Taiwan Today

Taipei is a place to eat. It is the polar opposite of those American carryout Chinese restaurants where diners' palates are coated with cloying dishes heavy on sauces and light on variety. In this city, all the regional foods of China—and their traditional flavors—can be found in an area smaller than Manhattan.

At the same time, many chefs are viewing traditional dishes with a critical eye. They see that cuisine has to evolve with the times, so they experiment with different ingredients and try alternative methods of preparation. They are even mixing in some ideas gained from Western chefs. The result is an exciting dining scene, full of new trends and revived traditions.

First, look at a few trends sweeping the city. One of the most important is the greater attention being paid to health. "Chinese food used to be quite oily, greasy, and heavy," says Mak Hung (麥洪), executive chef at the Grand Hyatt Taipei. "Now we serve lighter dishes than before, and we are also cutting back on portion size." The use of MSG is also declining, especially in the city's five-star hotels and better restaurants. The accent is on fresh ingredients, lighter sauces, and lower calories.

"It's true—now there is more attention to health," says Peng Wu-cheng (彭武城), chef at the Ambassador Hotel's Szechwan restaurant. "Before, people thought that lots of salt was good for you. But in the last four years, people have started to cut back—they don't like it so much. And they are cutting back on oily foods as well."

The long Chinese banquets that used to serve twelve courses are becoming history. "People don't want to sit for two and-a-half hours to complete their meal," Mak says. "Now the trend really focuses on the quality of the food instead of the quantity—and they want value for their money."

Relaxed government regulations have also influenced menus. "We have no more problems in getting ingredients from overseas," Mak says. "It's easy because imports are now more open, including from mainland China. We have no problem getting anything from around the world—like herbs, different kinds of rice, and good potatoes from the States. Now we are trying to let people know that if they come to Taiwan, they can find what ever they want to eat."

Western-style food is also having an impact on Chinese cuisine. "We have started adding sorbets or sherbets—something refreshing—between major courses in our Chinese banquets," Mak says. "We use Chinese ingredients—like ginger, lemon grass, sweet beans—to give a refreshing lift." The idea is Western, but the style is Chinese.

Although drinking wine at meals is an old Chinese custom, the West has had an impact on this habit as well. Chinese rice wines are being supplanted in many restaurants by a selection of wines from the world's vineyards. California, France, Australia, and South Africa are the most popular sources. "We often suggest white wines with Chinese food," Mak says. "It is fruity and sweet, and that appeals to Chinese tastes."

Perhaps the most extraordinary trend is the attention being paid to food presentation. Great care is given to arranging each dish on an attractive serving platter and adding an elegant garnish. Vegetable and ice carving is becoming more sophisticated—and essential to any restaurant's success. Each year, the Taipei Chinese Food Festival shows that another level of excellence has been reached.

But in the final analysis, it's taste that counts. And Taipei arguably has more to offer than any other Chinese city: all of China's fine regional dishes are available in one place.

Consider the variety. Chinese food is actually a heterogeneous collection of regional cuisines, each characterized by distinctive ingredients, preparation methods, and tastes. Variations in climate and soil between northern and southern China, and between the eastern coastal regions and the central and western hinter lands contributed to marked differences in the kinds of crops grown, which in turn had great impact on the evolution of food styles. Unless disrupted by famine, floods, or wars, most people tended to remain in their own districts or provinces. As a result, distinct taste preferences (like Chinese dialects) evolved over time.

There were also great discrepancies in the distribution of wealth, which contributed to the development not only of exquisite haute cuisine at the top of the social hierarchy, but also the common fare that found creative ways to use virtually everything edible, from wild plants, fungus, and herbs to every part of animals and fish.

Today's restaurants serve dishes that graced the imperial tables as well as those eaten by the poorest of the masses. The finest and the most common foods are prepared much the same way; the difference lies in the selection and quality of the ingredients, and the skills of the cook. Any given dish may be sweet, sour, bitter, piquant, or salty—or a combination of these. It's the quality of stimulation to the palate that divides plain fare from superb cuisine.

More than affluence has given Taiwan its variety of regional fare. Recent history has played a significant role. When the mainland fell to the Chinese Communists in the late 1940s, people from all of China's provinces fled to Taiwan to start life anew—and they brought their taste preferences and their cooking skills with them. Before long, some families started up restaurants, transplanting the old regional cooking traditions. Taiwan became the home for all styles of Chinese cooking, although some purists say that a bit of Taiwanese kou-wei, or taste, now permeates the regional styles.

In any given week, Taipei residents consume fried, braised, boiled, steamed, stir-fried, deep-fried, roasted, raw, cured, smoked, and dried delicacies common to regions thousands of miles apart on the mainland. It has become an expected way of life—and visitors are urged to join in by sampling as much variety as they can during their stay. What can tourists expect? Here is a brief survey of regional styles and some typical dishes.

Northern Style

Northern cuisine is usually called "Peking style," but it actually includes dishes from the provinces of Hopeh, Shantung, Honan, and Shansi. Food preferences have been determined by the crops that grow most successfully in the area: wheat, millet, sorghum, peanuts, corn, and soybeans. Noodles, steamed breads, or various buns and dumplings are the staples of any meal.

Lao-ping (烙餅), for example, are as popular as pancakes in the West, and these wheat cakes have the same general shape. But the similarity ends there. Lao-bing are layered, more solid, and are eaten hot but unadorned with syrup. Another favorite, niu-jou hsien-ping (牛肉餡餅 ), are flat, full-moon shaped buns that are made in a variety of ways. One is stuffed with beef (or lamb) prior to cooking on an extremely hot, greased metal surface—a method that traps most of the juices in side.

Perhaps the Peking-style snack foods (and main course) best known by Westerners are the so-called dumplings: chiao-tzu (餃子) and kuo-tieh (鍋貼). Chiao-tzu are either steamed or boiled be fore serving. These fat, crescent-shaped dumplings can be stuffed with a pork, beef, shrimp, or vegetable mixture. Kuo-tieh are usually filled with pork hash, are more elongated, and are fried.

Peking-style meals usually include vegetable dishes, with cabbage a popular choice, plus soup, tofu (soybean curd), and fish. Generally speaking, the food has a mild taste. It is lightly seasoned, often salty and slightly oily. Vinegar and garlic are the most common ingredients. Dishes are usually pan-fried, deep-fried, stewed, or braised.

Szechwan style

The southwestern province of Szechwan is known for its hot and spicy dishes. The most commonly used spices are chili, star anise, fennel seed, and coriander. Chicken, pork, river fish, and shell fish are all popular items. Old-timers say that the Szechwan food used to be hotter in Taiwan, but it's been modified for contemporary tastes. It's possible to order a meal without too many spicy selections, but spicy hotness is what Szechwan food is all about.

Several dishes are at the core of the repertoire. One is ma-po tofu (麻婆豆腐), made from tofu, ma-la (麻辣) hot pepper oil, garlic, scallions, and ground pork, then simmered in a sauce made of soy sauce, bean paste, hot peppers, and chicken broth. It's smooth and exciting on the tongue, but it will rip a path down the throat if one isn't used to spicy food. A good vegetable dish is dry-fried string beans, kan-pien ssu-chi-tou (乾扁四季豆). Whole string beans are deep-fried until they shrivel and wrinkle, then are stir-fried with ground pork, dried shrimp paste, finely chopped salted vegetables, ginger, and scallions.

Another staple is kung-pao chi-ting (宮保雞丁), made with tender chicken dry hot peppers, and peanuts. The dish was a hit from the first time it was served a hundred years ago to welcome a recently appointed governor of Szechwan province to the capital. "Kung Pao" was the new governor's official title, and the name stuck to his favorite dish. Szechwan-style eggplant, yu-hsiang chieh-tzu (魚香茄子), is also a good filler in any meal. The peppery yu-hsiang sauce is used in numerous Szechwan dishes, and is especially good with fish.

Szechwan province is far from the sea, but as its name—"four rivers"—indicates, cooks have always had numerous fresh water sources for fish. Most restaurants have a fish specialty of the house, but diners should check on the bone content. Some of the carp specialties require careful eating. Whatever is ordered, it is guaranteed to put some spice into life.

Hunan style

Food from the landlocked province of Hunan in south-central China is richer and somewhat less oily than Szechwan style, and is either spicy and hot, or sweet and sour. Liberal use of red peppers in many dishes ensure the palate an active time, but not to the extent of Szechwan fare. Hunan menus also have many sweet and mild dishes.

Some Hunanese will complain about the fare "losing its original distinctiveness" in Taiwan. The point of contention is that the spicing has evolved toward Szechwan style by becoming more oily. Purist Hunanese say that their peppers are "drier." The point is, of course, debatable. Chinese love to argue about the "right way" to prepare any given dish as much as which regional fare is best. Since taste buds differ, the only way to judge is to try it—repeatedly.

For a starter, a good choice is ham cooked with honey, mi-chih huo-tui (密汁火腿), also known as "rich man's ham." This is made from thin slices of center-cut ham that are steamed with rock sugar and other seasoning, then coated with a sweet sauce. The ham slices are sandwiched between small crustless squares of steamed white bread served with the dish.

Another elegant dish, and also free of peppers, is bamboo cup chicken, chu-chieh chi-chung (竹節雞盅). The recipe originally called for pigeon, but chicken and pork minced together are now more common. The meat is combined with seasoning and steamed with chicken broth in a bamboo cup. The ingredients are sometimes steamed in small melons (especially in spring and summer), which diners can scoop out along with the rich, tasty broth.

One of China's best taste treats is Hunan dried meat, la-jou (臘肉). In traditional China, this was a staple part of the diet for Hunanese during the long winter months. As soon as the harvest was in, families began going through the steps of salting, drying, and smoking pork, chicken, fish, and duck for the cold months ahead. Today, it's available all year, but it still tastes best around the lunar New Year's season. Dishes such as garlic sprouts with dried meat, suan-miao la-jou (蒜苗臘肉) are typical. The latter are always served thin-sliced with a generous layer of fat, which is also eaten. Although preserved meat is obviously not a health food, a few dishes won't hurt—and it's a way to warm the spirits by pleasing the palate.

Shanghai style

Shanghai is situated at the mouth of the mighty Yangtze River, twenty miles wide where it empties into the East China Sea. Despite the city's size and importance to trade, it is young in terms of Chinese history. Only in the nineteenth century did it begin to rival older centers of commerce and culture in the region. Soochow, Wuhsi, Nanking, and Yang chow in Kiangsu province to the north of the Yangtze, and Hangchow and Ningpo in Chekiang province to the south already had centuries of refined history and sophisticated cuisine.

But as Shanghai grew in population and wealth, chefs from these nearby cities moved to the metropolis. Gradually, they adapted their traditional menus to take advantage of the abundant produce, meats, and seafood. The result: Shanghai cuisine, which combined the dishes from the rich province of Kiangsu—often called the Land of Fish and Rice (equivalent to the Land of Milk and Honey in the West)—with Chekiang provincial menus. Thus, the food of Shanghai is frequently called Kiangche (江浙) cuisine, taking the first characters from the two provinces.

Ask any restaurant manager for the most typical Shanghai dish on the menu, and the answer is bound to be an item using fish or crab. If fish, be assured that no part will be wasted. In fact, the head, back and fillet, belly section, and the tail are each the centerpiece in a wide assortment of dishes. Perhaps the most renowned of Shanghai dishes, however, is the one made from the head, hsia pa (下巴).

Perch, sea bass, shad, and carp are favorite choices for hsia pa because the heads are large. A deft flick of the chop sticks along the ridges at the top of the head, or a gentle poke just forward of the gills, will easily expose delicate pieces of meat that almost melt in the mouth. Like much of Shanghai cooking, Shaohsing wine and an aged rice vinegar are key ingredients. The dish is often served with a brown sauce, also characteristic of the regional style.

Another fine choice is tea-smoked pomfret, which takes on a rich deep color after being smoked for roughly half an hour over black tea leaves in a heavy wok. Or the delicate white meat of steamed and deep-fried yellow fish, huang yu (黃魚). Or pan-fried fillet of carp with rice wine cake and bamboo shoots, which takes the leftover rice used for making rice wine as a key ingredient.

There are also noted poultry dishes, like drunken chicken, flavored with liberal amounts of Shaohsing wine and served cold. And one item that will please any Western palate is Lion's Head. Long a traditional specialty in the Yangchow area, these large stewed meatballs are made from lean pork, chopped scallions, ginger, a bit of salt, a bit more Shaohsing Wine, and served with lots of Chinese cabbage. It is a simple but hearty food with a friendly aroma.

Cantonese style

Cantonese snacks are dim sum in Cantonese and tien hsin (點心) in Mandarin. As in Hong Kong, restaurant service staff move from table to table pushing carts stacked with freshly made snacks in circular bamboo steamers, each holding three or four individual servings. Other carts have plates of finely sliced duck, chicken, pork, and green vegetables like Chinese broccoli and spinach. It takes considerable will power to prevent the ordering from getting out of hand.

Pork or beef shau mai (燒賣) are essential choices. The main ingredients of the former include diced pork loin, black mushrooms, and bamboo shoots wrapped in an open-topped won ton skin that is often colored dandelion yellow. Beef shau mai resembles an Italian meatball, although the taste is considerably different. Each chef seems to have special recipes for these items, so flavors vary over a broad spectrum.

Another standard selection is roasted pork buns. These white balls of dough, which would easily fill the palm of a hand, are stuffed with tasty pork cubes, pleated at the top, then steamed. They open slightly afterward like a pale, plump flower. One substitutes very well for the starch provided by half a bowl of rice.

No dim sum meal is complete with out at least one sweet. One popular choice is glutinous rice balls, filled with red bean paste, coated with sesame seeds, and deep-fried until golden brown. Most dim sum restaurants have twenty-five to thirty-five Cantonese snacks, plus at least a dozen or two snacks typical of Taiwan, Szechwan, and northern China.

Taiwanese Style

One of the most varied and interesting categories of Taiwan fare is its snack food, called hsiao chih (小吃). It is found everywhere, day and night, in restaurants, short-order shops, and sold at street vendor carts. Many of them taste best when eaten at a night market, when the atmosphere adds to the taste of the food.

Noodles are especially popular. A popular one is eight treasures bean-thread noodles, pa-pao tung-fen (八寶冬粉). The "eight treasure" label is found in many regional varieties of Chinese food, not just Taiwanese snacks. Eight is a lucky number, and a dish with eight major ingredients is sure to stimulate all parts of the palate. The dish is typically Taiwanese. A small (and cheap) bowl will offer a generous serving of the translucent bean thread noodles mixed with shrimp balls, pork balls, cuttlefish, golden flower stems, dried shrimp, mushrooms, chopped bamboo shoots, and the tasty mu-erh Chinese fungus. The variety of ingredients gives the soup a wonderful blend of colors—orange, gold, white, brown, and green (from a sprig or two of cabbage)—and the fragrance is terrific. A couple of bowls would make a satisfying meal, but there is always more to sample just down the street: Chinese sausages hot off the grill, fried breads and turnip cakes, sticky rice with nuts and chunks of pork. The variety is seemingly endless, and each city, town, and village has its own specialties.

Mongolian Barbecue

Taiwan's numerous Mongolian barbecue restaurants are ideal places to eat for non-Chinese speakers. There is no need to order from a lengthy menu crammed with complex Chinese characters. The style is buffet, and the atmosphere inclines toward the informal. There is no need to worry about an uncomfortably exotic menu. Mongols never used most of the ingredients that are standard items in such places.

A buffet offers a selection of ingredients for the grill: thin-sliced raw beef, pork, mutton, and chicken as well as chopped green and white onions, cabbage and watercress, green peppers, carrots, and fresh Chinese parsley. Sliced tomatoes and chunks of pineapple are also available although these are decidedly difficult to find on the Mongolian steppes.

Sauces are mixed from bowls of rice wine, ginger juice, lemon juice, shrimp oil, sesame oil, chili oil, soy sauce, pineapple juice. One or all can be used. The ingredients are then cooked in a smoky corner or an adjacent room. One or two drum-shaped cooking stoves stand almost chest high to the cooks who are stirring aromatic ingredients together amidst great heat and clouds of steam and smoke.

Cooks will dump the contents of the bowl onto a five-foot diameter cooking surface, add some water to the ingredients. After a couple of minutes of stirring the ingredients across the steaming surface, the cook will use a pair of long chop sticks to guide everything into a clean bowl. A Mongolian barbecue has a bit of rough and tumble crudeness. It is camp food rather than haute cuisine—and it's also a lot of fun.

But come to think of it, so is eating all of the regional foods of China, especially when they are so easy to find in a single city. •