Here’s a vegetarian one I stopped at in Henchung. Twenty-five types of food, from my count, from pickled this and that and lightly braised greens stuff for the health-fanatic, to deep-fried doodads for the indulgent, with a range of tastes and textures in between. What did I pick?
Or rather, what didn’t I?! How about, starting from 12 o’clock: pumpkin boiled with ginger; braised napa cabbage (or some similar leaf) and braised fernish kinda guys; rice vermicelli noodles with soy sause; bean sprouts and seaweed; sauteed green beans (center); a sweet potato stick; a ball of battered dill; mushrooms fried with bread crumbs; eggplants with thai basil; and bitter gourd stewed with pineapple. And a dousing of peanuts on top for good measure.
A closer look at the dill ball. Really weird – the taste of a pickle, the texture of a french fry.
These restaurants are all over the place (some, like this one in Yilan near Luke and Tanya’s house, have more ambiance than others), meaning that no matter where the clueless traveler finds himself, he can get a wonderful meal covering the entire color and taxonomic spectrum. Even without knowing the name of a single dish. Or a single vegetable! Just three characters: one that looks like a window with a cowlick, one that’s got a gravestone and the character for “power,” and one that has a big mess up top and the character for “cuisine” at the bottom. Indeed, many of the buffets are even open-air, so that without knowing a single character or a single word, you can fill up. Where else can someone eating solo get so many different kinds of food?
Would you pay $2.50 for this? Yes, I thought so.
Lordy lordy lordy.
These buffets are also a prime place for food photography. So many beautiful veggies, sitting there under the heating lamps!
Another variety of zi zhu can, where you point at up to five veggie dishes behind a window and they plop it atop a bowl of rice. A bit like custom-made bibimbap.
Outside of the zi zhu can, though, life here can be a little rough. Taiwan uses the old style Chinese characters, which are quite a bit more complicated that the ones used on the mainland, many of which were simplified by Mao during the cultural revolution. Much of my reading ability has therefore gone out the window, leaving me with occasional meal failures such as this one:
When in doubt, I just bust out this old gem: shu1cai4 de chao3mian4 chao3fan4 ke3yi3 ma? wo3 bu2 yao4 ji1dan4 bu2 yao4 rou4. “Can you do fried veggie fried noodles or rice? I don’t want any eggs or meat.” The answer is always: either ke3yi3! (Can do!). Well, except when it’s mei2you3 fan4. No rice!
In the street-food category, we have:
Cong you bing (scallion oil pastry). Note that I have found yet another way to reduce plastic usage: rather than take a plastic bag that I’ll throw out after scarfing down my snack, I can just set them on the inverted lid of my cooking pot. Good job, self!
These were common in China too, but here in Taiwan you get to turn them into wraps, adding either some sort of meat, eggs and herbs, or just veggies.
At a dollar a piece, why not eat two?
What’s this I spy? Something Green Something Something Vegetarian Cuisine!
What’s that purple one? Oh, it’s a sweet one you say? I think I’ll take that and the sesame one next to it as well. A little sweet talking about my trip and my efforts not to eat meat or leave behind any trash earned me a free meal. They even offered to give me dumplings for the road. Unfortunately my bags were full.
I can’t remember what these little guys are called. What I do remember is that they come with a variety of fillings. Pictured here: one peanut, one sweet potato, one sesame. 3 for a buck. Hot and fluffy and crispy and fresh. Mouth waters at the memory.
A guava a day keeps depression at bay. These things are incredible. And monstrous.
The guava is an interesting fruit. It doesn’t exactly have layers, and yet it does. As you near the center, the flesh transitions from kind of bland and airy (like a cheese puff ball almost) to a little more sweet and gooey. As the guavas age, they get softer to the touch and the gooey core expands. Most people don’t like eating the seeds (though I don’t even notice them), so they buy the guavas when they’re rock hard, eat only the outer section, and throw out the middle. I, on the other hand, search out the old, bruised, neglected guavas, buy them at half price, and revel in how much smarter I am than everybody else.
Water chestnuts.
In case you were wondering, I haven’t left Vipassana early. I just wrote this post a few days ago and told it to upload later. At the moment, I’m either sleeping, sitting in silence, or chowing down on some Taiwanese Vipassana food. See ya in a week!
Great, it’s 8:47 A.M. and now I need a Chinese veggie feast! Awesome post.
Looks like pure goodness! Love that you are finding new dishes an food to try.