Cooking like a local in Taiwan

One of my favourite super simple dishes in Taiwan is Liang Mian or Taiwanese cold noodles. I used to buy this at the food court at Sogo on Zhongxiao East Road years ago, but they no longer sell it there, but you can still find it in the morning time in small street stalls here and there. You can also find it in 7-Eleven convenience stores in the cold section already prepared.

To make it yourself you need cold precooked yellow egg noodles, medium size is perfect. Some sesame oil, sesame paste, thinly sliced cucumber and optional thin slices of cooked chicken breast. Just mix the sesame paste and oil together with the noodles and add the cucumber and chicken and eat cold. This dish is incredibly simple to make and really delicious and is one of my favourite things to eat for breakfast.

Another of my favourite snack dishes is lu dou tang (green bean soup). Usually we will eat it as a dessert after lunch or dinner. This dish is not exclusive to Taiwan but can be found all over Asia.

The one thing that I do not like about Taiwanese food is that so many dishes are made with pork. I am not a pork eater so walking through the night markets where they sell so many pork foods is not always so pleasant.

However, one dish that I used to eat at the Rao He Street Night Market which is where I lived for a year is chou dou fu (stinky tofu). When they cook this dish, the smell is pretty rancid and very unpleasant to many people, but when you actually taste it you only taste the delicious food and no longer notice the smell. It;s a bit like the fruit durian which has a really bad smell but tastes absolutely delicious.