Mint tea

This is the view from the little house the B&B lady owned by the beach.

On the side of the house there are some mint plants, which, as evident here, can be plucked and placed in hot water to make fresh mint tea.

The color is very light and the flavor is very subtle and refreshing.

Bao-Ze

Dong Huh Bao Ze (east river bao ze) is the name of a shop that makes bao ze from a top secret recipe. Look! It even says it's 50 years old!

The story is, this store was started by the younger brother of a family that made bao ze. The original store was passed on to his older brother, but the mom decided to give the recipe to both her sons, and so they have a feud going on. The older brother's store has a lot more business, so we decided to patronize the younger brother's store. I mean, they make THE SAME product!
There's no direct translation for bao ze into English, but you can see what they are. Fluffy dough wrapped around stuff. The stuff in the middle can be meat, or a mixture of meat and vegetables, or bean paste.
Every store has a system of labelling their boa ze so you know what's inside. Unlike a box of chocolates, where you never know what you're going to get, the labelling makes it easy for vegetarians to avoid the meat boa ze.
While the meat bao ze didn't have any markings, the swan tsai (pickled leafy vegetables) bao has a pink dot on top.

Roadside Juice Stand

Papaya milkshake. AWESOME. Thing #238473 that I miss about Taiwan.The lady who makes the juices.
On the left, papaya. On the right, pineapple.
Because in Taiwan, pig skin and intestines are sold alongside wonderful fruit juices.

Breakfast

What's better than fish eye soup for dinner? FISH EYE SOUP FOR BREAKFAST!!! Clockwise from the fish eye soup: fried eggs with daikon, spicy eggplant, greenbeans. All the dining tables at our B&B had inlays of sand and shells, quite delightful.

My birthday dinner, I guess

There was a cake, and it was almost my birthday, so I guess it was my "birthday dinner"

From left, Faye with the beans, the owner of the B&B with the fish, and my aunt cooking stuff.
Check out the EYE! It's 3x the size of my thumb! This pile of fish was used to make the soup, and the owner of the B&B had the portion with the eye.
The table setting at our B&B. For a few days, we were like family to the owner lady.
The infamous fish soup, with bits of the eye visible in the lower right corner.

Bamboo shoots...one of the better dishes of the night.Green beans...a bit too tough and not salty enough.

Another rendition of bamboo shoots, I think. Decent in flavor.

Fried fish smells great but is not so tasty when it isn't fried dry enough so that the outer skin is crispy.
The same sea vegetable that we had at the noodle shop, with pumpkin looking leaves and curly Q's like cucumber vines.An entire fried fish. In theory, a very tasty idea. In my mother's hands, amazing. In other people's hands...slightly non-crispy and not salty enough.

A Teaser

Remember when we went to the market to get food for dinner? Yeah. This is only a teaser for the huge meal yet to come. In the meantime, more local fruit from Taitung.
A random neighbor came by on his scooter and dropped off some bananas from his yard. In Taitung, you hardly ever need to buy food, because it's understood that if you have more than you can eat, you pass it on to your neighbors. If everybody grows different things, what you get is a "free" cornucopia of fresh produce.
This, also from a neighbor. Tung Gua's English is either wax gourd or winter melon.
Betel nuts, in their natural form. More to come on the subculture of betel nuts in a separate entry. from the way they are arranged on the tree, I am led to believe that betel is related to coconuts, but smaller.
Lychee, and the tree that bore it. Found in the side yard of a consultant for running B&Bs.

Grocery shopping

In Taiwan, you have the option of going to a grocery store similar to the ones in America or Europe (Carrfour, Kroger, Wholefoods, Harris Teeter, Piggly Wiggly...etc), but usually, stuff in the city markets are fresher and cheaper. Every city, town, village, small-conglomeration-of-people has such a market, selling everything from vegetables to meat to cheap underwear (US $1 per pair). The floors are usually dirty wet concrete, from the ice and random juices seeping from the various forms of meat sold, and there's a distinct old food smell that permeates the air. To the westerner, it might be appalling, but the truth of the matter is, without these markets, most of the photos on this blog would not exist. Here's a brief tour of the one in Taitung City.
I put the shocker first because I really love this picture. It reminds me of a Chardin still life, elegant but a little gruesome. Yes, children, this is what a plucked and beheaded chicken looks like. It looks like it lost something underneath the platform and is straining its neck to search for its lost possession. Beautiful.
This is the inside of the market, basically movable stands set up underneath the shelter of a large warehouse. It's a maze inside, and you just move around blindly until you find some light peering in from the outside. Of course, anybody who goes to this market can probably navigate the labyrinth of raw foods with both eyes covered.
Bamboo shoots are in season. The little black dots on them are flies. Pretty gross (the flies, not the bamboo)
The old man who sells the bamboo shoots peels them for you on the spot. The outside of the root is really tough and purple. If purchasing bamboo shoots, remember to pick the white, tender-looking ones.
Veggie-palooza! I like Taiwan because Chinese people have so much liberty in the ingredients they use. In America, it's broccoli, spinach, lettuce, and cabbage. If you're adventurous, you might try asparagus. In Taiwan, there are always new vegetables appearing that I've never seen before, despite being an expert eater with a large repertoire.
Brown eggs.
White eggs...that appear to be brown because they probably just left the chicken that morning.
Feeshy fish. There usually would be a lot more on the table but we went to the market sort of late, at 11am. The market is most lively between the hours of 6am and 8am.
I can just hear them:
Fish #1 - "hey! your fat gut is invading my personal space!"
Fish #2 - "why don't you tell those squid behind me to move their slimey tentacles!"
As promised, mango as big as my hand. There's no place like Taiwan. (except for other places that produce juicy juicy mangos) (5 points to anybody who gets that last movie reference)

Gratuitous Exotic Fruit Photo

Shoutout to Alannah for being such a supporter of my various WWW-ly endeavors.

Today's random fruit is the Jackfruit, a large prickly fruit that grows on trees. Basically, the jackfruit is a poser of durian, the infamous odorific king of fruits. The best way to eat jackfruit is frozen, cut into little pieces. Because I've never had jackfruit at the same time as durian, I don't know which one stinks the worst. BK's (man in photo) mom gave me some frozen jackfruit and it was palatable while frozen. I can't imagine how one could put that offensive yet tasty piece of yellow flesh into one's mouth without wanting to run into a wall to end one's misery.

Jackfruit grows in abundance on the side of the roads in any rural part of Taiwan. There's no way you could starve in Taiwan because all seasons, there are fruit growing on the side of the road. The only problem is that sometimes, the most abundant fruit is jackfruit, whose odor in turn makes you want to kill yourself.

After breakfast coffee

After breakfast we drove down the highway a bit, to a roadside reststop/lookout point/outdoor cafe. It had perfect views of the coastline, including the small island-connected-to-the-mainland (the mainland...which is actually an island also...). I had one of the best mochas, if not THE best of the 3 continents I've visited (sorry Taylor, this one was really really good). We sat on picnic benches drinking our coffee, reading newspaper, and looking out on the magnificent view. What a perfect life!Need I say anything about this photo?
The island-connected-to-the-mainland; or, "tidal island" in normal geographic terms.
Reading newspapers...
...and drinking what appears to be frozen guava juice or something of the like.
Mmmmocha.
The foam was fantastic. It wasn't too runny or too sweet, but still had enough body to be able to scoop with the stirrer.
The non-caffeinated option was juice.
I'm very intrigued by these small green citrus fruits. They're not limes, nor lemons, nor oranges, nor tangerines. They're green on the outside and orange-yellow on the inside. Their seeds are white with a layer of light green around them. Such intriguing little fruits!