You say Taiwanese spring roll, I say exotic burrito
Note about pictures: Hi, it's Megan. I am writing this in June 2025. The below story was originally published on my old WordPress blog. When I moved this story to its new home in Bear, I didn't copy over the pictures. Actually, some of them no longer even appeared on the WordPress blog--broken links!
You say Taiwanese spring roll, I say exotic burrito
As a general rule, the Taiwanese people are a "live to eat" bunch. Recently, I was chatting about dating and societal norms with a divorced lady here in Taiwan. We aren't in the same age demographic, but I was curious - now that she's solo dolo, is she at all interested in mingling with available suitors? "No. I have two priorities: The children I teach, and eating."
I have barely scratched the surface of eating in Taiwan, and I doubt I will get much further than that in five weeks. It's a fragrant and delicious mishmash of street food, market vendors and a complete spectrum of restaurants, from the hovel to the high brow. So far, my game plan has been to amble around and not-so-subtly eye what people are gorging themselves on. Then I apologetically mime my way to my meal. For dessert I sometimes ask if I can be that person and take photos of the staff doing their thing in the kitchen.
There's lots of things on offer here that might appear strange to someone used to a North American diet. But let me just say I thought there was something uniquely eccentric about the wrap I ate for lunch recently in Tainan. I've been told it is referred to as a Taiwanese spring roll. Debatable. I'm of the opinion that it moreso belongs to the burrito family, considering size (hand-held), dippability (lacking), and the nature of the fillings (diverse, chaotic). Burrito building is more like the wild west of wrap construction. Spring rolls - you have to at least look like you have a plan. Semantics, really. It was weird, it was delicious, and it was 35NT.
I got all possible fillings. They were, in no particular order (because I love a tasty list):
- Dried Bean Curd
- Lima Beans
- Shredded Cabbage
- Fried Egg, cut into matchstick strips
- Shrimp
- Pork, of some sort
- Parsley
- Garlic Paste, and
- A mixture of white sugar and peanuts (?)
Another note: At the bottom of these migrated posts, I copy-paste comments from the original WordPress post. There were no comments to copy-paste for this post.