After descending from Alishan and entering Chiayi City, while one's body still contains a high oxygen level from hours spent in the conifer forests, having a bowl of "chicken and rice" will replenish your energy and boost your aggression before you embark on the trip back to metropolitan Taipei.
In fact, Chiayi is one of few cities with the advantage of being an urban location so close to a major forest. Its citizens can take daily walks among the tall, aged trees of the botanic garden or jog to Orchid Lake. They can return to the city limit or their residential communities in no time. In this respect, Chiayi citizens are particularly favored by nature.
Chiayi-style poultry rice is well known for the kind of meat it contains: No matter where around the island you find it, it uses turkey rather than chicken.
Borough Chief Liu's eatery in Chiayi is famous for the chef's special attention to layout of the shredded meat on top of the rice, following a precise step-by-step pattern, and the final touch of pouring dressing evenly over the top. This way, when you eat, every nibble has the fragrance of the white rice and the taste of tender meat, making it doubly enjoyable.
Poultry rice is a meal in its own right. No accompanying dish is necessary. If you want something extra, order a dish of boiled mustard greens, which is better without sauce. Especially during winter, the slightly bitter taste from the green and crispy vegetable compliments the juicy meat. A small US$0.16 lump of marinated tofu, like a piece of white jade, never fails to please one's taste buds with its chewy texture.
As for soup, I usually order a US$0.30 bowl of "cih-gua" soup--made from the Asian Cynanchum corymbosum gourd--because I prefer clear soup, or sometimes "cih-gua" with meatball soup, which contains half a gourd plus two balls made from fish meat. Shrimp soup at about US$0.60 is another good choice; it has tiny shelled shrimps that tend not to be as chewy as the big ones, making them more "workable."
This eatery has a pretty extensive menu. For a get-together for three to five people, there are a good variety of items to choose and make everyone happy. There are rib meat, flat fish with pak choy, pig knuckle, milkfish congee, intestine soup and cold dishes of boiled asparagus, balsam pear, string bean, eggplant and so forth.
Its comfortable space is another attraction. The store is commodious and has a higher-than-usual ceiling with a low-hanging fan sending out a cool breeze. The stainless steel tabletops gives the dining tables a feel of extra cleanness. It still maintains the interior of an old-time eatery, creating a southern town ambiance. The staff behind the counters are always smiling and have a modest demeanor. There is one person responsible for filling the rice bowls, another cutting vegetables, and yet another attentively arranging the shredded meat. These respectable working people create a pleasant scene of an eatery that impresses its customers.
Although Borough Chief Liu's eatery is famous for its turkey meat rice, its stewed pork rice is also top-notch. They go easy on soybean sauce, which gives it a uniquely light color. If you have a good appetite the day you visit, you can order both turkey meat rice and stewed pork rice.
Chiayi has a lot of hot days in a year, and on some days the sun can be unbearable. Fortunately, there is Chiayi Park in the city's eastern district and the botanic garden to the north, with its old trees and huge shady areas, it looks like a tropical paradise.
People say that a know-it-all "expert" citizen will exercise at the botanic garden right after dawn, walk to Gongming Road for a bowl of turkey meat on rice, then disappear into his air-conditioned office to begin the day's work.
--The preceding is a translation of the "Small Dishes, Great Tastes" column that appeared Nov. 6, 2006 in the Chinese-language Business Weekly.
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