorite foods. I met a bunch of seventh graders who claimed they liked Stinky Tofu better than ice cream, to them the greatest of all possible foods would be Stinky Tofu flavored Ice Cream.  I wish I could remember where I left Ben and Jerry's personal cell phone number, they could make a fortune in Taiwan with that flavor.

I enjoyed Stinky Tofu, the forbidden fruit of Taiwan; well, forbidden in my house, anyway, but I think it’ll be a while before I eat it again. My wife isn’t planning on traveling again any time soon.

See, It Looks Good Enough to Eat

 Note:  This adventure didn’t end with just the consummation of my desire to taste Stinky Tofu. It was, after all, an adventure of monumental scope. We traveled throughout Taoyuan City stopping at a number of food carts. These are little carts where people prepare food, right on the side of the road. These are the places where you can really get the taste of Taiwan. I’ll talk about the rest of the adventure soon.







Other Posts you may be interested in:

Eating My way Through Taiwan:  Hei Tong Cuo Bing
Eating My way Through Taiwan:  Buddha Jumps Over the Wall
Eating My Way Through Taiwan:  Niu Rou Mian

Taiwanese Tradition: The Hidden Temples of Taiwan

Taiwan is a religious country. The traditional Taiwanese religion permeates just about every facet of society. Almost all of the holidays and events in Taiwan are based on religious festivals. Only a few notable days like, Double Tenth Day, the celebration of the Wuchang uprising, or 228 which marks the slaughter of 10,000 innocent Taiwanese are “political” holidays. The other holidays are religious in nature.

New businesses are often opened with a blast of fireworks and the traditional lion dance. The purpose of the lions is to drive out and devour evil spirits. Building are designed with Feng Shui principles, (yes, Feng Shui is religion) designed to insure prosperity or harmony. It is extremely common to drive down the street and see people burning “Hell Money” to bless their dead ancestors who may be awaiting reincarnation. People care for stray dogs and remove cockroaches from the house and take them outside out of concern that they may be some poor unfortunate person doomed to that life because of bad karma in their previous life. Taiwan is a religious country.

So it isn’t surprising that on a recent scooter ride that I stumbled upon a number of “hidden” temples.

Within a radius of ½ kilometer of my house there are no less than eight temples. This isn’t unusual. Only one of them is of any size the others are small hidden temples, dedicated to local deities. There may be others that I haven’t stumbled upon yet.

The one I most recently discovered, I found as I rode through the rice fields. I love rice fields, I like to ride through them and look at the rice. I usually do this in the early morning, when the birds are feeding there. This particular morning I was deep into the cultivated fields when I saw a couple of tombs. They were family tombs, built on the family’s fields so the family could properly care for them. Behind the tombs was the family’s personal temple. They built the temple as a way to honor their ancestors buried there. Incense from early morning worship was still burning.

There is another small neighborhood temple about a half block from my home. I often see neighbors there bringing offerings of fruit and liquor, burning incense and “Hell Money” or praying and asking the local deity to meet their needs or grant their wishes.

There is a huge park near my home called Yang Ming Park. On either side of the park there are temples. One is fairly large and often stages temple parades and festivals utilizing the park. The other is small and quiet and I sometimes see people sitting in the shade and meditating.

In the back of our neighborhood is another isolated and, no doubt, personal family temple. It is about 50 meters off the road and in an unused field. By the looks of the field they planted rice there at one time, but in the two years I’ve lived in this neighborhood, I’ve never seen anything planted or growing there. This temple is a bit more elaborate than some of the other small local temples, indicating that the owner may be a bit more prosperous than the others.

The people I’ve talked to coming from the temples are typically Taiwanese. They’re friendly, happy and eager to talk about their temples and their gods. There is one temple a number of kilometers from my home with a huge golden frog. The frog has a disc or coin in his mouth. A friend that was visiting wanted to stop and photograph the frog and two women who were at the temples waved to us and invited us into the temple to photograph the frog (and them with the frog) close up. My Chinese isn’t good enough to understand what the frog meant even though they patiently tried to explain it. Taiwan is a religious country.

Other posts you may be interested in:

Local Color:  The Temples of Taoyuan City
Taiwanese Traditions:  Ghost Month
Taiwanese Traditions:  The Beliefs of Confucianism

Rolling East: Traveling in a Wheelchair

International Symbol for Disabled Person




This is a bit of a departure from my usual posts because it doesn’t speak directly about some aspect of life in Taiwan. I recently traveled to the US for an opportunity to attend a conference and catch up with some friends and relatives. Most of my traveling is done in a wheelchair. Oh, I can walk, but airports present a bit of a problem for disabled people. There are often long distances that must be covered, long lines (like at customs), or movements between gates, especially between domestic and international gates that must be traversed in ridiculously short periods of time. I can walk, but I’m afraid it looks a lot more like the “Zombie Shuffle” than walking, and running is completely out of the question.
Fortunately, most airlines provide wheelchair service to disabled passengers. They coordinate with the airports to transfer you between gates and airlines, to the luggage carousel, through customs and immigration, even out to the curb to the taxi stand. Wheelchair passengers are the first ones boarded and the last ones off. One real benefit is that the “Wheelchair Operators” are knowledgeable about the airport; transfer procedures and security processes and can just take you through the process without any hassle.

There is one drawback to wheelchair travel…security. Wheelchairs, for obvious reasons, can’t pass through metal detectors. For me to get out of the chair and try to walk through is a extremely difficult, so in every instance I was required to endure the dreaded TSA Pat Down Procedure.

I’m fairly pragmatic, I don’t like the intrusion into my personal space, I don’t like the erosion of my rights, but I really hate missing my flights, so I’m willing to endure it, if it will keep old women and babies with bombs off of planes. I’m not so sure about the effectiveness of this system, though, because we are so careful to avoid profiling and looking like we’re picking on people, that I’m afraid the ones who are the real threats are just getting on planes, flying around, and laughing at us.



Part of the Dreaded TSA Pat Down

 The TSA agents that I encountered were professional, polite and thorough. They explained the entire process, asked me if I wanted a private screening and then told me exactly what they were going to do just before they did it. Actually, I was impressed, with the care with which they violated me. I even had the thought that they probably didn’t want to do the pat down anymore that I wanted them to do it. As with anything professionalism varies from person to person. Maybe I was lucky and encountered only agents with a high degree of professionalism, in any case, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

I have to tell you after watching the videos and reading the reports I expected it to be horribly humiliating and dehumanizing but, really, it wasn’t. What was horribly humiliating and dehumanizing was high school PE class: Guys standing around snapping guys with towels and yukking it up about each other’s shortcomings, THAT was humiliating and dehumanizing. But throughout the entire pat down process, in three airports, I didn’t even see one rolled up towel and there were no snickers or nicknames.

I still think the whole thing is an intrusion on people’s rights and privacy. I still think the policy needs to be changed to be more realistic, but for the guys on the line who do the pat downs, when it’s handled professionally like it was with me, I appreciate their willingness to endure a lot more pat downs than I will have to endure. I travel occasionally; they have to do that every day.

But it didn’t stop at the US, when arriving in China, on the way to Taiwan; I had to go through the exact same process I did in the US. The only difference was that a young woman gave this old man the TSA Pat Down. My emotions in that situation were somewhat different.

In all other ways traveling in a wheelchair is a comfortable and less stressful way for disabled people to travel.

Other posts you may be interested in:


Cultural Unawareness:  The Wheels of Bureaucracy Turn Slowly
Random Asianess:  The Rest Stop

Photo Credit:  Pat Down procedure:  www.butyoudontlooksick.com

Random Asianess: Eating Snake

Enjoying the Night Market Atmosphere

Last time I wrote about our trip to Huaxi Night Market in Taipei. This week I wanted to write about the “Snake Alley” Restaurants. In the past there had been a number of them but as of this last month there are only two snake restaurants still serving snake in at Huaxi Night Market.

Recently, two friends and I went to “Snake Alley” to try out this food. Things have changed there quite a bit. The restaurants no longer do “snake shows.” The snake shows showed a number of things. They would feed the snakes mice and rats. They would handle the snakes and finally, they skinned the snakes, alive. As I’ve said these are no longer done. There have been a number of complaints to the government by animal rights activists on behalf of the snakes. The government no longer allows the snakes to be mistreated.

Those restaurants no longer allow you to photograph the snakes or the people. In fact, at one of the two restaurants the owner was so hostile toward foreigners and photography that he didn’t want us to come to his restaurant. We were greeted with a refusal to speak to us and some pretty severe looks. The other restaurant welcomed us but still insisted that we take no photos of the snakes or the rats.

We tried three types of snake meals. We ordered snake soup. Snake soup is served with a cup of blood. They also gave us cups of snake venom, snake wine, snake oil and snake reproductive parts. The snake sellers believe that snake has many medicinal purposes. The man told us that snake oil is good for your throat and sinuses, joints, overall vitality and just about everything else. In the US they used to call people selling cure-alls “Snake Oil Salesmen,” one can only assume that this is why.

Snake is also considered to be an aphrodisiac. The problem with this is that the fried snake that I had was cooked with so much garlic that I smelled like garlic for a couple of days. This is not exactly romantic. So the question for the ages is this: Can the aphrodisiac properties of snake over come the turn-off properties of smelling like garlic for multiple days.

Snake Soup

The snake soup was a thin broth containing two small pieces of snake. It was served with the blood, venom, oil, snake wine, reproductive parts and two small capsules of medicinal snake oil. As a meal goes it wasn’t much.

Fried Snake

I wanted to try something different. I was interested in the snake meat. I wanted to know what it tasted like. You know the old saw, “It tastes like Chicken.” Well, that’s sort of accurate. It is a lightly flavored meat, with roughly the consistency of chicken. It was actually a bit tougher. The snake was served with some green vegetable and a spicy (And extremely garlicky) sauce. I enjoyed the taste; in fact, I thought it was very good.

Snake Skin

We also tried snakeskin. It was served in a sauce similar to the sauce used for the fried snake. But the difference was that it was very chewy. It reminded me a great deal of the taste and consistency of squid. It was also heavily garlicked.

A Very Young Ma Ying Jiu (right) and His Cook

There was one other interesting thing about this particular restaurant. In it they have a picture of a very young Ma Ying Jiu (Taiwan’s president) with his arm around a guy in an apron. We asked the owner what the story was behind the photo and he told us that the man was a cook who had gone on from cooking in this restaurant, to be Ma Ying Jiu’s private cook. I can only assume that President Jiu is a huge fan of garlic.







Other posts you might be interested in:

Eating My Way Through Taiwan:  A Traditional Restaurant
Eating My Way Through Taiwan:   Japanese Barbecue
Taiwan Travelogue:  The Traditional Market

Taiwan Travelogue: The Huaxi Night Market

Located just around the corner from the Mengjia Longshan Temple, on the corner of GuiLin Road 桂林路 and Huaxi Street 華西街, in a bustling and busy part of Taipei is the Huaxi Street Night Market. It’s pretty far from the financial district. It’s a little more on the inner-city side of Taipei and well worth a visit.

Of course, the main thrust of night markets in Taiwan is the food and this night market deals in the more exotic types of food. It is home to the famous “Snake Alley.” These are restaurants that specialize in snake, as you may have guessed by the name. In years gone by, these places did a show where they caught and skinned the snake. But they don’t do those anymore because they anger the animal rights activists and the shopkeepers are forced to defend their practices. The other problem was that foreigners would come to photograph the show but then didn’t stay to eat. So it was a waste of snakes. I’m not much of a snake lover, but I don’t like destroying animals so some foreigner with a camera will have something to show his buddies back home. I did, however have a snake meal, which I will describe in my next post.

There are many other unusual foods that can be found here, some of them may even be considered to be endangered species. There is a restaurant that sells Sea Turtle. There’s a seafood place that also sells Crocodile. The Crocodile was prepared like San Bei Ji 三杯雞 (Three-cup Chicken) but it was Three-cup Croc. In today’s climate of political correctness, I would think that these places are not going to be around much longer, but for today, they survive. My thought was that it would be mostly tourists that would be there to sample forbidden foods. But I was wrong, it seemed that many of the locals would take an evening out with their children to visit the market and sample the exotic foods. In fact, I only saw a few foreigners the whole night and they were looking for the “Snake Shows.”

The Insultor of Foreigners Speaking Mandarin

There are a lot of booths with the standard Taiwanese snacks. I saw places with Oyster Omelets, there was Xian Si Ji (Salty Chicken), Niu Rou Mian (Beef Noodles), and Beef and Pork Fried Rice. The people were fun and interesting but intent on selling you their wares. I met a woman there selling barbequed, dried Squid. An interesting food, to say the least, but what made it so good was the woman who sold it. She was a character. She complemented my Mandarin, telling me, “Oh your Mandarin, so good!” It would have been a nice compliment if she didn’t roll her eyes and burst out laughing as she said it. I was charmed enough to buy a bag of Barbecued Dried Squid to snack on but I thought it a bit dry.

It wasn’t only about food, though. They were a number of booths selling artwork. There were booths selling traditional religious icons. There were booths selling knock-off designer clothes, watches and accessories. I was even offered several foot massages and a full body rubdown. The booths catering to the tourist trade had a number of trinkets for sale. There was even a guy who sold legal weapons. Guns are outlawed in Taiwan, but apparently switchblades and butterfly knives are not. This man had quite a selection for sale. I stumbled across a booth with games for kids and adults. My guess is that some of the games were a form of gambling for adults. Of course, there were also booths that sold pornography in the form of VCDs, and pirated DVDs. You can find just about anything you want at a Taipei Night Market.

You tell me, are these guys gambling?

I bought a hand painted water color, while I was there and the artist, who was also a calligraphy master, wrote 山高水長 (Mountain High Water Long), in calligraphy along with 2011 Taipei, Taiwan and his name.  I think the painting is quite beautiful and he sold it to me for only $1,000 NTD ( about $29.00 USD).  My Taiwanese friend told me, "Make sure to haggle with that guy."  So, haggle I did.  But since we bought a number of things, haggling wasn't really necessary.  He kept saying, "I'll make a good price for you."  I was happy and apparently he was, too.

Part of this particular market was covered, mainly where the restaurants and art shops were, but the rest was open air and quite busy for a Tuesday evening. It’s a good place to visit and fun place for your family.

A fancy restaurant like this is quite a contrast to the usual snack booths at a night market.

This man is selling traditional style clothing, $390 NTD is equal to about $13.50 USD.

Other posts you may be interested in:


Taiwan Travelogue:  The Taipei 101
Taiwan Travelogue:  Old Ceramics Street
Taiwan Travelogue:  The Traditional Market

Random Asianess: Taiwanese Baseball

Taiwan has a professional baseball league and this week we had an opportunity to see a game. There are four professional teams in Taiwan: The Brother Elephants, Lamigo Monkeys, Sinon Bulls and the President, 7-11 Lions. The team names are made up of the sponsoring company name and the team name. The game we saw was the Mother’s Day promotional game between the Brother Elephants and the Sinon Bulls. We are all big Elephant fans over here.

Baseball in Taiwan began in 1989 with the formation of the Chinese Professional Baseball league. In 1996 the Taiwan Major League was formed. But in 1998 there was a betting scandal reminiscent of the Chicago Black Sox, where members of the team conspired with gangsters to “throw” the games. This led to a huge decrease in game attendance the subsequent merging of the two leagues. The game has recovered and the attendance has begun to climb in recent years, although, it reminds me of single A baseball in the US.

A Taiwanese Stadium is not nearly as large as a Major League Baseball stadium in the US. In fact, it reminded me of minor league stadiums like the stadium where the 66ers play in San Bernardino. The stadium was clean and modern. The particular stadium where we went the home of the Lamigo Monkeys was built only two years ago. Our seats were in the sixth row, right behind first base and cost $300 NTD (about $10.00 USD)

The game was well played and pretty exciting. The Elephants led off with a 4 run lead (4-0) but finished the game with a score of 9 to 6. They loaded the bases in fourth and fifth innings and lost a few runs but managed to get out of the inning.

Foreigner Orlando Roman opened the game but after two pitching changes they finished with their closer, an American named Ryan Cullen (ERA 1.95 34 saves).

One of the interesting things about Taiwanese baseball is the fan interaction. In the US we are used to people yelling and clapping and doing things to rally the team but it is mostly an individual effort. We might do the wave but clapping and yelling and cheering are usually a “do your own thing” endeavor. In Taiwan, there is a group of cheerleaders, not young women, wearing not quite enough clothing, these cheerleaders were mostly men and they used drums, trumpets, flags and microphones to coax a response from the audience.

As you enter the stadium you can purchase a pair of clappers. These are hollow plastic tubes that can also be used to shout through. When clapped together they are surprisingly noisy. The drummer sets a rhythm and the audience claps along. Or one man will shout through the microphone and the audience will repeat, both words and cadence. Flags are waved at every out, and every hit. At the end of every inning the ball is tossed into the audience.

Food sold at the stadium is a little different. We saw people eating Hot Dogs, of course, but Taiwanese Hot Dogs are what I would call the “AntiDodger Dog.” They are bland and flavorless and served with catsup only. They also serve the traditional Taiwanese lunchbox, of Rice and Chicken, and some pretty delicious looking Ice Cream with fruit or chocolate/nuts toppings.

Photos:  Chris & Brenda Banducci

Other posts you may be interested in:


Traveling with M13: Custom Scooters of Taiwan
Local Color: The Colors of Yingge
Random Asianess:  Oh Sure, Now We Decorate

Local Color: The Colors of Yingge

Sometimes the best way to express something is through pictures. Taiwan is a visually interesting place. These photos were taken on a trip to Old Ceramics Street in Yingge, as you can see the place, though a tourist haven, is beautiful and colorful.  A visit to Old Ceramics Street is a must for a tourist in Northern Taiwan.  It's located about 40 km south of Taipei, near Taoyuan City.

Other Posts you may be interested in:

Local Color:  The Temples of Taoyuan City

Taiwan Travelogue:  Old Ceramics Street

Taiwan Travelogue:  The Taipei 101 (Part 2)