Taiwan In My Mouth: Seat Food

By far the best food that we ate in Taiwan was while we were standing in a bustling night market, or walking down the street. However on the rare occasion that we decided to be seated for a meal, we weren't exactly disappointed with what we ordered. Here's a look at the rest of the things we gorged ourselves with:
Neo Ro Mein - beef noodle soup.
The broth was a tad bland but
the meat was tender and tasty.
Top: A truly decadent peanut butter cocktail.
Bottom: Fragrant gin & rosemary combination.
Stinky tofu soup (centre) - extra spicy.
No where near as edible as the fried street version.
I almost forgot about this Taiwanese steak - 
the final feast on our night of market binging.
Basically a Taiwanese steak is a sizzling hot plate,
with a steak, fried egg, veggies and spaghetti, all
smothered in either pepper or mushroom sauce.
Not bad for a grand total of £2.50! 
Standard Chinese restaurant, where we
ate various mediocre veggie and rice
dishes. Sadly nothing at all special.
Sushi. Not exactly Taiwanese but it was actually our first 
experience of a conveyor-belt restaurant and it was cheap.
Conger eel sushi.
Second oyster omelette: "This one was better"
We ate in an aborigine restaurant in Taroko gorge 
and drank rice wine out of cute wild boar cups.
The food we had is in the next two pictures...
Top: Bitter melon soup (naff), sticky rice in a bamboo 
stick (standard), fried boar skin (unusual)
Middle: Pickled chillies, greens, boiled sweet potato
Bottom: Talapia in sweet soy sauce (yum), mushrooms, salsa
As above, but with lovely pork ribs rather than fish.
All in all a delushious meal.
Yellow water melon?! Don't mind if I do!
Interesting decor in and around the restaurant
Weirdest dumpling thing ever. 
Looked like a breast implant, tasted like pork and 
honey, sprinkled with garlic and coriander.
Taipei 101 food court food.
Dave got a bulgogi-esque dish. Rather tasty.
I got another steak. Top middle is a bowl of "soup" 
with a sheet of puff pastry baked on the top. 
Interesting idea but horrible soup. 
It tasted like watery custard.

Taiwan In My Mouth: Street Food

Before you look at this post, I would like to say a couple of things. Firstly, yes, we were in Taiwan for 10 days and yes, we know we ate a shocking amount during that time. We are both ashamed and proud of this fact. 
Secondly, we are, for once, in total agreement that the street food we had in Taiwan was not only the best street food we have sampled (and remember, Dave has been to Thailand!), but in fact some of the best food we have ever eaten. 
I hope I haven't bigged this up too much...
Pig's blood cake, coated in peanut dust & coriander.
Dave loved it and I agree, it wasn't half bad.
It had a texture similar to raw fish.
Apparently, people view it as one of the world's
strangest foods.
I can't remember the name of this but it was like
burger in concept. Rice flour bun, filled with 
marinated pork, onions and coriander. Delicious.
The making of the aforementioned "burger"
This was mad. It was some kind of bread dough, 
deep fried with an egg and loads of garlic.
Really tasty, horrifyingly greasy.
Juicy beef and onions, baked inside a bread bun...
words cannot describe the deliciousness.
Left - What seemed to be a wrap made of jerky, 
filled with spring onions and cucumber and coated in
sesame seeds. It had a bit of a hoisin flavour to it.
Dave found this wrap incredible!
Right: A naff puff pastry roll that reminded me of
a Gregg's cheese and onion pasty.
Turtle anyone? (We didn't eat it)
We didn't eat this fried rat, but it was worth getting a pic of! 
There is an uncooked furry one in the bag just above it. Gross.
Weirdly good - pineapple, taro and peanut ice cream
on a bed of peanut shavings and coriander leaves,
rolled in a very thin, rice paper wrap.
All the fixin's for a great Vietnamese style wrap.
A pyramid of sticky rice, beans and a bit of meat,
steamed in some kind of leaf and then emptied out
into a cup...sounds unusual but was nothing special.
I'm not to sure what taro is, but this taro pie had a 
subtle sweet flavour to it...nothing special, but
seemingly very popular in Taiwan.
Amazing sweet potato chips in 4 colours! 
Orange, brown, white and...
...purple!
By far the weirdest thing I have eaten - unlaid chicken eggs.
Hard boiled and tossed in spices, they just tasted like yolk.
Not half bad, as long as you don't think too much about what
"unlaid" actually means...
Various fruits that I'm not sure of the names of.
Really weird dumplings. The outside was thick,
and made from a weird rice jelly, and the filling was
meat. Not something I would bother with again.
Marinated duck's tongue...
Photo of Dave with said duck's tongue.
Huge takoyaki (remember the squid balls in Osaka?)
with prawn, broccoli, weird black egg and tomato. 
STINKY TOFU! A hugely popular snack food in Taiwan.
This stuff smells like someone left the kitchen bin out in the sun
for a week and it tastes...well, it tastes similar to how it smells,
but oddly not as horrible as you'd imagine. It's hard to explain.
Sausage...mmm...salad...mmm...
Massive ice cream!
Crispy prawn dumplings.
Oyster omelette. Dave says:
"Yeh, it was good. It tastes like you'd imagine.
An omelette with oysters in. The sauce was sweet"
"The best dumpling we've ever eaten"
Pork, onions, egg yolk - sweet, juicy, perfection.
Weird passion fruit ice chips in a bag.
Taiwanese pancake-turned-pizza. Very bready.
Coffin bread. This is a thick slice of fried bread,
cut open to make a bowl and then filled with soup.
It's as blah as it sounds, but very popular there.
Frozen banana, dipped in chocolate and
covered in nuts. I here it's lovely...
if that's your kind of thing.
My failed attempt at eating a doughnut.
This coffee making device really appealed
to the chemist in Dave.
I have no idea what the weird gloopy stuff is in these baby
bottles but it definitely made an interesting shop front.
Noodles - simple, and delicious.
Again, we didn't actually eat them, but were impressed
by the size of these grilled sea snail things.
Weirdest snack food ever. Dried crabs in a bag.
These halloweeny looking loaves are
apparently cuttlefish and garlic flavour.
I decided to give it a miss.