This Taiwanese food-themed deck of playing cards is my favorite souvenir from Taiwan (plus here's a map and list of the foods in the deck) By Robyn Lee

May 29, 2016

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I CAN ALMOST TASTE IT.

I have a habit of alternating periods of eating food with periods of not eating food. During the fallow periods, I tend to think stuff like this:

I'm hungry for fried chicken bits, or fried dumplings, or bian dang, or sheng jiang bao, or scallion pancakes, or dou hua, or gua bao, or lu rou fan, or one of many other cheap foods easily found in Taiwan.

When I lived in Taipei, the situation played out like so:

[Roams around the neighborhood for a few minutes until desired food is found. Exchanges a pittance for food. Devours food because it is delicious. Takes convenience for granted. Sticks a little gold star next to "Feed Self" on my mental to-do list.]

Now that I live in Bergen, it goes a bit differently:

[Looks up recipes online. Whittles the recipes down to those that look feasible considering my low aptitude for cooking. Picks a scallion pancake recipe that looks promising and, more importantly, unambitious. Watches YouTube videos with tips and techniques on how to make scallion pancakes. Gains false confidence that five minutes of watching YouTube videos has magically imbued me with the skills of a decades-old street vendor. A few hours and eight scallion pancakes later, feels bloated with subpar scallion pancakes and disappointment. Gold stars shrivel up and die.]

In conclusion, trying is for suckers and there is no such thing as magic.

Taiwanese Snacks Poker Cards by Miin Gift (最靡台灣小吃撲克牌)

Thankfully, I bought this deck of Taiwanese food-themed playing cards from Miin Gift to get me through such trying times. The cards feature 52 photos of some of Taiwan's most famous xiǎo chī (小吃), snack-sized dishes including noodles, dumplings, soups, desserts, and more. Many of these dishes originally come from China, while some are distinctly Taiwanese and combine a variety of influences. If you don't know anything about Taiwanese food, the deck is a nice intro to some of Taiwan's most popular foods with the added bonus of being a deck of cards (or it's a deck of cards that happens to be covered in photos of food—either way, it's awesome). If you're already familiar with Taiwanese food, you might feel compelled to do what I do and flip through the deck when you're feeling nostalgic or hungry. Suddenly the warm memories of Taipei come flooding back, like eating tiers of soup dumplings with my friends at Golden Chicken Garden. Or chugging a tall cup of iced milk tea on a broiling summer day to replenish my continuously sweat-weeping body. Or passing through a stagnant fart-cloud of stinky tofu while walking through a night market. Cherished memories, every one.

Accompany restaurant guide.

The deck come with an accompanying guide printed in Chinese, Japanese, and English recommending where to get each of the 52 foods on the cards, mostly in Taipei. I failed to use this guide when I lived in Taipei because of reasons that don't exist. I haven't even eaten all the foods in the deck. I'm burning with shame oh god please turn away DON'T LOOK AT ME (but continue reading).

You, however, are not allowed to fail because I recently made this map of all the recommendations in the guide:

Most of the places on the map have the same addresses as listed in the deck's guide, but in cases where Google gave me a slightly different address, I used Google's address under the assumption that Google's info is more up-to-date. I can't vouch for the map being 100 percent accurate in case places have moved or closed. If you want to visit a specific place, I recommend double checking its location and opening hours before you go. Note that many of the recommendations are in night markets and may only be open at night.

Each suit represents a different food category that sort of makes sense. Spades: "The Best Choice"; Hearts: "Rich and Fresh"; Clubs: "Snacks to Go"; and Diamonds: "Cool Off". This is also the order of how I listed the foods below.

Below is a list of the 52 foods mentioned in the deck with my meager descriptions, plus the recommended places to get them as listed in the accompanying guide. I labeled each food with its Mandarin pronunciation in pinyin. In cases where the food is better known by its Taiwanese name, I wrote the romanized Taiwanese instead of pinyin and labeled it with "TW". The TW links to the name's corresponding entry in a Taiwanese dictionary where you can listen to its pronunciation. Because most of the recommended places do not have English names, I "translated" all the names into pinyin. If you notice any glaring errors in my descriptions, please let me know. I'm far from being an expert.

Although I've never specifically used this guide, I have been to a handful of the recommendations by virtue of them being famous places that tons of people recommend. Judging from the places I've already tried, I assume the guide is pretty solid.

If you like this guide, support Miin Gift by buying their goods! They make a unique range of cute Taiwanese-themed postcards, greeting cards, keychains, and more. At their storefront in Taipei you can buy all their products as well as take advantage of their "future mail" service that allows you to mail postcards at a future date. (I've never been to their shop so I can't say much else about it besides that it sounds like a place I would definitely go to the next time I visit Taipei.) You can also buy their products online at Pinkoi or in Taipei at various shops like Eslite (the Xinyi/Song Gao location at least, which is where I got mine), Cloudhues, Lai Hao, and probably other shops I haven't been.

52 Foods and Where To Get Them From Miin Gift's Taiwanese Snacks Poker Cards (最靡台灣小吃撲克牌)