Dishes

Iconic dish

A bowl of wheat noodles in a soy-and-spice broth, with beef that should pull apart with chopsticks — Taiwan’s unofficial national dish, and not a night-market snack.

Drink

Milk tea with chewy tapioca pearls, born in Taichung in the 1980s and now the drink Taiwan exported to the rest of the world.

Iconic dish

Minced or sliced pork belly braised in soy, spooned over rice — the everyday Taiwanese lunch, and the dish that tells you more about a kitchen than any tasting menu.

Snack

Fermented tofu, usually fried to a crisp shell, with a smell that walks ahead of the stall — the night-market food visitors fear and then finish.

Iconic dish

Soup dumplings — a thimble of hot broth sealed inside a pleated wrapper, famous in Taipei even though the idea came from Jiangnan.