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| Beef Noodle Soup! (牛肉麵!) |
This is a question Ping gets asked all the time when the locals learn that we've moved to Beitou from the United States. As we've mentioned before, Taiwan is all about food, so people are very curious to find out what we like to eat--and, particularly, what kind of food we cook for ourselves.
The fact is, other than breakfast which we make in large batches and eat for a week or so, we don't really make much of our own food! It's actually just as cheap to pick up fresh, really good food cooked by someone else as it is to get all the ingredients and cook it for yourself. Since there are only two of us, we don't need a whole lot of food for each meal, and cooking just heats up the house. When it's 30ºC/86ºF inside with 85% humidity, we really don't feel like firing up that gas burner! Again, for the price, we couldn't make the variety of dishes that make up a good Taiwanese meal, certainly not with the small portions we need.
Our best option has been...well...whatever sounds good or smells good or looks good or seems to have a lot of people eating it. We crowdsource our restaurants and street vendors. If there's a line, it's probably pretty good. The method has worked well. We've eaten a lot of good food for really good prices. We get bento (便當) at the local grocery store or 7-Eleven for about $2.00 - $2.50 (U.S.) per person. There's good food everywhere.
We spent the morning at the library the other day (using public air conditioning instead of our own) and headed down the street to try a new place for lunch. We ordered the daily special and got the main dish, rice, and four different little dishes for a total of NT$116. That's a hot, fresh lunch for two for FOUR BUCKS (U.S.)! Plus, we basked in air conditioned comfort for the duration of the meal. When you add it up, it just makes sense!
What do we cook? We outsource it! (Hmm...where should we go next...?)
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