Delicious food from Pingtung!

One of the best things about living in Pingtung is that the cost of food has not increased dramatically like in Taipei where a lot of food these days is actually quite comparable to the costs in the United States. Prices in Pingtung is usually half the cost of food in Taipei! Example, a grilled corn on the cob 烤玉米 costs NT40 ($1.25) in Pingtung whereas in Taipei, it costs NT100 ($3.10)!! And let me tell you, the corn doesn't taste any better in Taipei!

My southern Taiwan trips always include Pingtung, Kaohsiung, and Tainan (3 homes to some of the best food ever)

Here's a brief snapshot of some of the food I ate during my stay in Pingtung and Kaohsiung on this trip!

Mango is probably my favorite fruit in the whole world! Taiwan grows different varieties of mango and the one I ate above are green mangoes 青芒果. It is seasoned with a little bit of salt and it's good to eat! Crunchy, slightly sour, with a little bit of sweetness, it's the perfect in between meal snack.

No trip to Taiwan is complete without some very traditional 燒餅油條加豆漿 or "Fried dough wrapped in a clay oven roll dipped into soymilk". I honestly had no idea how to translate this into English so had to rely on a quick Google search. When we eat this in Pingtung, we don't go to the famous chain store called Yonghe. You have to get an order at your local food stall for freshness and authenticity!

This is one of my favorite after meal sweet desserts! Dou Hua 豆花, loosely translated to sweet tofu pudding, can be mixed with so many different toppings. The most common ones are peanut, tapioca pearls - like this one, and jelly pieces. The tofu can also be flavored like strawberry or chocolate, but the original flavor seen above is by far my favorite! Once you pick your tofu flavor and toppings, it is then topped with a sweet and light ginger sugar syrup which can be cold or hot depending on the season. Since it's summer, I got a cup of cold dou hua with pearls!

THIS is the ULTIMATE Taiwanese snack. Popcorn chicken or Xian Su Ji 鹹酥雞. This is from a local favorite night market stall of my cousin's and once I had my first taste during a previous visit to Pingtung, I was hooked too. This stall lets you combine chicken with several other fry-able items depending on what you're in the mood for. We always add pig's blood 豬血糕 (sounds gross I know but it's SO SO good) and tempura 甜不辣 to our chicken. What's great about this stall is that they fry your order right in front of you with some green onions and season it perfectly!! The result is HOT, CRISPY chicken + HOT, CRISPY anything else you chose to add to it. 

Teppanyaki or Tie Ban Shou 鐵板燒 is a popular meal in Taiwan during lunch or dinner. We went to a newly opened Teppanyaki restaurant in Pingtung where my skirt steak with noodles lunch costs a grand total of NT120 (only $4!!). Not only that but the restaurant also provides unlimited cold black tea, corn soup, crispy bread, and ice cream for dessert. So worth it!

Mille crepe cakes are my favorite cakes that aren't ice cream based. My cousin took me to a cafe in Kaohsiung where they are known for their mille crepe cakes! I was shocked after one bite because the cakes here are made unbelievably well, nearly comparable to the famous Lady M. I also had a direct comparison because I had Lady M on my trip to Singapore about 1 week after I tried this cafe! While Lady M only has two flavors of mille crepe cakes, green tea and original, this cafe also includes other flavors like black sesame (above), chestnut, and strawberry. Each slice only costs NT120 ($4!!) compared to $9-$10 at Lady M! 

I had another ridiculously good dinner at this restaurant which specializes in fried pork cutlets. I never know why but the fried pork cutlets in Taiwan always tastes a gazillion times better than in the U.S. The way they bread and fry the pork is super different to make it so delicious here. I added daikon over my meat for some added zing. Served alongside the main dish were rice, 蒸蛋, miso soup and the dessert seen below!  

 

Dessert included an apple vinegar smoothie which was so refreshing and black sesame ice cream!

After we came back from the bridge in my last post, we had lunch at a soup dumpling place (not called Din Tai Feng). We grabbed a couple of light snacks while we waited for the main meal to arrive. Seen above are cold noodles, tofu bites, broccoli, green beans, and taro.

This familiar dish is something that most everyone likes. Shao mai 燒賣 is a Hong Kong based dim sum dish made from delicate dumpling wrappers stuffed with pork and shrimp on the inside. This particular one also had a little bit of a ham topping on the top.

My favorite soup dumplings Xiao Long Bao 小籠包! These are not AS good as Din Tai Feng but were really very good still and had plenty of hot soup inside which is so gratifying to drink with the rest of the soup dumpling.

A zoomed in shot of a perfect little soup dumpling sitting in a bath of soy sauce and vinegar. MMM MMM DELICIOUS!

And my ULTIMATE dessert in the hot summers of Taiwan....MANGO SNOW SHAVED ICE topped with CONDENSED MILK. The mangoes from Taiwan are the sweetest, juiciest mangoes that I have ever eaten and the snow shaved ice is literally the finest, softest shaved ice ever. Of course, no shaved ice is complete without condensed milk, basically pure saturated fat so super unhealthy, but it's okay every once in awhile! (or so I tell myself...)