What Kate Ate: Poo-poo VIP, Welcome to Taiwan

Welcome to my very unprofessional foodie blog on everything to eat in Taiwan! This is my very first post, so let me just start with my first opinions of food in Taiwan: It's AWESOME!!!! If you are a fat kid like me, who appreciates everything from a silky smooth pâté to a tub of tator tots then Taiwan is the place for you. And by that, I do not mean that you will be able to find either of the two items listed above, but you will be able to find a very wide assortment of everything in between, including animals and animal parts you didn't know you could eat, fruit you never heard of before and combinations of things you never thought possible (please see Exhibit B, cheesepuff balls with chocolate icecream and raisins).

Below is the first meal I was really awake for in Taipei, seafood and vegetable noodle soup with a side of roast pork. Not only was the food delicious, but the bowl was literally the size of a large bucket. I paid a whopping $4.50 US dollars for it too which is expensive for this city. Although the imitation crab meat designed to look like a flower was quite touching and the spongey fishballs were a texturally fun (bouncy ball?) surprise, the real highlight of this meal, was the communal bowl of hot sauce that I spooned all over my pork. It was soooo good. I was enjoying it so much that I choked a little and started hacking up a lung and had tears streaming all down my face and everyone in the Taipei 101 cafeteria just stopped and stared at me, because it wasn't odd enough that this weird foreigner was sitting alone, taking photos of her food and using chopsticks like 3 yr old, she had to be all red in the face and crying too. Also, by the end of this meal I had hot sauce all over my tank top. Thank god for tide sticks!

Since breakfast at my hotel has consisted of soggy scrambled eggs and chicken nuggets, I'll skip ahead. My next delicious meal came from a little old lady in an alley who fried me up some tripe, tofu and seaweed, paired it all with a century egg and finally topped it with a touch of scallions. This and a giant bowl of traditional Taiwanese beef noodles was again, way more than I could ever imagine eating, but I tried my hardest. I don't have much to say about the tripe, other than I'm thankful that I didn't get food poisoning on my first street cart expedition. PS people, don't ever put your chopsticks standing up in your bowl of noodles! Its a big cultural no no. I of course choose to learn the hard way. Why be polite when you can offend people unknowlingly left and right?

Speaking of offensive, for those of you with a weak stomach and those who don't appreciate potty humor, stop reading right here. Trust me you won't appreciate what's next.

So the last of my recent meals that I'd like to share, but by far one of my oddest yet, is my meal at Modern Toilet. I'll give a quick set up, but a picture says a thousand words. Basically, I ate dinner that was served out of a toilet and it was delicious. Dessert followed in a urinal and all the while I was sitting on a toilet and wiping my hands on toilet paper. Asian people love weird crap like this, literally. There was crap related paraphernalia everywhere. There literally was a giant 'cuddly' turd stuffed animal in the front window of the restaurant. How could you not want to go in there for a nice seafood dinner? Anyway, pics are below. My fav is the the sheet you get that has two people dressed in panda suits, holding silverware, flying an airplane through the pink sky and white fluffy clouds, ready to eat, Poo poo VIP style. Our dinner discussion went as follows: Who is a poo poo VIP and how do you qualify to become one? Do I have to wear a panda suit? Do I have to fly a plane in a panda suit? Who was behind this marketing/design concept and how did they come up with it? Were they all sitting at a meeting one day, discussing what they think ties in nicely with poop and all conclude people in panda suits makes the most sense?

I don't know. I don't have any clue how any of this amazingness came together, but it did. And the food was pretty good, except for the dessert that was icecream on top of ice shavings, with chocolate bits, a wafer cookie, marshmallows, raisins and then cheese puffs. Again, I just don't know. I don't ask questions, I just eat.
Exhibit A