And here it the famous Guan Tsai Ban that I had such a hard time finding. I think a lot of the small snack shops have a store and a mobile operation and the mobile operation just sets up at a different night market each night.
There are stalls selling a variety of dried fruits, vegtables, meats and seafood. These are all sold by weight.
There are a few stalls that have sitting area where you can get a plate of their speciality. I tried the "philly" which I think is a corruption of the fillet, it's a cast iron plate with a wooden serving plate. The dish has noodles, egg and slice of meat splatting with gravy. I made a mistake and got beef, I think Taiwanese pork or chicken is always better done than beef.
The waitresses that controls the sitting area know that throughput is the name of the game. When we finished, the waitress, in perfect English said: "Finished?" and then whisked away our plates. It was a shock at this Taiwanese event to hear the perfect English with the perfect intonation.
Right now there is another controversy about US beef shipments to Taiwan. Taiwan has limits on the kind and amounts of additives in meat and the US is always exceeding these limits. The Taiwanese then halt accepting US beef and the US trade officials try to strong arm the Taiwanese in to accepting the beef with additives. Taiwanese say: "Just ship us beef without the additives". It's really something for the Taiwanese to be more health conscience than the US but the US farmers have been in control of the US Department of Agriculture for a long time. But this is really an issure for the US Food and Drug Administration.
Does the beef in Taiwan taste better since it has no additives? Are chickens and pigs raised using the same factory farming techniques as in the US?
ReplyDeleteI can't tell the difference but I think Chinese/Taiwanese do a better job cooking pork or chicken rather than beef. There's still a Budhist tradition that cows are sacred. Also I think cows don't do well in the tropics and take up a lot of space that Taiwan doesn't have, so most beef is imported.
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