We were served this gorgeous whole fish at Lavender Cottage in Hsinchu after we thought we had ordered fish steak.   We are continuously delighted and surprised by the variety of dishes that end up before us throughout our travels in Asia.  Dining out is one of the greatest pleasures in life.   Fish?, originally uploaded by globetrotterI.

Oh glorious glorious food! One common denominator in the traveling business is FOOD – strange, wonderful, weird, exotic, and sometimes downright nasty. I love it all, whether it tastes good, makes me squeamish or totally disgusts me. Food lends such insight into a culture, and allows us to explore that culture by taste, sight and touch. A large number of my experiences on the road have involved food, so I think it’s only fitting to include my world of food in these pages.

I love most Asian cuisines, but I absolutely adore Chinese cuisine, especially northern Chinese cuisine in particular. When I think of my first three years in Changchun, I remember them with mixed emotions of fondness and sadness. Fondness for all the wonderful meals and good friends that I shared them with and sadness, because I’ve left that part of my life behind. I really really enjoyed eating in China. Far more so than anywhere else in the world to date.

I’m trying to rectify this situation in Taiwan. Our teaching jobs require late night dinners and we both like to cook. A good majority of our meals this year have been home-cooked, although we have a few tried and true restaurants within the area that we rely on for something fast. Recently, we’ve started to make more of an effort to try out some different restaurants in Taipei and we’ve been quite successful in finding some fantastic new places. Taipei is an international city that prides itself on offering almost every kind of international dish. That’s what I love about Taiwan. You can get anything, anywhere, at any time. It’s a metropolis of pure culinary delight, rich for the taking.