Welcome to the food and drink entry in this weblog. Thus far, I have really been enjoying the food. I have grown to love rice which is a good thing because it’s eaten with almost every meal. A few times, we have been treated to American food, but I prefer to eat Chinese food these days. However, the American food isn’t typical of what you’d find in the States. For instance, we had pizza for dinner last night. There were six different kinds to choose from. The best was of course the Hawaiian style. It had a little something extra to go along with the pineapple and ham. The first was pizza sauce. Yes, you read that correctly… pizza sauce. Most pizza you can buy here on the island doesn’t have pizza sauce on it. Weird, I know. But it’s not a bad thing. It’s absence is hardly noticeable.
The second interesting thing on the Hawaiian style pizza was shrimp. I’m sure there some of those trendy pizza joints in the U.S. such as California Pizza Kitchen server their pies with that sort of stuff but I can honestly say I’ve never heard of such a thing. Of course, maybe I’m just a sheltered hick from the backwoods of South Dakota. At any rate, I found the shrimp to be a quite welcome addition.
Other flavors we had to choose from were something called “Surf and Turf” (you can probably guess what’s was on that one), teriyaki beef, peppered beef, and one kind that had corn on it. Needless to say, corn on pizza doesn’t really turn my crank so I neglected to sample that variety. Still, I found most of the different types of pizza to be quite enjoyable. However, I think I’d rather eat Chinese food.
That brings us to beverages. To quote a movie, “I mean they got the same stuff over there that they got here, but it’s just – it’s just there it’s a little different.” For instance, you can get basic soft drinks such as Coke and Sprite but you can’t get the more “exotic” flavors of soda. For instance, I’ve yet to see Mt. Dew or Dr. Pepper. I’m not sure how Miles is getting by with out his beloved Mt. Dew. Who knows, maybe they have that in China. All I know is that you can’t find it here. Some of the more popular soda is from a company called Hey Song. Their cola tastes like Coke or Pepsi but it’s got a bit of a cinnamon after taste. It’s quite interesting.
Bottle iced tea is of course a rather large industry here as well. However, you won’t find the fruit flavored varieties that you might find in the US. Most of it is more traditional, such as green tea, black tea, etc. Other more interesting varieties include bubble tea, which is basically tea mixed with milk. The interesting part is what you’ll find in the bottom of the cup… little balls of tapioca. It feels a little weird the first time you suck a tapioca ball into your mouth but it’s really quite good. It’s one of my favorite drinks here.
However, it’s not anywhere close to my favorite beverage; Super Supau or what I affectionately refer to as “The nectar of the gods.”
Basically, it’s nothing more than lemon-lime Gatorade but for some reason, it tastes a heck of a lot better. I have no idea why. I’ve since stopped trying to discern the difference. All I know is that it’s by far my Taiwanese drink of choice. Good stuff.
