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Hello hello from…Hong Kong!
I’m headed Kyoto (with a brief several day stop in Hong Kong) after a great 3ish weeks of adventuring, culture sharing and of course, eating delicious Taiwanese food. With such recent events, I decided to chat about it now while it’s fresh rather than taking the time to catch up on the travel adventure. I was originally going to do all of Taiwan, but turns out there’s a lot that happened…who knew?
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Ta-Da! I’m Back in Taiwan!
Actually this is not my first time in Taiwan. I was here 4 months ago for a few days in order to qualify for a visa-free period into China (which you can read about here: https://worldofwanderingminds.com/2024/03/14/travel-tip-1-how-to-get-into-china-visa-free-the-144-hour-rule/). I didn’t have enough time to really experience Taiwanese culture so I decided I wanted to come back and stay for a longer period. That and, while I was at ULA, I was fascinated by the deliciousness of their recipes (even with no garlic or onion!) so I came back to make them a cookbook.
Back to Taipei:
This was a difference experience than the first time at ULA. When I was at here 4 months ago, I was their first (and only) Workawayer, but this time, there were several of us. I have to say I greatly enjoyed the company of other travellers again…especially with these ladies! I can be a bit of a homebody at times so it’s nice to have others to go out with.
We went out to explore Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial on the day that I arrived on June 4th. Although, the plan was to just enjoy the beautiful nightly ambiance of the pavilion, we also happened upon a gathering. We were a bit confused thinking it was a concert of sorts, but upon walking through, we found that the event was to bring awareness to the occurrence that happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989, June 4th.
Working on the ULA Cookbook:
The following days at ULA, I mostly spent in the kitchen on my computer trying to type up the wonderful delicious dishes sans garlic and onion. The secret to tastiness? Have a pantry of the following: mushroom powder, white pepper, salt, sugar, black bean sauce, vegetarian BBQ sauce, mushroom oyster sauce, ginger, and sesame seed oil. Use these in different combinations and you have wonderful dishes that taste incredible. I promise you won’t even notice that onion and garlic are missing.
Siti is one of the main chefs at ULA and observing her gave me a lot of insight into making use of leftovers. It was pretty rare that she would simply reheat a previous dish as, most times, she would make something complete different. Forget the old fried rice! The frequent fliers for using up leftovers were crispy pancakes and omelettes.
My favourite was crispy pancakes (I just love crispy food). Just throw in diced veggies/tofu, add crispy powder, flour, water, spices and deep fry. It pretty much works with anything. We even made them once out of leftover hot and sour soup! It wasn’t the best version as it didn’t crisp up as well, but they were eaten none the less. Served with mushroom oyster sauce mixed with a little bit of wasabi and WOW! Do these just get eaten up.
ULA Recipes:
Here are some of my favourites/most unique (though please note that quantities of ingredients/spices are my best guess from observation…adjust to your own taste pallet):
ULA – International Luncheon:
When we got back from celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival (see the post here), us Workawayers decided to throw an international luncheon for those at ULA. We cooked dishes from our respective countries (or for Naomi and I being from North American where we don’t have specific dishes and rather a mixing pot of cultures) some other vegetarian dish from around the world. It was a crazy fun luncheon even when us Workawayers were cooking up a storm the night before and the day of.
Food prepping…
Luncheon…
I really loved the effort we all put in (especially spending an entire afternoon trying to hunt down international ingredients from Taiwanese grocery stores!). Iris made spätzle from Austria (OMG so tasty and fresh!) and Anna made mousse au chocolate from France. Hilariously, we had no working blender so Anna and I whisked egg whites by hand *cough1hourlatercough*, but wow was it ever delicious!
Workawayers’ Recipes!
The ladies were kind enough to share (and translate their recipes!). Miss you all already…
(My Indian green banana satay dish is 100% not something I made up. It’s from the Prashad Restaurant Cookbook and was on Gordon Ramsay’s Best Restaurant TV show. Honestly…anything I make from this book is always a hit and it’s so wonderfully readable. Here’s a link to the recipe: https://www.prashad.co.uk/green-banana-satay-recipe/ and if you want to buy the book, you can find it here: Prashad Cookbook).
Luncheon…Singing?
Funny things happen at ULA foodie events like talent shows. I loved this one where we sang “Are You Sleeping? (Brother John)” in 4 different languages – French, German, Mandarin and English. I don’t recall how we happened upon it the night before, but we found out that this song had been translated in different languages so we sang it in a round:
Davison’s Favourite Burger Joint:
Did we eat more after all that? Of course! Davison really wanted to show us his favourite vegetarian burger shop and was not going to take no for an answer so a few hours later we headed out. Here’s the name of the shop and the link if you want to go check it out: 福心圓這素漢堡. Great prices, flavour and totally family owned. Can it get better?
Closing thoughts:
Well that’s a wrap for Taipei. The next day I was headed to Taichung which is a 1.5 hour train ride South of Taipei. That said, I may not be getting back to the the blog and Tracy’s Travel Adventure for a few weeks as I’ll be in a meditation retreat in Kyoto until July 14th with no internet access. That said…next part when I come back will be the 1 year summary of where I’ve been since I left Vancouver! Holy cow has one year gone by quickly. ^^
Be well,
~Tracy
World of Wandering Minds 