Savoring Taiwanese Cuisine - Tainan Street Food by Acclaimed Chefs

Taiwan is one of the most under discovered Asian cultures by Americans and Europeans alike. Located 100 miles to the south of China’s mainland, Taiwan is a melting pot of cuisine and culture. Delicious food, friendly people, and incredible nightlife await those who dare to experience all that this incredible island has to offer.

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Taiwan Tourism Bureau

Fortunately, New Yorkers won’t have to travel far to experience the culture and cuisine of Taiwanese people, thanks to an up and coming event set for mid-October. The Savoring Taiwanese Cuisine Festival will bring New Yorkers an opportunity to indulge in decadent cuisine unlike anything they’ve had before. The festival will bring whiffs of garlic and sesame seed along with many other delicious spices and scents to the streets of Flushing.

If you’re wondering what to expect from the festival, get ready to be surprised. From gourmet cuisine and street food to exotic local delicacies, Savoring Taiwanese Cuisine will have all the best eats ready for you to experience.

Gourmet Cuisine

As you might imagine, Taiwanese gourmet cuisine includes the finest eats enjoyed by the people of Taiwan. Taiwanese cooking traditionally focuses on light, natural flavors along with fresh ingredients. Quite often, food is prepared according to the season and infused with medicinal ingredients to ensure the health of the eater.

Although the primary staple of Taiwan is rice, local fair infuses fresh seafood, fruit, and vegetables. Rice, wine, and a few select meats, including pork and chicken, complete the typical gourmet cuisine menu of traditional chefs. However, what sets it apart are the intense flavors and spices. Ranging from super sweet to refreshingly spicy, Taiwanese gourmet cuisine doesn’t miss a beat in tantalizing the taste buds from the first bite to the last.

Snacks & Street Food

When the local Taiwanese aren’t savoring the delectable flavors and tastes offered through traditional meals, they are often snacking. In fact, you might even say that snacking is woven into the fabric of their very culture. The island is full of locations to stop and munch on your favorite Taiwanese snack, visitors can depend on locals to point them in the right direction.

When it comes to the street food offered in cities like New York, Taiwanese food focuses on easy seafood snacks such as oysters, omelets, stir-fried cuttlefish, squid stew, and even milkfish soup. Surprisingly refreshing and reinvigorating, they offer satisfaction in the form of exotic delicacies.

Another serious snack food offered via Taiwanese cuisine is Danzai noodles. Oil noodles and bean sprouts create a scrumptious combination that’s only amplified by a boil egg or other meat topped with soy sauce for a tasty finish.

For drinks, Pearl Milk Tea is a Taiwan favorite. It has made its way into Asian marketplaces throughout the world, and American’s have grown particularly fond of this refreshing yet chewy sago mixture of black tea and sago pearls.

You can find all of these snack foods at the Savoring Taiwanese Cuisine Festival.

Local Delicacies

Taiwan, like many other Asian locales, offers its own special must-experience delicacies. Most of them are packaged making them easy to grab and go, but some require a stop and pause moment to thoroughly enjoy.



Holding a reputation as a Tea Empire, Taiwan offers a plethora of tea flavors to choose from. Some favorites include Wenshan Baozhong Tea, Pekoe Oolong Tea, and Tie Guanyin Tea. Enjoy in a teashop or on the go while in Taiwan.

Another favorite is peanut brittle. Kinmen is a small island off the coast of Taiwan that enjoys fresh air, fabulous soil and high quality water. All of this makes for the perfect place to grow and harvest peanuts. As such, locals have become fond of peanut brittle candy. This delicacy may seem out of place, but rest assured it is every bit as Taiwanese as squid stew.

Other local delicacies include rice noodles, Mochi (sticky rice cakes), and Shaoxing and Gaoliang Wines.

What to Expect From the Savoring Taiwanese Cuisine Festival

If the food and drinks we’ve discussed so far have your taste buds salivating, then you definitely want to make it to the Savoring Taiwan’s Cuisine Festival. The event will be held on October 16th-20th, 2015 at the Brasserie Du Dragon Restaurant, Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel, 135-20 39th Ave, Flushing, New York 11254.

The festival will be hosted by the Taiwan Tourism Bureau and The Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel in partnership with award-winning Chefs from Tainan, Taiwan. It will offer guest five full days of tantalizing Taiwanese cuisine and dishes prepared by five star Chef’s.

The main dish of the event is Chou’s Shrimp Rolls. Chef Chou originally created these rolls from the city of Tainan way back in 1965.



At the time, he sold a variety of street food but his shrimp rolls gained country-wide popularity quickly. Today, he makes his rolls out of fresh, juicy shrimp, high quality ground pork, fish paste, celery, and green onions. Noted as a CNN favorite, Chou’s Shrimp Rolls are amongst the top-eats for Tainan—also know as the food capital of Taiwan.

Aside from famous shrimp rolls, guests can expect several other dishes to be prepared fresh on each day of the festival. To take part in this one-of-a-kind event, get your tickets today and mark your calendar.

You won’t want to miss what’s in store for you!