Chapter 35 Food and drink in Taipei

When I first arrived in Taipei, I didn't feel like I was in a foreign land at all. The streets, city appearance, language and living habits were all the same as in any city in mainland China.If you compare it with Hong Kong, there are very few signs and advertisements in foreign languages ​​on the streets of Taipei, and there are very few plausible and incomprehensible pidgin product names and fabricated Cantonese Chinese characters.What I appreciate more is the cultural origin of the Yanhuang lineage on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Get out of the airport to the hotel where you are staying. After a short break, a press conference will be held, followed by a banquet hosted by the host at the hotel. The banquet is a standard Taiwanese dish, except that the three-cup chicken, bamboo fungus, and lettuce are different from those in mainland China. , I think it is closer to Fujian cuisine, and the skills are not superior.What's interesting is that during the ten or so days in Taipei, there were frequent banquets, sometimes two or three banquets a night, but this was the only time I ate Taiwanese food.Because I had an appointment to visit relatives and friends in Taiwan, I had no choice but to leave without finishing the meeting, and hurried to the apartment of relatives and friends on Xinyi Road.

The guy who drove the taxi was very talkative. When he learned that I came to Taiwan from Beijing, he was very excited.He asked me if there was an overpass in Beijing, and if there were performances of swallowing swords and iron balls there?Is there any qigong of "oil hammer empowerment"?I told him that those were tricks from the old flyovers, some of them were fake too, and they are gone now.When asked how old he was, he said that he was exactly thirty this year. I wondered how he knew this.Because of the traffic jam on the road, he calmly described his family background to me. He said that his father was from Ji'an, Jiangxi Province, and was once a company commander of the "National Army".My mother was from Beijing, and her family was very poor near the Goldfish Pond on the Tianqiao.Now my father has passed away, and my mother is still alive. She often talks about Beijing and Tianqiao to her children.The young man also said that his mother wanted Beijing snacks the most, and she wanted to drink bean juice. What kind of tofu is there?I asked him if it was "Ma Tofu"?He said it seemed to be the name.He also introduced to me that there is a "Jing Zhao Yin" in Taipei, which specializes in Beijing flavors. His mother has been there several times, but when she comes back, she always says it is not the taste.He advised me to try the beef noodles in Taipei, and said that such and such places were the best.I drove to Section 4 of Xinyi Road and looked at the meter. It was NT$250. I gave him the exact amount, but he refused to accept it. After a few disputes, the young man said to me with a serious expression: "My mother is also from Beijing, and so are we." Half a fellow villager, if I take your money, my mother will scold me when I get home." I had to obey him.

During my stay in Taipei, I didn't have the opportunity to eat home-cooked meals in ordinary families, so I couldn't understand what Taipei people usually eat?When I arrived at the home of relatives and friends on Xinyi Road, it was already nine o'clock in the evening. They knew that I was half full at the restaurant, so they specially invited me to eat crab at home. Beijing eats crabs around the Mid-Autumn Festival, when chrysanthemums are in full bloom and autumn crabs are fat. Appreciating chrysanthemums with their pincers is a traditional Chinese enjoyment in mid-autumn weather.It was a small courtyard in Beijing in the old days, with the first autumn rain and the fresh coolness. There are several rows of chrysanthemums in bloom in the courtyard, two red pomegranates under the porch, and potted Han Gong Chunxiao or willow thread hanging in the room.Two or three friends, steaming a cage of fat crabs, opening a urn of aged flower carvings, singing poems and wine, peeling crabs with chrysanthemums, is a very happy pleasure.With the crowding of urban people and the changing rhythm of life, this kind of enjoyment is also impossible in Taipei.There is a large balcony garden in the home of relatives and friends. It is more like a big greenhouse than a garden. There are traditional Chinese asters and perennial chrysanthemums, as well as European cornflowers and pyrethrums.It was already November in the Gregorian calendar, and the time to appreciate chrysanthemums and eat crabs was more than a month later than in Beijing.The crab is an excellent hairy crab. It is said that a friend of "China Airlines" brought it back from Hong Kong. I suspect it is a hairy crab from the mainland. Good crabs must be expensive.

My relatives and friends eat crab very traditionally. The condiments are only minced ginger and vinegar, and a little sugar.I am also very familiar with the tools for eating crabs. There are finely crafted small pliers and hammers, which are used to eat crab claws and crab legs. These tools are difficult to buy in Beijing now.River crabs are delicious, far superior to sea crabs and river crabs. In the past, river crabs in Beijing paid attention to "seven tips and eight balls". , and in terms of the Gregorian calendar, it is August and a half and September and a half.From the Mid-Autumn Festival to the Double Ninth Festival, it is the best season to eat crabs.The crab was packed in a cattail bag, spitting foam, struggling desperately to crawl out, put it in the cage for steaming, there was still movement at first, and when the movement stopped, a smell of crab came out of the cage.

Wash your hands after eating crabs. You can wash them with mung bean noodles or tea water to remove the fishy smell. It is said that there is a processed solution in the Taipei market. After mixing with water, you can wash your hands after eating crabs. The one used here is An abrasive oatmeal, in addition to the solution, soaked some yellowish chrysanthemum petals. Sliced ​​papaya on the back end of crab eaters.I really can't compliment Taiwan's fruits. Except for longan, lychee and pineapple, I am afraid of papaya, durian, lotus root, rambutan, carambola and so on.Papaya is hard and has little water, so it is far inferior to cantaloupe and cantaloupe in mainland China.

Almost all the cuisines that can be tasted in the mainland can be eaten in Taipei, such as Sichuan, Shandong, Huai, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Hui, Hunan, Fujian, as well as Luoyang water banquet, Northeast white meat pot, Guanzhong beef and mutton steamed buns, It can be said to have everything that one expects to find.During my stay in Taipei, among the four major cuisines, I have never tasted Lu cuisine, but Huaiyang cuisine is the most authentic, followed by Cantonese cuisine.As for Sichuan cuisine, it may have gradually lost its characteristics to cater to the tastes of Taiwanese.Some restaurants are not small in scale, but their characteristics are not obvious.The Taipei Publishing Association held a banquet in the "Old Summer Palace" in the seat of the Taipei Publishing Association. The banquet was quite sumptuous, and it was a mixture of Chaozhou cuisine and Huaiyang cuisine.

What left a deep impression on me was eating standard Huaiyang cuisine once and Hunan cuisine once. The Huaiyang Restaurant is a medium-sized restaurant in a three-story building near Hankou Street.There are only four of us, and we are very casual. We sat down by the window on the second floor and ordered roasted Ma'an bridge, crab meat lion head, stewed fish head, boiled dried shredded rice and Jiangyao vegetable guts, and two Yangzhou dim sum. .The two hosts are both diners, and the dishes are small but refined, well matched, and the thickness is appropriate.I don't know what level this Huaiyang restaurant belongs to in Taipei.The dishes are only delicately cooked, with good color, fragrance and taste.In particular, it takes a lot of effort to disassemble and braise the fish head. The bony spurs are removed from the fish head, leaving only the clean meat and soft brain, and the ham and sea cucumber are baked together. The meat is smooth and tender, and it melts in the mouth.Jiangyao is a scallop, as big as a chess piece, its freshness makes people overwhelmed.One of the desserts is walnut cheese, which is a food that takes a lot of effort.Remove the inner skin of the walnut and grind it into a pulp.The red dates are peeled and pitted, mashed like mud, and then finely ground with soaked glutinous rice into a milky thick paste.The three are cooked at the same time and mixed together.My family used to make this kind of walnut cheese, but it took too much effort to make it easily. The important banquets of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse were only occasionally written on the menu. Now Huaiyang restaurants in Beijing have disappeared for many years.The fragrance of walnuts and the richness of jujube are all dissolved in the smooth glutinous rice juice.I can't remember the brand name of this Huaiyang restaurant, but their professionalism, which is passed down continuously and meticulously crafted, is worth learning from restaurants in mainland China.

Another time I was more impressed was Tianxiangtai Hunan Restaurant on Roosevelt Road in Taipei. This is an old restaurant that has been in business for a long time.I was the only guest that day, but the host had two and a half tables, plus several newspaper reporters, there were a total of three tables in a larger private room. Most of the hosts are old friends who have met in mainland China. In the morning, we had a discussion at the Postal Museum, and at noon we held a banquet at the Hunan Restaurant on Roosevelt Road.Among them, not many are Taiwanese. Mr. Chen is from Hunan, Mr. Yu and Mr. Zhu are from Jiangsu, another Mr. Zhu is from Zhejiang, and Mr. Yuan is a native of Shanghai. Philatelists, collectors, but also gourmets.The food was very rich that day, and I ate it from noon to three in the afternoon. Because of the constant talking and laughing during the meeting, I can't remember what I ate.The general impression is that it doesn’t look like authentic Hunan cuisine. Even the most common Dong’an chicken, bacon fried capers, etc., do not have the taste of Hunan, and almost none of the dishes reach the level of spicy food that Hunan people eat.

From the evaluation of the dishes, to the food and beverages on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, everyone present here is a "battlefield-tested" veteran. There are endless ones, all of which are related to diet and cooking.The reporters present here are all fledgling girls, who have never heard so much knowledge about food, they all stopped and gathered around, ignoring the temptation of delicious food in front of them.All the gentlemen here have been in Taipei for more than forty years, and they often express a sense of nostalgia in their conversations. A few side dishes and a few specialties.These feelings, I think those young journalists are hard to understand.The next day, our gathering was reported in the newspapers, and we were called "the old gourmets who have eaten all over the country and on both sides of the Taiwan Strait" by the lady.

There are two things in this restaurant that are worth mentioning. One is the fresh soup, which is not a Hunan dish, but a snack in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. , wrapped into small rolls one by one, put in good soup or steamed or boiled and serve.In mainland China, the one made by "Ding Lianfang" in Huzhou, Zhejiang is the most famous.I don't know how this Hunan restaurant transplanted this into its own recipes.The second is Wagyu mutton soup. I don’t think it looks like Hunan cuisine. Wagau is a bit like a casserole. It is placed on an iron shelf with an open flame underneath, which can not be ignited to keep the soup in the stew hot.The soup is milky white, the mutton is cut into cubes, and there seems to be a little vermicelli, winter bamboo shoots and the like.The owner told me that I can taste the mutton first, and see how it is different from the mutton in the mainland.After I tasted it, I felt that the meat was very tender, but it didn't taste like mainland mutton, without the slightest smell of mutton.They say that Taiwan’s mutton is mostly imported from Australia, which is indeed different from the mainland’s mutton. Although the meat is tender and the soup is delicious when made with this kind of tile-roasted mutton, if you eat hot-boiled mutton, it will not taste like Beijing Donglaishun or Shanghai Hongchangxing.

The extravagance of drinking and dining in Taipei has been rampant in the past ten years, and the luxury of banquets is also amazing.It is said that the sales of shark’s fin, purple abalone and bird’s nest alone are on the rise year by year. A table of high-grade banquets can cost tens of thousands of gold (Taiwan dollars), and medium-sized banquets are also around ten thousand gold. Moreover, no matter what kind of cuisine banquets are served, shark’s fin is almost always served. , Abalone, the cost can be imagined.During the two banquets, I met Taiwanese martial arts novel writers Niu Heting (Wolongsheng), Zhang Jianxin (Zhuge Qingyun), and anti-Japanese novelist Zou Lang (famous for anti-Japanese novels "Yangtze River No. 1", "Underground Commander", "Dead Bridge") At the same table, they are all old people who have experienced the difficult times of Taiwan in the 1950s and 1960s. Looking at a table of jelly vegetables, shark fins, and abalone feasts, they always shook their heads and said, "It's too luxurious, too wasteful." Taipei The wind of drinking and banqueting is not only common in the business world, but also very frequent in the education, technology and academia circles.Once, the bosses of several publishing houses in Taipei invited me to dinner, and said to me emotionally: "Professors and scholars in mainland China are so cute and respectable. It is really amazing that they can study in a poor environment. People are awe-inspiring. Many professors in Taiwan have entertainment every day, have dinner every night, play cards and drink, and are busier than us publishers." The Grand Hotel in Taipei used to be the highest-grade hotel, and it was also the property of Ms. Kong Er, but the location was a little remote, and it was a palace-style building, which was too big and inappropriate.It's getting colder now.On the contrary, the five-star hotels such as Hyatt and Regent built in recent years are doing very well.There are a variety of Chinese and Western restaurants in Hyatt and Regent, which are extremely luxurious. I have eaten Cantonese and Jiangsu cuisine feasts in two places. The quality of shark fin, purple abalone, jelly and lobster is the best. , but there is no special flavor, and the craftsmanship is average, but the environment is luxurious, the tableware is exquisite, and the service is first-class.It is worth mentioning that Hyatt's weekend buffet dinner (Buffet Supper) is extremely rich and dazzling. Hyatt's Buffet Supper is in the lobby on the second floor, which occupies a huge area. There are eight or nine buffet tables in the middle, either long or round, mostly cold dishes and various snacks, cakes, ice cream, pudding, cream, etc. The hot dishes are fried and roasted at the other end of the restaurant, made on-site by chefs wearing tall chef hats.There are more than a hundred varieties of cold dishes, among which there are dozens of kinds eaten raw, such as Japanese-style raw tuna, raw salmon, raw trout, green mustard, radish juice, perilla sauce and soy sauce.In addition, there are various parts of raw veal, which is extremely tender.Here you can eat French oysters, a variety of French foie gras and crab meat, and lobster salad.Many varieties are indeed seen for the first time, and they cannot be named.There are Korean, Japanese, French, Brazilian and Spanish-style grilled foods on the table for grilling, among which Caucasian-style kebabs and French-style grilled lobster are the best.The cream cakes on the snack table are also very attractive, but the eyes are full and the stomach is full, so I can only watch it.Ice cream and cream jelly are also appetizing from the shape to the color. After a meal, you can only appreciate one or two.The scale of Hyatt Buffet is so large that it cannot be compared with Wangfu, Kunlun, Great Wall, Kempinski in Beijing, or Hilton, Jin Jiang, and Huating in Shanghai. There are also many very civilian food stalls in Taipei. Especially in some commercial streets in the old city, there are many shops selling small stir-fry, side-burning stoves and beef noodles. The place that best embodies Taipei-style snacks and serves tourists is To count Huaxi Street Night Market. There are two traditional Chinese-style archways at the entrance of Huaxi Street, with the words "Huaxi Street Sightseeing Night Market" written on them. There is a very neat street on the left and right of the archway, and there are food stalls with different characteristics on both sides of the street.After nightfall, the lights on both sides are brightly lit, shining like daytime.There are various snacks such as beef noodles, fish ball soup, meat balls, oil cakes, rice dumplings, side stoves, fried noodles, dumplings, etc., as well as snake soup, snake gallbladder medicinal wine, etc.There are a few well-dressed gorillas sitting on the counters of several shops, locked on the counters by chains, looking around and greeting tourists, and some are sitting by the counters and eating and drinking with bowls. If you take a picture with them On the contrary, the shopkeeper charges a fee.In front of some shops, several iron cages were placed in front of them, and there were some animals such as live snakes and civet cats in them, so as to attract people.In addition to rows of shops on both sides of the street, there are also slightly larger shops, mostly small restaurants and tea houses.On one side there is a deep alley with dim lights, which is said to be a red light district in Taipei. When we went to Huaxi Street, it was about eleven o'clock in the evening, and it was already the time when the bustle began, and this bustling situation could last until about three o'clock in the night.Because it was already after two banquets, it was really impossible to taste it in Huaxi Street. Finally, in order to make the trip worthwhile, I ordered some soup and a meat dumpling for each person at a stall called "Majiazhuang". Freshly made and sold, it's clean, but the taste is nothing special.The night market at Donghuamen in Beijing is very distinctive, but it is only temporarily set up in a shed and sold for two or three hours every day, lacking strict management.There is a snack street in Luoyang, Henan, and a snack square in Kaifeng. The food they sell includes stewed noodles, casserole, soup dumplings, egg pancakes and many special noodles. The quality is not bad, but the hygienic situation is really bad.People can't help but think of the historical records about the area from Bianjingzhou Bridge East Street to Daxiangguo Temple in the Northern Song Dynasty, to the streets and alleys outside the east gate of the temple, and the Lin'an Qiantang Gate and Yongjin Gate in the Southern Song Dynasty. While we are developing modern urban construction, Can you consider setting up an area that integrates local flavors and tourism in a city above the middle level?The food street in Nanshi, Tianjin has indeed done this. It has become a two-story cross street, which is too large. In addition, most of the restaurants on the upper floor are contracted and leased. They operate Sichuan, Shandong and Cantonese dishes, losing their local characteristics and their own style. Business is naturally sluggish.The management and sanitation of Huaxi Street in Taipei are worth learning from. There are many Japanese restaurants in Taipei, which probably has something to do with Japan's colonial rule after the Treaty of Shimonoseki and before the victory of the Anti-Japanese War.None of my relatives and friends in Taiwan are Taiwanese, and they rarely patronize Japanese restaurants.Only Mr. Huang Mingzheng, a postman and his wife, are from Tainan, and they are very familiar with Japanese restaurants.The couple treated me to a very authentic Japanese meal. I remember that day when I came back from visiting Mr. Zhang Xueliang and Mr. Chen Lifu, I went to Mr. Huang’s shop to buy stamps.The Huangs are very warm-hearted people. On the first day I arrived in Taipei, they brought a box of well-packaged Taiwanese fruits to the hotel to visit.I lingered in his stamp shop for a long time, and it was close to one o'clock in the afternoon. Mr. Huang insisted on treating me to dinner and asked me if I could get used to eating Japanese food.My impression of Japanese food is still the impression of the Japanese restaurant in Beijing's Dong'an Market in the 1960s, and I am used to eating it.So he agreed to go to the Japanese restaurant with them. Most of the Japanese restaurants in Taipei are opened by Japanese, and the layout of the stores is completely Japanese style.Mr. Huang and his wife can speak standard Japanese and are very familiar with the boss.The three of us eat casually, and I have repeatedly asked to taste the special features, not to waste.So the dishes are mainly sashimi, and I also ordered some various sushi.The sashimi is very fresh, cut into slices about one centimeter thick, and dipped in different seasonings, it tastes delicious.There are as many as four or five varieties of sushi, and they are also very well done.Mrs. Huang introduced me to the Japanese female boss. They communicated in Japanese, but I couldn't understand a word, so I had to accept the boss's constant bowing.Mr. Huang told me that there are more than 100 Japanese restaurants in Taipei, and the business is very good. During my stay in Taipei, my schedule was very tight. I wanted to experience the tea art in Taiwan, but I never had the opportunity.I did sit in a cafe in Taipei once. It was a two-day visit to Sun Moon Lake in Taichung. It was a rare half-day to get together with friends in the cafe of the Education Association.There are two types of cafes in Taipei, one is purely operating cafes in prosperous areas, and the other is semi-operating cafes run by certain professional associations, which are mainly for colleagues to gather and discuss. The cafes of education associations belong to the latter.This cafe is very elegant and comfortable, with a dozen or so tables covered with the same checkered tablecloth, a few carnations in the vase, and some light-colored watercolor paintings on the walls.There is a small area in the room that is the bar, leading to the operating room inside.The sound of light music pieces is so small that it is hardly audible.The few friends who accompanied me are regular customers here. Every Sunday afternoon, they often come to sit for an hour or two, have a cup of coffee and chat.The cafe here does not sell alcohol, but there are tea and drinks, as well as homemade cakes. There are not many varieties, but they are exquisite.Mr. Chen who came to the party is very familiar with this place. He is diabetic. When we had snacks, he only drank a little tea. After a while, the lady brought out a small dish of cake specially baked for him, which was sugar-free. , it can be seen that the service is very thoughtful.It's very quiet here, and within two hours, there was only one table of guests other than us, who seemed to be acquaintances.In Taipei, there is also a kind of coffee shop, which is the record and coffee shop in the bookstore. I have visited two large-scale private bookstores. The basement sells stationery, records and VCDs, and the first and second floors are all kinds of books. On the third floor is a not-so-small coffee room, which is very comfortably furnished, with a desk lamp with soft light, a bit like a reading room in a library, where you can read or write.In the past two years, Beijing's Taofen Bookstore, Fengrusong and Wansheng Bookstore have gradually set up similar settings. It seems that this form is the need of the city's modernization and people's cultural life. Staying in Taipei for ten days is just a quick ride to see the flowers. Needless to say, other aspects, and the food culture has fully reflected the profound cultural foundation and historical origin shared by the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.I think that all Taiwan compatriots who have been to Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou must have the same feeling?