Taiwan trip photos, part 2

[oyceter]

Part 1 has me going around Hsinchu, with much random food commentary.

And now, I am picking up on 1/27 (Fri), which is when my mom and I headed off to Taipei for New Year preparations! My dad joined us the day after, because he had to work =(. Poor dad. We went up to Taipei a day before New Year's Eve (that's when the big family dinner is) because my aunt invited us along to go grocery shopping with her! I was pretty interested in cooking the last time I visited, even though I never cooked anything. But yes, we ended up going to Nanmun Shr Chang (South Gate Market -- the old city gates for Taipei are now markets or shopping places), which is an extremely traditional market.

It's funny that I was so excited to go this time. One of my very first memories of moving back to Taiwan is going to a traditional market and being scared silly by the live foods and meats and smells and noises, but this time, I found myself getting excited about the seafood and the hunks of pork and chicken. Someday I should probably write an essay or something about this.

Anyhow. The market was really fun, although the decapitated pig's head disturbed even my mom and my aunt. My aunt is quite a cook, so me and my mom were just following behind her and ooh-ing and aah-ing over how she picked out the best vegetables and seafood and etc. I think my mom was feeling sort of bad about not being quite so professional a cook, but I think my mom is still quite good!

We also scored some live shrimp for lunch, which my mom and I later steamed with scallions and ginger. Fresh steamed shrimp is the best thing ever. Yeah, shrimp scampi and cocktail and whatnot is good, but nothing beats fresh and simple, when you can get the texture of the shrimp and the meat is still sweet and clean.

Then we headed off to Di Hua Street, which is where they sell a whole bunch of traditional New Year's food and I sampled pretty much everything. Yay samples! After that, a lovely dinner at Din Tai Fung, and new clothes and books for me ^_^.

Again, I friends-locked pictures with my family or me in them, so those won't load for some people. But all the interesting stuff is viewable!

ETA:
Part 1
Part 3
Part 4

Chickens Here I am at a traditional Taiwan market for pre-New-Year shopping! And there are live chickens and other poultry, who are presumably waiting around to be butchered. I think it's because people like to see things live so that they know they are very, very fresh.

Ducks! And more poultry. I felt weird tagging this "food," but, uh... that's what they're here for...

New Year's decorations Here's a little stand in the market selling all sorts of new year decorations. Red and gold is lucky. I think there are the usual couplets you hang by the door, signs for "Spring," "Luck," and "Full," lanterns, calendars, pictures of door guardians (from traditional to Hello Kitty and Snoopy), and fake firecracker strands. Just looking at this makes me feel happy ^_^.

Random stall Random food stall in the Nanmun market (south gate). I think the guy's selling assorted sorts of tofu, but am not sure. I also see a tub of kimchi/pickled veggies.

Sea cucumber One of the things that I don't eat -- sea cucumber. They're the slug-shaped bumpy things. I think the white things are... uh. Good question. Seafood of some sort?

Pig's head Yes, it is a pig's head. It is real! It is decapitated! It is sitting smack in the middle of the market! It freaked out me, my mom and my aunt. Anyhow, substantial proof for the consumer that the pig was indeed alive before. I think it's supposed to be kurobuta (black pork). The squiggly things hanging there are probably small intestines, not brains, like I previously thought.

Pig carcasses I think this is sort of the enlarged version of shop windows with whole ducks and chickens hanging from there. Here we have whole pigs! Sans head, because the head is on the table, and sans legs, because the legs have been chopped up to sell.

Sausages Mmm, Chinese sausages (xiang cang). I think the other meats on the side are hams.

Seafood Some squid, fish heads, and crabs. My aunt says it's better to get seafood at this other market, because a lot of the seafood at this one isn't as fresh (read: dead rather than alive).

More seafood Look at how big the shrimp are!!!! Tasty. But still not live, so my aunt told me and my mom to hold off on buying them.

Vegetables! Mmmmm, veggies. Oh how I love them. Taiwan still had some peas in season, but they're super expensive.

Chicken innards From left to right, I think it's hearts, livers and/or kidneys, wings, feet, something else inside a chicken, and skulls. I'm not really sure what you'd cook with the skulls. Stock? Maybe they're just a display thing.

Eels Eels! Live eels! Mmmmm. (I am very bad... I go to aquariums and think how tasty the fish would be)

Frogs Yup, those are frogs! For eating. I feel bad because I like frogs and think they are cute, but I like eating them too (sorry Mervin the Stuffed Animal Frog).

Preserved vegetables I'd almost say pickled, except.. I dunno. They are pickled. I just don't think of them as pickles. Anyway, my mom got some to make with nien gao/rice cake and my aunt taught us how to smell them (or, she taught while I promptly forgot). The little cubes are dried bean curd (I think that's what they're called?) ("do fu gan"). Apparently those can be smelled as well and were quite fresh.

Chicken parts I was just amused to see a line of chicken legs, like a chorus line. Except.. dead and bloody. The chickens on the end with their feet in the air also amuse me. And if you look very close, the pile of tiny round things (not the larger ones) are rooster testicles (I think).

Fish head Those are huge fish heads. They sell them at the market for stews in the clay pots and stuff. Also, fish cheeks are the tastiest part.

Live shrimp Finally, me and my mom find some (somewhat expensive) live shrimp for me! I adore whole shrimp, steamed, so you can still taste the sweet, fresh sea flavor. We steamed them later for lunch with some scallions and ginger, and they were quite good.

Clams Clams galore.

Beautiful veggies I had to take a picture, they were just too pretty. Also, I need an icon of the carrots now. Or the eggplant. Or the broccoli. Oh, vegetables, how I love you!

Egg snacks This guy is making little egg snacks... frying them in the mold, and then filling the egg pancakes with meat or something. I wanted some, but didn't get any.

Xiao chr (small eats) Most hole in the wall restaurants (and not-so-hole-in-the-wall ones) will have these little side dishes that I love. Here the tastiest thing looks like the taro, but usually my favorite are the pickled cucumbers or tofu-and-preserved-eggs. We didn't eat any; we were just here to pick up tang yuan for Lantern Festival (fifteenth and final day of new year).

More sausages and meats Even more Chinese sausages! Very tasty in fried rice. Also, on the bottom are more preserved meats and Chinese hams (very good for chicken soup).

Closeup of ham I think the closest thing to Chinese ham is parma ham or prosciutto; most American hams are a wee bit too sweet and not salty enough. At least that's what my aunt told me when making suggestions for cooking chicken soup in the States.

Beef jerky, of sorts This is the first time I've seen this! Anyway, the slices are beef jerky, but sliced very thin and then baked/toasted till they're thin and crispy. These are with sesame seeds, and I had them and they were wonderful and crispy and a little sweet and salty.

Beef jerky, non-toasted Here's the non-toasted, not quite as crispy version of the beef jerky. Actually, it may really be pork jerky. Hrm.

Nien gao (year cake) Nien gao/year cake is made of glutinous rice. I like them because they're chewy. These are for the salty ones (the sweet ones are usually brown and round and flavored with bean paste), and they're the Ning Po kind, so they're in little logs instead of the usually small flat slices.

Stuffed lotus root I never heard of these before, but apparently it's a fairly traditional dessert? Anyhow, these two are stuffing lotus roots with uncooked sticky rice. Later, the stuffed roots will be stewed in sugar water for a very long time, and then sliced open so that the various holes in the wheel-like root will be filled with the rice. I tried this later and didn't like it because it was too sweet.

Sweet nien gao And here's the sweet version of nien gao, unfortunately out of focus because I am not good at pictures. They all have little red paper on them for signs of luck or fortune or all of the above.

Crowds of people Just to show you all how crowded the market is before New Year. We went the day before New Year's Eve (that's the big dinner with the family), so it was not quite as bad. My aunt said last year it was like a Tokyo subway. Well, not in those words, but that's what I imagine.

Fruit gift boxes! Oh, I love the fact that fruit in gift boxes is a totally acceptable and desireable gift in Taiwan! Anyway, there are a lot of Fuji apples here, and I see two Asian pears, several boxes of wax apples (those are the funny bell-shaped fruits), and... uh. Jackfruit? Rachel, I don't remember what the lumpy green things are called!

Uncooked glutinous rice Uncooked sticky rice is slightly different than normal rice. It's more opaque... wonder if that means there's more starch?

Dates Mmmmm, dates. Mmmmmm. They are so beautiful! I want some now.

Oranges These aren't my favorite ugly bumpy ponkan oranges, but they're still good. Also, they look properly festive with the leaves and everything.

More fruit More wax apples up top, and those are ponkan oranges in the plastic bags! I would eat so many as a kid! Plus, it's nice to have the plastic bag because then there's a place to put the peel and the seeds.

More nien gao The racks behind the guy are full of freshly made nien gao, not even packaged.

Lunch eats lunch I thought it was funny?

Making dumplings I am so impressed by this guy's dumpling making skills! It reminds me of the ugly dumpling story coffeeandink sent me but I can't find anymore. Except these are incredibly pretty dumplings.

Male crabs I think they're crabs. The Chinese is a little different from the one for crabs, but none of us could remember what the difference was. Anyhow, they're live and my aunt got two of them for dinner.

Live... something They're called "sea stinky bugs" in Chinese, and I have no idea what they are in English. But they look like the offspring of a lobster and a crab and are apparently very tasty.

Fresh fish! Ahhhh, see, we're at the market that my aunt says has better seafood. This fish is quite alive. Anyhow, my aunt rejected this guy.

Fresh fish the second But she decided to buy this guy (and another one, already in the bag).

Di Hua Street Apparently this is a big street for the new year's market. They sell a ton of snacks that you can sample (oh samples, how I love you!), mostly for people to buy and place out for visitors during new year festivities. It was incredibly crowded.

Chestnuts Mmmmm, chestnuts. These are already roasted, so it's a little different, because you usually see people roasting them in the street. But they were still tasty. I didn't get these though =(.

Fruit on sticks! OMG these are my favorite thing ever! Some are little cherry tomatoes on sticks, dipped into malt syrup that hardens, but I like the strawberries. The syrups hardens into a shell, and the heat of it softens and cooks the strawberries a little, and if you eat it hot, you get the crunch of the outside candy shell and soft strawberry on the inside and oh, so good. The only problem is that I'm always scared I'll impale my own head when I walk around and eat them.

Dragon whisker candy The stuff in front is just malt candy on sticks or something. The really cool thing is the guy making dragon whisker candy in the back. It's pretty traditional and pretty hard to find nowadays, but basically, they pull some sort of sugar concoction until it's all stringy and fuzzy, and then wrap it around peanut powder and sugar or black sesame, so it looks like a cocoon.

Bins of candy Just what the title says... bins and bins of cheap candy for new years.

Dried food People hawking mounds of dried seafood and dried meat.

Ginormous pots of soup Ginormous pots of noodles and rice for people to buy and eat on the side.

Dried vegetables! Ooo, I hadn't seen this before! So they had dried apples and bananas and all that stuff, but they also had tons of dried vegetables. Dried cucumber, dried taro, dried okra, etc. Very cool. My favorite was the dried mushroom and the dried garlic.

Hordes of people Di Hua St. was even more crowded than the traditional food market!

Dried seafood Those piles in front of the people in red happi are piles of dried squid and fish and whatnot.

Random shrine And in the middle of all the food stands is a random Buddhist temple.

More candy bins More people, more candy. Ooo, and a little paper dragon at the very top, and some fake firecrackers on the side.

Temple, part 2 Another shot of the random temple.

Shark fin Um, yes, I realize that I am a horrible person and endangering species. But... shark fin is tasty. Here are piles and piles of dried shark fin.

Streetside fruit stand I was amused because the stand is literally on the sidewalk! There were still cherries available, though I didn't get to eat any.

Long xu candy! Dragon whisker candy, a close up! I think half of these have peanut inside and the other half have black sesame.

Random orchid More random flowers that people give my family. I always kill the orchids because they get in between me and the kitchen.

Zhwa bing Er... they're making these things that are sort of like scallion pancakes, but a little easier to pull apart. You eat them with a slightly salty, vinegary, spicy sauce. You can get them with egg too. I really love them.

Din Tai Fung The red signs are for Din Tai Fung, a pretty famous Taiwan restaurant that specializes in dumplings and baozi, particularly the Shanghai-style pork mini baozi-dumpling things with soup inside. There are always tons of people there, particularly Japanese tourists. rachelmanija, this is the one with the branch in LA that you should go to with me!

Din Tai Fung dumpling making! And here's a sneak peak inside the kitchen of Din Tai Fung. They have a scary assembly line of people making things like mad. (I wasn't being sneaky! They have a window into the kitchen from the street.)

Xiao long bao The specialty of Din Tai Fung! Little bao filled with tasty pork, steamed so that there's meat juices inside.

Xiao long bao, take 2 You dip them in the vinegar and ginger mixture and then eat them, because the vinegar cuts through the intense meaty tastiness of the inside and adds a kick. Sadly, they were out of the soup bao, where they put even more meat soup stuff inside! But these are still very tasty.

My mom My mom in Din Tai Fung

Xiao long bao insides I tried to get a good picture of the inside, but it was quite difficult. Alas.

Vegetable dumplings I adore these. The skin is so thin, and the vegetables are so tender and thinly chopped and cooked with a wee bit of pork that the entire thing is wonderfully velvety.

Vegetable dumpling insides You can sort of see the insides, hopefully.

Chestnut vendor This is how I usually get my chestnuts in Taiwan. They just roast them over hot coffee beans or charcoal and scoop them in bags for you. Now I'm irritated because I forgot I bought them and left them in Taiwan!