Dinners & Lunches in Taiwan

In my last post I re-lived some of my favorite small eats in Taiwan.  There are endless casual and delicious places to discover! However there are also a ton of sit-down places and finer dining.  The cuisine in Taiwan is very heavily influenced by the Japanese, so it really is a wonderful fusion of Chinese and Japanese. Here's a smattering of a couple of the bigger meals I had in Taipei!

Business Lunch at Sumie

One huge difference between Taiwan and the US is that they actually take lunch hours! While the norm for us (especially in the Financial industry) is that we grab something really quick and work while eating at our desks, the norm in Taiwan is to get away from the office and have an hour+ long meal.  So jealous!  As such 'Business Lunches' are quite popular.  While I was in Taipei I tried the Business Lunch menu at Sumie, in the San Want Hotel.  It cost about $30 to $40 USD per person.  We got a lot of food for the value, check it out:

Prices for the Business Lunch vary depending on the main 'entree' that you choose, but you still get [Before your entree] Sushi, Salad, Appetizer (Eggplant), Mushroom and Turnip Soup, [After your entree] Oden with Miso Soup, Mochi dessert. So much food!

Eggplant appetizer.  Delicious! and Beautiful

Small bites in Taiwan!

I've returned from my trip to Taiwan, and I can confidently say I lived up to my Piggy name!  Taiwan has an abundance of good eats and I was fortunate enough to find amazing hole-in-the-wall places and also experienced some fancier dining as well.  Believe it or not I even found a Beef Noodle Soup Festival.  I've been back for over a week now and am going through withdrawal missing all the yummy Taiwanese treats I had.  In my next few posts I'll share some drool-worthy pics, and if you ever make your way to Taiwan be sure to message me and I'll share some of my favorite spots!

The trip started off great with a surprisingly delicious serving of chicken congee on our flight from JFK to Taipei.  It even came topped with ginger, scallions and mushrooms. Well done Eva Air!

Breakfast

One of the things I love most (and therefore miss most!) about Taiwan is breakfast time.  It's no ordinary danish or toasts there.   We're talking about egg pancakes, radish buns, meat buns, soybean milk, fried crullers, rice 'burritos'... gosh the list goes on, and now I'm totally making myself hungry again even though I just ate dinner :(

There was an awesome family-run Taiwanese breakfast joint right around the corner from my in-law's apartment. Quite literally - a hole in the wall.

Here's the "menu"... I would offer some translation except the only things I can decipher are the numbers!  Don't worry, I took pictures...

Egg pancakes ("dan bing").  Light and fluffy beaten egg is topped with a thin pancake and rolled up.