Octopus On A Stick
Technically the title of this blog should be "Food I Never Saw Before Part 3", but I can't pass up writing "octopus on a stick" as much as possible.
Taipei has a tremendous variety of food. I ended up eating Japanese food a lot. There's so many options for good food and it doesn't have to be expensive. I'll try to break down the various options. First you have restaurants with storefronts along the street like you'd see anywhere else. My favorite was an all you can eat BBQ. The trays of raw meat just kept on coming. I rediscovered the carnivore inside me. Why eat vegetables when there's all this meat?
Then you have some indoor food courts like at a mall. It can be a court of separate restaurants or a court of cafeteria style options with a shared seating area. The immediate observation is that everyone involved in the food industry is wearing gloves and masks. Yay for hygiene. The gloves, I like, but the face mask instilled a sense more of fear than safety. Woah there buddy, if you need a hospital mask, maybe I don't want you to prepare my food. Or, if you're wearing a mask, do you know something about this food I don't? I have to say, thankfully, my stomach had no unwanted surprises.
Next on our hierarchy are small vendors which I don't know an english word for. They're not pushing a cart or with a hot dog stand. The have permanent fixed locations either along the pedestrian night markets or on the ground floor in the busy parts of town. They're usually a mom and pop operation. Mom cooking some stew in a big pot in the back. Pop serving over the counter as people line up on the sidewalk. At lunch time, the sidewalks get crowded. Everyone goes to his favorite vendor, each of whom has a very specific menu. Like the In-N-Out model. Ordering goes quick, there's only one or two items, it's good quality food, and it's cheap. Occasionally there's a few chairs or a table, but generally people just walk up, get the food, and go. Convenience and time seem to be important. No long lunch breaks around here.
I only saw one small supermarket in 5 days in Taipei. I was like, where do all these people buy food? I'm convinced there are markets somewhere, but part of the answer is people out eat all the time. Why buy raw goods and cook when it's faster and maybe even cheaper to buy it already made? Initially I was suspicious of street vendors, but the fact is, they rely on repeat customers, the food is fresh, and you can see their entire storage and production process. Far shadier things can occur in a restaurant.
Lastly, in our food options, is the portable food stand/cart. One that I partook in sold slabs of fried chicken. I don't know exactly what part of a chicken it was. No bones, no skin, not a breast, but not ground either. Somehow they made a slab of boneless fried chicken. It was good. There's also drinks that come in a small bag instead of a cup. The strap of the bag hangs on your wrist and you drink from a straw. It leaves the hand free. Don't grab the bag or the drink squirts out!
You also might see someone holding a stick, biting an octopus that has been impaled on it. Don't they look so tasty in a big pile like this? This is a crowd favorite. Mmm....octopus on a stick.
On a more pleasant note, how about an apple on a stick? Wouldn't you like to eat an apple cut into a spiral and elongated? Very creative. Extra points for presentation.
This as all very eco-friendly. The food is not grown far from where it's sold. There's not much useless packaging, and global food chains don't dominate. Despite the west's best marketing efforts, people still really like their local food and I'll mourn the day a Taiwanese child asks for McDonalds, unless of course, they roll out the new McOctopus-on-a-stick.
While writing this post, I discovered this webpage which has a lot of good info and pictures about food in Taiwan.
Taipei has a tremendous variety of food. I ended up eating Japanese food a lot. There's so many options for good food and it doesn't have to be expensive. I'll try to break down the various options. First you have restaurants with storefronts along the street like you'd see anywhere else. My favorite was an all you can eat BBQ. The trays of raw meat just kept on coming. I rediscovered the carnivore inside me. Why eat vegetables when there's all this meat?
Then you have some indoor food courts like at a mall. It can be a court of separate restaurants or a court of cafeteria style options with a shared seating area. The immediate observation is that everyone involved in the food industry is wearing gloves and masks. Yay for hygiene. The gloves, I like, but the face mask instilled a sense more of fear than safety. Woah there buddy, if you need a hospital mask, maybe I don't want you to prepare my food. Or, if you're wearing a mask, do you know something about this food I don't? I have to say, thankfully, my stomach had no unwanted surprises.
Next on our hierarchy are small vendors which I don't know an english word for. They're not pushing a cart or with a hot dog stand. The have permanent fixed locations either along the pedestrian night markets or on the ground floor in the busy parts of town. They're usually a mom and pop operation. Mom cooking some stew in a big pot in the back. Pop serving over the counter as people line up on the sidewalk. At lunch time, the sidewalks get crowded. Everyone goes to his favorite vendor, each of whom has a very specific menu. Like the In-N-Out model. Ordering goes quick, there's only one or two items, it's good quality food, and it's cheap. Occasionally there's a few chairs or a table, but generally people just walk up, get the food, and go. Convenience and time seem to be important. No long lunch breaks around here.
I only saw one small supermarket in 5 days in Taipei. I was like, where do all these people buy food? I'm convinced there are markets somewhere, but part of the answer is people out eat all the time. Why buy raw goods and cook when it's faster and maybe even cheaper to buy it already made? Initially I was suspicious of street vendors, but the fact is, they rely on repeat customers, the food is fresh, and you can see their entire storage and production process. Far shadier things can occur in a restaurant.
Lastly, in our food options, is the portable food stand/cart. One that I partook in sold slabs of fried chicken. I don't know exactly what part of a chicken it was. No bones, no skin, not a breast, but not ground either. Somehow they made a slab of boneless fried chicken. It was good. There's also drinks that come in a small bag instead of a cup. The strap of the bag hangs on your wrist and you drink from a straw. It leaves the hand free. Don't grab the bag or the drink squirts out!
You also might see someone holding a stick, biting an octopus that has been impaled on it. Don't they look so tasty in a big pile like this? This is a crowd favorite. Mmm....octopus on a stick.
 |
| From Taiwan |
This as all very eco-friendly. The food is not grown far from where it's sold. There's not much useless packaging, and global food chains don't dominate. Despite the west's best marketing efforts, people still really like their local food and I'll mourn the day a Taiwanese child asks for McDonalds, unless of course, they roll out the new McOctopus-on-a-stick.
While writing this post, I discovered this webpage which has a lot of good info and pictures about food in Taiwan.
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