Taiwanese food, at its heart, is a simple, rustic cuisine which makes the best use of the most naturally abundant ingredients. It has enjoyed somewhat of a revival in the past few years. Two basic influences have driven the development of Taiwanese cuisine: the unique geography of Taiwan, and international influences.Natural resources have always been limited in Taiwan. The island's population density of 582 people per square kilometer is even more staggering considering that only 20% of the land is arable, with the rest being mountainous terrain. With such limited farmland, people rely on the sea to provide the essential proteins. The dominant role of fish and other seafood continues in contemporary Taiwanese bill of fare. To give you an idea of the importance of seafood, Taiwan's fisheries harvested 1.46 million metric tons of it in 1990.
The scarcity of natural resources has made for hard living on the island. Taiwanese people as young as 30 years old can often recall their childhoods in which there was not enough rice to go around--so sweet potatoes or taro roots had to be used as a supplement making a soupy rice in order to fill everyone's bowl. This "congee" with root vegetables is a classic Taiwanese dish. Many traditional dishes show similar innovation: A soup with pork bones, pineapple, and bitter melon, for example. As the Taiwanese had to make do with very little, they showed remarkable adaptiveness and creativity when it came to cuisine.
Taiwanese have also shown an insatiable curiosity when it comes to new things. From the Japanese, they discovered "miso"--the fermented soybean paste used as a nutritious flavoring in Japanese cuisine--which doesn't exist in any other Chinese cookery. A classic Taiwanese/Japanese dish is miso-grilled fish, a pungently flavored fish with a slightly sweet sauce that tastes wonderful with plain rice.
Taiwanese cuisine on the whole tends to be less spicy than Szechuan in the west but more spicy than food from northern China. Simple cooking methods predominate, where the ingredients are prepared once, then served--unlike the more elaborate Shanghai or Cantonese cuisines, which often require several preparatory steps, recombinations, and permutations before the final dish emerges. Most common are the congee variations with different root vegetables, which are eaten with a delectable selection of side dishes and rice.
Traditional side dishes include omelette with pickled radishes, stir-fried small fish with peanuts, various soybean curd dishes, and pickled vegetables. Traditional congee can be enjoyed in Taipei along Fuhsing South Road, just south of the Hsinyi Road intersection. Five or six eateries there open their doors at about noon and stay open until 6 a.m. At each, patrons are invited to select their side dishes from as many as 100 varieties. A pot of congee with sweet potatoes awaits patrons at the table, and the pot can be refilled as often as one wishes. This is an extremely economical way of eating, for one feels quite full after just a bowl or two of congee--and, it is healthy too.
For the main dishes, the Taiwanese show their usual inventiveness in the selection of spices. In addition to the ever-present soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil, Taiwanese cuisine relies on an abundant array of seasonings for flavor: Black beans, pickled radishes, peanuts, chili peppers, parsley, and a local variety of basil ("nine story tower"). The resulting dishes thus combine and layer interesting taste sensations which make Taiwanese cuisine simple in format yet complex in experience. After seafood, chicken is the second most popular meat. Beef, pork, and lamb are eaten but not with as much regularity nor in the same volume as either seafood or chicken. Seafood encompasses the wealth of variations in nature, from grouper to tuna, from sardines to tiny fish the length of a thumbnail. Cuttlefish and squid are very popular and prepared in any number of ways: Grilled, stir-fried, and as an ingredient of stews.
A popular traditional chicken dish is San Pei chicken, literally meaning "three cup chicken." The oral history of the dish recounts that one cup each of soy sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil were placed in an earthenware pot on low heat at dawn of a day of work in the fields. By dusk, the dish had simmered into a delightful stew flavored with "nine story tower" and eaten with either rice or congee. Frog and other meats can easily be substituted for chicken without detracting at all from the enjoyment of the dish.
For a more rustic atmosphere, which recreates what dining out in Taipei might have been like a few decades ago, Black Brother Dog Restaurant is worth a visit. Operated by a group of five friends (the name of the restaurant comes from Taiwanese slang referring to young toughs who hang out together), the restaurant features a relaxed display of antiques on the first floor and dining areas on the second and third stories. Located at #15-2 Hoping East Road, Section 1 (Tel. 391-9934), the restaurant is open from noon to about 3 a.m.
Beer or sweet plum tea is drunk out of mismatched ceramic bowls. The restaurant is furnished with an eclectic assortment of benches, chairs, and tables, which lends a feeling of friendly disorder to the place. Service is casual, but generally friendly. Most of the menu consists of traditional Taiwanese dishes; but if you're craving something in particular, the kitchen generally seems quite amenable.
For a more upscale Taiwanese dining experience, the success of the Green Leaf chain of restaurants suggests that they are doing something right. In the heart of Taipei's downtown, there is one at 5F, #87, Chunghsiao East Road, Section 4 (Tel: 751-1055/711-5073). Others: Corner of Hsinyi and Kuangfu South roads; Hsinsheng South Road between Chunghsiao and Jenai roads. Open almost 24 hours (they close for a few hours before dawn), Green Leaf restaurants offer a more polished interior, and all the cutlery and furniture match. Photos accompany most of the menu items for easy reference. The service is abrupt but efficient, and prices are somewhat steep.
The third type of venue is the beer house. Beer houses in Taiwan offer an acoustically-challenging dining experience but are a popular choice for any large group of people unsure of where best to eat. Generally catering to a younger crowd, beer houses offer casual ambiance and basic traditional Taiwanese fare. One of the more well-known establishments in Taipei is Indian. The result of three painstaking years of interior decorating, Indian combines American Indian motifs with faux dinosaur bones (from Pterodactyls hanging from the ceiling to a large vertebrate of some unidentified giant of a creature which doubles as your stool) to interesting effect. Indian is located at #196 Pateh Road, Section 2 (Tel: 741-0550).
Some of the best Taiwanese food, though, is not found in restaurants. Rather it should be enjoyed on the street at the many night markets in and around Taipei. The largest and most established night markets generally get started at around 7 p.m. and go on until about midnight. The Huahsi street market is probably the most famous, and Shihlin night market, in the northwest corner of greater Taipei, is also worth a visit.
If you have the chance, be sure to try a Jen Ping . These are generally sold by vendors with aluminum push carts at night markets. The Jen Ping starts with a crepe-like wheat flour wrapping which is filled with bean sprouts, cabbage, other vegetables, pork, and parsley, and given a topping of peanut powder. This combination is then wrapped to look like an unfried egg roll and consumed as such. It should cost about NT$25 to NT$30 and won't fill you so much so that you can't try some of the other mouth-watering treats to be found at the markets.