One thing I really miss back in Taiwan is the food Marlyn and I used to eat. Our one year stay in the territory enabled us to enjoy and appreciate Chinese food even more. I have this impression that all Chinese dishes taste delicious. Why? It is because all Chinese food I tasted in Taiwan and in Manila Chinatown taste really good. It seems Chinese food is naturally good. A Filipino friend who lived in Beijing for four years and extensively travelled the Mainland shares similar view as mine. The taste I've got in Taiwan ( although still limited ) has become my standard in determining whether the food claiming to be Chinese is indeed Chinese.
Just like their brothers in the Mainland, the Taiwanese enjoy both meat and vegetables dishes. Almost all dishes have meat and vegetables guiltlessly cooked in heavy oil. Allow me to describe the food culture I tremendously enjoyed during my stay in Taiwan.
I studied in Ming Chuan University ( MCU ), a private institution named after MIng Chuan, the Chinese Governor of Taiwan who ordered the construction of the very first railway in the island. MCU has three branches but the main campus is in Taipei and the much bigger campus is in Taoyuan. I studied in Taoyuan campus.( see picture above ) Taoyuan County is a 45-minute drive from the island's sprawling capital, Taipei.
MCU has a three-storey canteen. A convenient store is in the first floor. In the morning, freshly baked Western bread are brought in to the store. Crossaints, sandwiches, and pastries comprise the school's daily bread supplies. The breads available in the convenience store is very similar to the breads sold at Bread Talk. The breads taste very good. According to my Taiwanese teacher, many Taiwanese bakers perfected their craft in France. They went there just to study the art of baking. My teacher's explanation is probably true. In my experience, the best cake I've tasted in my life were baked in Taiwan's bakeshops.
The second floor of MCU's canten is the " real canteen ". Here you can find a long and wide buffet table containing 10-15 dishes mostly meat. You can choose from any of these dishes. The amount you pay for the food depends on the quantity you put on your food tray. Instead of an adding machine, the cashier's most useful gadget is the electronic weighing scale used to measure the food the customer gets.
The " real canteen " does not sell beverages, students have to get them from convenience store downstairs. How about noodles, we are in Taiwan anyway? What if your taste buds want some hot noodles? No need to worry. The canteen has an area connected to the kitchen where students can order different kinds of noodles including Yidali mian or spaghetti. MCU's spaghetti does not use long and thin noodles. The noodles in its spaghetti are thin and wide. The sauce is not your usual spaghetti sauce. It is still tomato-based but the taste is blander than what McDonald's offers.
The third floor of the canteen is basically a coffee shop or tea shop, whatever you want to call it. The place is cozy and is frequented by a small number of students. The place sells coffee, tea, milk shakes, and cakes. The three-storey canteen seems to be not enough to the whole MCU community. Since the second and third floor of the canteen only opens at 11:00 am, the students buy their breakfast at the canteen located in another building. There, breakfast menu is consist of hamburger ( Taiwanese style ), sandwiches , and other food Taiwanese love to eat for breakfast.
To be continued.......
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