15 September 2015   By Tom Parker Bowles

I’d just spent a week in Shanghai, a place of both thrusting, gleaming modernity and incomprehensibly alien froideur. A city where the shop-fresh vestments of progress barely cover the ragged undershirt of the past. There, I felt lonely and adrift, disconnected from the outside world. Tolerated, just another gormless “round eye” who simply didn’t have a clue. Sure, there were international hotels with their single estate rums and $600 views. And the discreet charm of the French Concession. Plus all that raw, cold-filtered capitalism, pulsing through Pudong. But just like the sweet, oily food of the region, it left me rather cold.

Here, though, at noon in Taipei, capital of Taiwan, I felt human once more, my senses keen, and all thoughts turning firmly towards lunch. I’d been meaning to visit Taiwan for years. Ching-He Huang, the Taiwanese-born food writer and chef, had endlessly extolled its virtues. “One of Asia’s great culinary gems,” she would say on the set of Market Kitchen, while whipping up some Sichuan hotpot for the hungry cameras. “The ingredients are incredible, and top quality, and the whole nation is obsessed with food. Obsessed. Beef noodles, dumplings, steamed pork sandwiches and stinky tofu…” Her eyes would gleam with greedy zeal.

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http://www.esquire.co.uk/food-drink/article/8841/taiwan-food-guide/