Feasting: Taiwan Street Food

I know I've blogged an awful lot about food in Taiwan before (here, here, here, and here!), but I really think enough good things cannot be said it!  And really, who doesn't enjoy some tasty street food?

What could be better than a place that serves up fresh cooked noodles to your specification?  Do you want pickled vegetables?  Tea boiled eggs?  Tender beef?  More hot sauce?  Hoisin sauce?  Bean sprouts?  Or do you want that with rice instead of noodles?  This was in Taichung, on the west coast of the island.  Mmmmm mmm.

Food-on-a-stick is always popular.  Convenient, mess free, and fun.  Here you can get boiled or fried mushrooms, squid, fish ball, and chicken, I believe, all on a stick.  This is in Tainan, also on the west coast.

Or maybe you just want to start your day right, with a typical Taiwanese breakfast o' champions.  This is it.  Hot soy milk, fried pork dumplings, and fried dough sticks (yeo tiau - literally "oil stick," not a pretty name but oh so good).  Add a sesame pocket bread (zhi ma shao bing) with lean slices of spiced beef and you are more than set.  In fact, you probably won't need to eat anything else for the rest of the day!  My sister and I ate this on the side of a road one morning in Gaohsiung (southwestern end of the island).

Fresh cut fruit - in this case, crisp green guava - is always available.  Don't worry, Taiwan is very, very careful about cleanliness and the washing of fruits.  Obsessively so.  I've always said, Taiwan is the best of both worlds: Japanese attention to detail and order together with Chinese lust and appetite.

What in the . . . ?  Oh, it's mochi!  Sweet rice dumplings, filled with sweet red-bean paste or lotus or fruit or anything else sweet and delectable, about to be dusted with ground peanuts.  To the right are two more coating options: black sesame seeds or white.  This was a Sun Moon Lake, which I must tell you more about . . .  Happy weekend, happy feasting!