Friday, January 8, 2016

Taipei Street Food Day 1

This city is a superpower in the realm of cheap, delicious food stalls.  They're everywhere and the cooks who run them ply their trade with serious chops.  I'm totally humbled and inspired by their dedication and aplomb.


Breakfast.  A sticky rice "burrito"stuffed with a scallion studded omelette, pork floss, pickled mustard greens and a fragment of deep fried cruller.  We had some help from a kind local when ordering this one.  The cook smeared the rice in a thin layer on a washcloth covered with plastic wrap, loaded the ingredients on top and then used the cloth like a sushi roller to roll everything into a tight tube.


Small grilled donuts.  



Pancake stuffed with bacon, fried egg and corn.



This fellow had mad skills on the sausage grill.  The white things that look like sausages are actually glutinous buns.  These get sliced and stuffed with a sausage and the loaded at light speed with 6 toppings including cucumber and mustards.


A dog to rival any in Chicago or Cincinnati.


At the Raohe Night Market, the oldest in the city, the longest line was at this stall.  These folks were cooking pepper bao in charcoal fired cilindrical ovens.  


You can see them stuck to the sidewalls, which lends them bronzed, crispy bottoms.


They get prized loose and slipped into paper wrappers.  And here's what delicious looks like:




The meat within is redolent of black pepper and has more texture than the ground ingredients in steamed buns.  


We ended this incredible day with bowls of mild chicken rice.  Many bows to the genius cooks of Taipei city.
















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