One of the two places I frequent advertises that they serve Taiwanese food. It's a real oddity as most people would not understand or could differentiate between the two (like me!) I mean, why take the time to come out and say, "I'm not exactly a Chinese restaurant!" in your advertising.
But, there are subtle differences. They do serve food that I can't find at any Chinese restaurant in town. And ironically, they serve the BEST spicy beef noodle soup (which according to my Commie-hatin' Mama is a Northern China specialty).
But here is something I have, every 10th visit or so, instead of the spicy beef noodle soup. Green Onion Pie.
It's sorta like a quesadilla with green onion in the middle. I lurves it. Wifey think's the STUPIDEST thing she's ever been offered to eat.
And then this:
I can't even remember the Taiwanese name for it. Had lots and lots and lots and lots of it growing up. So much so that I got tired of it. It's some sort of plant leaf wrapped around a bundle of cooked rice, mushroom, pork or beef, and peanuts.
After you wrap it, you tie it in a special way that gives it the funky shape it comes in. And then you tie a bundle of these together and store them away. Sometimes they can be stored just out in the open for a few days before needing to be refrigerated.
But mostly they are thrown into the freezer and then they are steam heated to warm up and serve.
I've actually had my parents or my grandma bring some up when visiting and had them in the freezer for over 2 years. Yup, there's just a bit of freezer burn, but it's good 2 years later.
And the funny thing was I didn't realize my little "Taiwanese" restaurant even offered these until I saw someone eating it the other day.Don' be jealous my little Taiwanese brutha's and sista's......okay be jealous, cause that was good eatin!
10 comments:
We have a Taiwanese restaurant near where we live.. They don't have the Green Onion Pancake, but what they have instead is the fried oyster pancake (which is really yummy!). Those triangular thingies are called zongzi.
Soooo jealous!
At first I was going to comment on the great Chinese restaurants we have up here in the northen reaches of our fine state, then I thought, how presumptuous of me, silly white girl, to assume I know good Chinese food. Then I saw your mention of green onion pancakes. My favorite Chinese restaurant here has green onion pancakes that are THE BOMB. And they have those wrapped things too. I've had them at least once. And they have all sorts of dumplings (steamed on banana leaves or boiled) that are scrumptious. I feel somewhat relieved.
I just found a great Taiwanese restaurant in my neighbor. I tried out its dim sum menu, and it was different from Chinese dim sum . . . equally delicious but less greasy.
Ooh ooh ooh, the first picture is one of our favorites. 'cept from where we came from, they were called scallion pancakes. Yummmmmy. Especially with the garlic, ginger, soy sauce.
The wrapped things... are they zongzi? Wrapped in bamboo leaves? If so, I've had that before!
Johnny, you can TOTALLY make your own green onion pancake. Just g00gle or find video on y0utube for instructions. Mostly, remember it's 3:1 ratio of flour:BOILING WATER. Let rest 1hr before rolling it out. Um, I don't know how to do links to sites, otherwise I would send you a video and instructions...
I've had the Scallion Pancake at a chinese resteraunt that served mostly Sichuan food. In Korea it's called Pa-jun and has seafood in it.
I've never commented before, but said OMG out loud while reading this post and had my husband come running over. :) We just had dinner at a friend's house on Sunday- his mom is Taiwanese and served them- we couldn't get enough! She didn't know the name in English, so we all told her that we thought they were usually referred to as scallion pancakes.
First thing I did after reading you was to google if we have good Taiwanese restaurants here. Seems
I know what we are doing next time we go to Toronto: find that green onions Pie!
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