To say that Taipei offers exquisite Chinese cuisine is the ultimate in understatement. In fact, the city's restaurants offer the best Chinese cuisine on earth. First-time visitors to Taiwan frequently discover that the ¡§Chinese food¡¨served back home is but a bland imitation of the real thing.

Continental China's diverse geographical regions each developed a distinctive cuisine. As people from throughout the mainland came to Taiwan in the late 1940s, they brought their taste preferences, cooking abilities, and traditions with them, and many started regional restaurants. This gives Taiwan, and especially Taipei, the unique ability to offer diners the entire range of Chinese cuisine. The hardest part is selecting a cooking style that appeals to your personal taste.

The adventurous can sample all of China's varied regional styles and a complete range of fare, from creative common foods to lavish banquets better than those once served to emperors. Even in small inexpensive restaurants, theuse of ancient recipes, modern techniques and ingredients, and sanitary preparation produces tastes that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

Gourmet Guide

Northern Delights

Northern cuisine is commonly called Peking style, but in fact it encompasses most northern provinces. Here the principle crops are wheat, millet, sorghum, peanuts, corn, and soybeans. Noodles, steamed breads, and various buns or dumplings are the staples of any meal.

Peking-style meals usually include vegetable dishes, soups, toufu (soybean curd), and fish. The food is mild in taste, is often slightly oily, and vinegar and garlic are common ingredients; it is frequently fried, stewed, or braised.

Some favorite snack foods, such as buns and dumplings, can double as meals. Round flat buns are stuffed with meat and pan-fried or baked with sesame seeds sprinkled on top. Dumplings are filled with a meat or vegetable mixture and steamed, boiled, or fried.

Happily Shanghaied

Shanghai (also called Chiangche style) is the best known branch of Eastern cuisine, and because of the city's proximity to the ocean, major lakes, and rivers, this style is renowned for superb preparation of both fresh-and saltwater fish and mollusks. For the most part, Shanghai food is lightly spiced and relatively oily, and its sauces tend to be rich and slightly sweet.

Popular choices from Eastern menus include: fried prawns, West Lake Vinegar Fish (a whole carp, but-terflied and lightly poached, smothered with minced ginger and sweet and sour sauce).

Taiwanese cooking is an interesting branch of the Eastern style, with a strong Japanese influence. Taiwanese food is light, simple, easy to prepare, often liberally spiced with ginger; fried dishes are frequently cooked in pork fat. Like its Shanghai cousin, Taiwanese cuisine features excellent seafood. Good choices are poached shrimp or squid, grilled eel, fried shrimp rolls, grilled clams, and turlts soup.

Some Like It Hot

The western provinces of Szechwan and Human are known for their hot and spicy dishes. Both cooking styles favor the liberal use of garlic, scallions, and chilies. Szechwan food is richer and a bit more oily, and may be either spicy and hot or sweet and sour. Chicken, pork, river fish, and shellfish are all popular items.

One standard Szechwan dish is ma-po toufu, a bean curd dish with spicy minced pork. A highly recommended dish is stir-fried diced chicken with dry chili peppers. You can wash them both down with hot and sour soup. Favorite Hunan food includes Hunan preserved meat, shrimp wrapped in lettuce, and bamboo cup chicken.

Dim Sum and......

Cantonese food (southern style) tends to be more colorful, less spicy, and is usually stir fried, which preserves both the texture and flavor. Because most Chinese emigrants to other countries hail from the Canton region, this style of cooking has almost become synonymous, in the West, with Chinese cuisine.

Favorite dishes include whole steamed fish, roast duck, roast pigeon, poached chicken, Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, and a wide range of crispy green vegetables sauteed to perfection.

Dim Sum are Cantonese snacks (known locally as Yam Cha), tasty little dumplings and pastries stuffed with m3ats or vegetables. This is perhaps the most popular form of southern cuisine since a meal of dim sum is a great way to pick and choose a variety of foods yet not feel overly full. Waitresses push around carts laden with small, freshly cooked snacks, and diners simply stop them as they pass and point out what they want.

Other Cuisines

As a tourist destination and international business center, Taipei also offers European and American cuisines, as well as other Asian fare. Most major tourist hotels have at least two dining rooms, one serving Western and the other serving Chinesecuisine. Major cities also have numerous restaurants offering Western or Asian foods, along with countless snack centers (generally in department stores) and fast food outlets. In general, restaurants hire only experienced, native chefs, ensuring customers of authentic gourmet dining.

In Taipei, the northern suburbs of Shihlin and Tienmu offer American, English, Italian, German, and Vietnamese cuisines. The northern business district, centered around Chungshan North Rd., has Italian, German, Spanish, English, American, Indonesian, Indian, Korean, and Japanese restaurants. The Eastern business district has the widest variety: Greek, Italian, French, German, Swiss, English, American, Indian, Thai, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Japanese.


Sample Menus
Peking(¥_¤èµæ)
Peking roast chicken¥_¥­ÂtÂû
Sauteed beef with scallions½µÃz¤û¦×
Fried pork³n¬µ¨½¯á
Peking roast duck¥_¥­¯NÀn
Shredded pork with bean sauce¨ÊÂæ¦×µ·
Stir-fried shredded chicken with grean peas ÂA½Ü¨§Âûµ·
Stir-fried diced chicken with walnutsÂæÃz®Ö®çÂû¤B
Deep fried prawn balls¬µ²i©ú½¼¬q
Sweet & sour boneless fishªQ¹«¶À³½
Peking style fried bean curdÁç¶ò¨§»G
Stir-fried vegetables with egg¦XµæÀ¹´U
Hot & sour soup»Ä»¶´ö

Shanghai (Chiangche) ¤W®ü(®ý¦¿)µæ
Drunken chicken (cold chicken in wine)¾KÂû
Anchovies»ñ§À³½
Wu Hsi spareribsµLÁí±Æ°©
Stir-fried shrimp with bean sprouts¨§­]½¼¤¯
Sweet & sour pork¿}¾L¨½¦Ù
Sliced yellow fish³·µæ¶À³½¤ù
stir-fried shrimp with eggs½¼¤¯Ãz³J
Deep-fried sweet baby eelĬ¦¡¯ÜÅë
Eight-treasures hot sauce¤KÄ_»¶Âæ
Stewed chicken with fried bean curd¬âÁçªo¨§»GÂû

Taiwanese (¥xµæ)
Braised meat¾|¦×
Three-cup chicken¤TªM¤gÂû
Three-cup baby squid¤TªM¤p¨÷
Shrimp cutletsª÷¿ú½¼»æ
Deep-fried cuttlefish ballsªáªK¤Y
Salted small fish with peanuts¤p³½ªá¥Í
Tan-tze mien (noodles)¾á¥JÄÑ
Buddha jumps the wall (shark's fin, tendons, and vegetables)¦ò¸õÀð

Szechuan(¥|¤tµæ)
Dry shredded beef°®«ó¤û¦×µ·
Cold bean sprout rools with chili sauce³Â»¶¨§³½

Stewed prawns°®¿N©ú½¼
Stir-fried diced chicken with dry chili peppers®c«OÂû¤B
Shrimp in tomato sauce on crackling riceÁç¤Ú½¼¤¯
Stir-fried shredded pork with hot sauce³½­»¦×µ·
Camphor-&tea-smoked duck¼Ì¯ùÀn
Bean curd with spicy minced pork (Ma Po's bean curd) ³Â±C¨§»G
Dry-fried string beans°®«ó¥|©u¨§
Stir-fried eggplant with hot sauce³½­»­X¤l

Hunan(´ðµæ)
Braised beef with brown sauce¶Q¦m¤ûßv
Baked ham with honey (rich man's ham)´I¶Q¤õ»L
Deep-fried vegetarian meal¶p¯N¯À¤è
Viceroy (Tso tsung)chicken¥ª©v´ÅÂû
Wild chicken pot¤sÂûÁç
Minced shrimp wrapped in lettuce¥Íµæ½¼ÃP
Stewed duck with fresh ginger¤lÁ¤Àn²ã
Sauteed shrimp cutlets¥Í·Î½¼»æ
Fish soup³½¥Í´ö
Minced pork in bamboo cup¦Ë¸`¦×¬Ø

Cantonese(¸fµæ)
Stewed shark's fin¬õ¿N±Æ¯Í
Chinese-style sauteed beef steak¤¤¦¡·Î¤û±Æ
Sliced abalone with black mushrooms¥_Û£Àj¤ù
Steamed seafood²M»]®ü¤WÂA
Braised lobster soup¤W´öÖKÀs½¼
Pineapple fried rice­ì­Ó±ùª£¶º
Steamed prawns with garlic»[»T»]¥Í½¼
Crispy chicken¯Ü¥Ö¬µ¤lÂû
Sweet &sour pork with pineapple»ñ±ù©BÂP¦×

Vegetarian(¯Àµæ)
Delicious vegetarian ¡§duck¡¨(cold dish)¬ü¨ý¯ÀÃZ(§N½L)
Salad (cold dish)¨F©Ôµµ±²(§N½L)
Five flavors (cold dish)¤­¨ý¦N¬Ã(§N½L)
Sweet & sour sliced ¡§fish¡¨¿}¾L³½¤ù
Teppanyaki¡§ell¡¨ÅKªOÅëõt
¡§Bacon¡¨asparagus°ö®ÚĪ¯û
Deep-fried bean curd¯Ü¥Ö¨§»G
Soup¤@«~¤¸¬Ø(´öÃþ)



Home | Preface | General Information | Travel Information | Festival & Culture | Handbook