Ilan Night Market

More scary food pictures!
It seems like a great part of our stay here revolves around food! Our friends from the U.S. who visited were a bit disappointed with the local food. (I think you can see why).
When I first came to Taiwan, I really enjoyed the food here - especially the hot pot (or fire pot). I mentioned it before, and the method varies at each restaurant, but my favorite fire pot is having your own pot of broth (where you can control the heat) and you then make your soup to your own liking. You can add shaved, frozen beef, chicken, vegetables,noodles etc. The food cooks fairly quickly, but you could easily spend hours at one of these restaurants because the food is so light, and it's fun! Unlike in the U.S., waiters never try to hurry you out the door - they're not worried about "turnover" here. (Waiters do not work for tips - they are paid a flat salary. No one tips here, but I do sometimes. ).
I have figured out that the reason why people here are so thin is because they eat out of very small bowls. And can someone please tell me how you could ever get fat eating soup with chopsticks??? That kind of through me for a loop when I first got here! (You drink the broth, of course).
We also feasted like mad when we got here on both fried and boiled dumplings - they're SO good, but I have backed off for a few months now because they're really fattening. Aw...
I LOVE the variety of vegetables here - trouble is it's hard to find just plain, steamed or simply prepared vegetables. They love pork here, and they always add it to vegetable dishes, even if it's just pork broth. Something in the food doesn't agree with me, and I've found that when I eat certain stir-fry dishes I end up with a stomach ache. So, even though the food is often tasty, it's been tricky for me. I eat very little pork in general, so maybe my body isn't used to it.
There are very few beef dishes here - my Chinese teacher explained that they use cows for labor here in the fields, and also they, like people in India, revere cows because they give us milk. But the weird thing is, I didn't think dairy was a big part of the Asian diet. ??? Maybe they give it to their kids - I need to find out more about that.
Getting back to Ilan, we had a hard time finding street food that was palatable to everyone's taste that night. Sujoy, Alice and Thomas have no problem with the street food, while the rest of us...well...



Alice and Sujoy enjoy some street grub



Me eating "Stinky Tofu." Yup that's what they call it. The Stinky Tofu stands reek of this old, moldy sock smell...but everyone says, "It smells bad, but it tastes great!" It wasn't great, but it didn't taste as bad as it smelled! It's not the most flattering shot of me, but I got a kick out of the curious on-looker on the bike!




Peace out!!





We came upon a stand where a man was needing a sort of candy. Some of us waited in anticipation (I wasn't really into trying it). I will let the pictures speak for themselves!










Alice, Thomas, Sujoy and I enjoyed a really good sausage stuffed with rice. (I didn't get a picture, nothing exciting though).
We still couldn't find anything more appealing to all of us (read: the spolied Americans - myself included!!). So, reluctantly, we trudged through the rain and headed toward those Golden Arches...(NO!!)



Anjoli had her usual cheeseburger and fries, Sujoy and I split a salmon burger on a rice bun (I liked it, he didn't). Chris had a burger and Lyn had an ice cream.
The End!