Sunday, November 30, 2008

Of Food

That place on the right is Little India in Taichung, now I think the best place in the area to get Indian food. The old chef from the Andrew is working there, and the food is glorious -- the naans fresh made, and the curries have six or seven shrimps instead of three like some other Indian places I could name. It is located behind the Splendor Hotel where the old Kohinoor used to be, near Bollywood, Spice Shop I, and Kebabish. A friend also informs me that at Bombay Masala, which occupies the old Andrew place behind Sogo in Taichung, you can get an ample set meal with soup, salad, dessert and main course + all you can eat naan/rice for only $369. Haven't eaten there yet.

Weird goings on in the small town where I live: all meat has vanished from local shops as the whole town has gone vegetarian for three days as part of some temple celebration. I'd BBQ in protest, but there isn't a slab of ribs to be had here for love or money.

Anyone notice our suddenly contracted supply of milk? Quite often lowfat is hard to find now. Milk got a double whammy -- lots of the stuff sold as "fresh" was actually reconstituted with powder from you-know-where and that disappeared from the market when the melamine scandal hit, affecting the supply side. Demand for fresh milk has increased as people have switched away from powdered, again because of melamine fears. In the couple of weeks following the melamine scare milk was hard to find indeed, but the shortage appears to have eased somewhat.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Not so here in Miaoli, Michael. In fact, Miaoli-made General Milk can be purchased fairly cheaply here (99 dollar specials for the big bottles), which was unheard of a year ago. All the other brands are in plentiful supply. Who drinks low-fat, unless it is for lattés and the likes?!?!? Jeesh. Low fat is an abomination to the name milk! No flavour does you no favours, unless you are on a diet. But then I am vegetarian and thin. Not that I think it is any cause to be self-righteous (I am not fundamentalist about it: I eat seafood on occasion, and love it!), but I do think there is a cause and effect. I don't think eating pork, beef, lamb or chicken does us any favours!

It is hard living in a small town (which you are familiar with, living betwixt Tanzi, Fengyuan, and Taizhong's Beitun) and for me. Maybe one day I will have the chance to live in a big city like Taipei again which has plentiful supplies of food for everyone, vegetarian or not (as Montreal once had for me).

Robert said...

I don't know if this is related, but I've been noticing that our food at the house has been more and more vegetarian. I don't do the shopping or the preparation (my wife's mother does), but I've been wondering for the last couple of days if this has anything to do with prices lately because we have been eating notably less meat and more fish.