An Average Dinner

I've heard a few people from home request some details about Taiwanese food. This is definitely a country to visit if you like eating. There is literally restaurant after restaurant on many streets here, and most serve pretty traditional Taiwanese and Chinese style foods.

Friday night, after work, Luke and I went to one of your usual spots for a late dinner. we usually get the house specialties: dumplings (in this case, fried pan sticks) and beef noodle soup, a favorite among Taiwanese.

Along with my pan sticks, I decided to get a side dish. There are some side dishes that I've really liked: garlic pickles, pig ears, and marinated tofu chiefly. This night, however, I was in for a surprise.

fried dumplings and my side

Luke's beef noodle soup

What I thought I was ordering was a block of tofu (bean curd) and a tea egg-- an egg boiled in tea that has absorbed all the tea flavors, quite good. What I got was a block of tofu and some kind of Satan's Egg. Look at this thing!

As you can see, the white is a gelatenous semi-clear brown, like brown Jell-O. The yolk is half green sludge, half yellow goo. It tasted vaguely like an egg, but I didn't finish it. I asked a friend who has lived here for years what it was, and she said it's a preserved egg. She says she's heard that the best ones are preserved in horse urine. Mmmmm...

Believe me when I say that despite some of the weird stuff, most of the food here is really good.