taste of taiwan

Today for lunch we got to taste real taiwanese food @ DinTaiFung (a chain restaurant serving traditional taiwanese food). From what I have gathered in the past week, Taiwanese food is pretty unique and has some distinct flavors. It is entirely different than what we would call chinese food in America (greasy beef and orange chicken). One, the majority of meat used here is pork, not chicken or beef, and two, a lot of the food is actually pretty light: soups, light noodles, small portions, few additives (unless you're talking about the food at the street markets which is typically fried or drenched in some kind of sauce). Either way, you can't get these flavors at P.F. Chang's or Panda. There is a good hole-in-the-wall place in San Diego called Dumpling Inn, which now having more knowledge of real Chinese food, can say is pretty authentic and really good. Still doesn't compare to this:

appetizer: bitter melon, not a fan

xiao long bao: steamed pork dumpling

what their famous for

hot&sour soup-very bland but that's the taiwanese way.
it is a common soup, revived by Americans (once again,
making American Chinese food not really Chinese at all...)

steamed green vegetable & po

learned i don't like po, whatever that is...

steamed Chinese-style layer cake

eight treasure glutinous rice 

dessert made my mel's grandma
 kind of like mochi, but served hot in a sugary syrup 

all in all, i really like taiwanese food. there are a few things that i have tried that aren't my favorite, but that goes for all types of food. what i don't like is taiwanese desserts. not sweet enough and they substitute chocolate for red bean. for someone who can't go a day without chocolate, this is a crime.