Ensemble Vacations - Fall 2021

BON VIVANT

WORLDLY DELIGHTS A Bite of Taiwan

By Lisa Kadane

With cheap and cheerful night markets and more Michelin-star restaurants than the entire United States, this island nation is an appetizing place for the gourmet-minded

TAIPEI’S CENTRE DISTRICT

I

nside the open kitchen at Din Tai Fung in Taipei, four chefs expertly roll, fill, fold, and then weigh, the restaurant’s famous soup dumplings.

“All of the dumplings are made fresh here, by hand,” explains Agnes Lee as she leads our group to a table.

Each one weighs exactly five grams, the right size to hold the soup inside. Perfecting the art of dumpling making to Din Tai Fung’s exacting standards takes three years of training, which explains why the restaurant chain’s revered xiăolóngbāo have received so many global accolades.

When dinner is served, it’s a masterpiece on a bamboo platter, where chicken, pork, green squash and shrimp, and crab soup dumplings are meticulously arrayed. Lee 60 • Vacations ® • Fall 2021

demonstrates how to eat the plump morsels of dough. Poke a hole to release the soup broth, slurp it from the spoon, garnish the dumpling with oil, vinegar and shredded ginger, and enjoy.

They’re miraculous. No sooner do I gobble them down, more arrive.

“Feeding people is part of Taiwanese culture,” says Vincent Lu, a local seated beside me. “Don’t eat it all. Leave some food on your plate, otherwise they’ll keep bringing more!”

So begins my introduction to Taiwanese cuisine, a diverse mash-up of Chinese, Japanese and other Asian flavours.

Over the next week, I’ll eat my way through teeming night markets and staid Michelin-star restaurants, in between visits