Beef Fried Noodles

This really isn’t a guide to eating here in Taiwan but rather how I have come to survive each day. Like many of you I have just arrived into Taiwan so my knowledge of the language and culture here is at a bare minimum. This makes things like eating a little more difficult but much more interesting.

The key to my limited success has been to be sure to wait about 10-12 hours between my meals. This allows me to be so hungry that I can hardly even think straight. When I am in this condition it makes for some very interesting restaurant choices. Before I embark on a live or die mission to eat I have to decide, “Do I want to try a night market? Should I just walk into the restaurant with the most people inside? Should I let my fear overtake me and just eat a snickers bar from 7-11? Or should I really wuss out and just point to a cheeseburger picture at McDonalds?” I am happy to say that I have only lowered myself to the last option once since I have been here.

Once I am out in the street I really start to feel strange. Not only is my stomach a barren wasteland but I also feel like a cake roasting in an oven. I need food FAST so that I can retreat into my lair of AC. Around the corner is my token noodle shack followed closely by someone yelling for me to try their new deep fried liver sausage (at least that is what I think that is). Hmm… not today. I venture forth.

The places that really intimidate me are the ones that only have a menu in Chinese characters and some old guy cooking on a grill. These places always seem attractive because the prices are often quite low, but require a lot of pointing and unintelligible hand gestures until some sort of agreement is reached. In this way I have had varying degrees of success (hey I am still alive!), but a lot of times I am so hungry that I confusedly wander from restaurant to restaurant hoping that someone will simply say, “I know exactly what you want. Come on in and we’ll get you feeling better.” This might actually be happening to me all the time and I just don’t know it because I can’t understand anyone.

After I have walked for about 45 minutes to an hour around these new streets I realize that a new problem has arrived, I am completely lost. But before I can have a freak out session about finding where I could possibly be, I really need to get full. This is why knowing the phrase for beef fried noodles is so very important. This wonderful dish is good, cheap, and can be found on almost every street. This dish is a safe bet to getting me feeling like a human again and thus being able to take on the new challenge of getting back to wherever it is I came from.

Getting to eat new and exciting things in Taiwan is one of the best parts about it. But sometimes you just need something that will work and will get your brain and stomach back into proper order. Maybe one day I will tire of the beef fried noodles but it is not this day. While living in Taiwan the thing I have found to work best is to not be picky and to always have a fallback plan.