Balls and bamboo - a very weird combination. I remember the time when we went to Yangmingshan National Park (read it here) to conquer Mt. Qixing. I mentioned something that caught our eyes the moment that we landed on the National Park. With a rumbling stomach, we fixed our focus upon a peculiar but familiar Taiwanese dish - meatballs and braised bamboo. This is a weird albeit very good combination for Yangmingshan's cold and windy climate.
No trip to Fulong beach (read more here) will be complete without a taste of the original Taiwanese lunch box. If Japan has bento, Taiwan has bian dang. First of all, I would like you to know that I saw at least three bian dang stores near the Fulong Train Station and all of them boast long queues of customers eager to taste the authentic bian dang from Fulong where it originated. You know what they say, the long lines must indicate that the food there is good. We went to where there were less people because hunger beats patience. Nothing beats sitting on the train station's exterior, next to two gigantic German Shepherds, and eating bian dang on my lap.
I always wondered what were those huge blocks of peanut brittle and stacks of spring roll doing in stalls I found every time I travel in Taiwan. I noticed that they shave the peanut brittle and transfer the shavings into a thin crepe, but for some reason I had always avoided it. I became very curious and decided to try it when we went to Raohe night market. Now I know that this is an ice cream treat to be celebrated. Honestly upon first seeing this, I didn't see how it can impress me for I had already eaten ice cream from a burger bun.
Jiu Fen Old Street in Ruifang District of New Taipei, Taiwan is filled with all sorts of goodies: from traditional items such as fans and hats to delicious food such as different kind of balls. Yes, balls. (Read more of the Jiu Fen adventure here) Speaking of balls, we found a famous stall that sells them. In fact, they offer three kinds of balls: yuyuan (taro balls), diguayuan (sweet potato balls), and tangyuan (green tea balls). Sumptuous mixture of different balls and different beans in a hot sweet broth. That's weirdly ball-licious.
I know what you're thinking: my rhyming sucks. If I would be asked to pick my favorite fruit from a common fruit stand, I would pick nothing. Why, you ask? Because soursop is my favorite fruit and I highly doubt that a common fruit stand would sell this wonder of a fruit. Granted, some vendors do sell them, but oftentimes their scarcity makes them fetch very high prices in the market. Truth be told, I'd rather forage and fetch them myself than buy one. Spoiler alert: I did. This is a freshly harvested mature but unripe soursop. Note the light green and glossy skin with spikes spaced far apart. Plucked from the tree by yours truly.
By now I think you know that I love eating. Yes I do, even those dishes that are a little bit out of the ordinary and in Palawan, I tasted some bizarre food. Let's share the thought together and comment down below what the weirdest thing you ate was and why :) Back when I was in Palawan (read it here), I had my fair share of seafood because that's what you would expect from a place surrounded by water. I'm going to enumerate and rate some of them in this entry. First on the list are raw sea urchins. I'm not gonna lie, I did not like them. Some people enjoy their taste but I find it gut-wrenching. They serve it raw: they just halve them and empty the innards and you can feast on the yellow fats adhering on its exoskeleton. You pour some vinegar in the shell and scrape out the yellow stuff, and enjoy! All I can taste is like diluted seawater, in fact, the taste does not offend me. It's the texture that I find off-putting. I almost turned my stomach inside out for this dish. But come to think of it, it's not that bad. I have tasted other food that are much worse than this.
My rating: Try if you dare. Not for the faint-stomached (if there's such a word). As you may know (or not), I was born on the island province of Palawan. I spent a few years there and we moved to Tarlac when I was still little. Quite frankly, I don't remember a great deal of my life in Palawan. So when my parents mention chaolong as their favorite dish back there, I can't relate. What is that? They seem to have enjoyed their days there with chaolong. So when I had the chance to go back to my birthplace, I wasted no time finding and eating this mysterious dish.
Every time they serve this, I eat a lot. I mean, A LOT. Kilayin is a traditional Kapampangan dish made of either pork or beef meat stewed along with some of its innards in vinegar and spices. This awesome combination makes the dish sharp and tangy yet creamy and flavorful. To describe it briefly: it is a flamboyant festival of feisty flavors. Kilayin should not be confused with kilawin, which is another Filipino dish where meat or fish are served raw with vinegar and other spices. And no, it has nothing to do with eyebrows ("kilay" in FIlipino means "eyebrow"). Analogous to the Bistek Tagalog (beef steak), this tuna delight is a stew of soy sauce and calamansi, giving that distinctly Filipino fusion flavor of toyomansi to the delicate flavor of yellowfin tuna. So when I got my hands on some fresh yellowfin tuna (from my Zambales adventure, read it here), I immediately went on to cook one of my favorites.
I love eating tuna, but when cooked the wrong way it ends up having that distinct fishy smell and flavor. In some fish dishes like paksiw, the fishy factor is eliminated by using vinegar and ginger. In the same way, we will be exposing the subtle flavor of yellowfin tuna in this recipe without that annoying fishy feel using citrus and ginger. Prepare your kitchen and strap on your apron, we are in for a fish fight. |
Kristopher Ray PamintuanNothing fancy. Chemical Engineer. Nerdy. Big, uneven eyes. If those did not repel you, click here to know more Archives
January 2016
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The Admiral Adventures