Soup kitchen in Taipei?

Well, the executive room was a treat! Huge bed, huge telly, a mini-swimming pool instead of a bath and a separate shower with 7 or 8 nozzles.

Near the central station area there are lots of eateries and we were determined to find some famously tasty Taiwanese dishes. We’d see queues of people and smell cooking and then look at the front of the line and there would be a street cart selling something totally unappetizing-looking, like boiled fatty pork patties or greasy soup. We found a place where you help yourself at a buffet and then get your plate weighed. I used to love going to those places in Brazil. I normally hate buffets: the food isn’t fresh, you end up with too many tastes on your plate, it’s all cold by the time you sit down, and you either eat too much, or feel like you haven’t had your money’s worth. The weighing thing means that you take a sensible amount and it’s such a simple idea that I have often wondered why it isn’t universally adopted. It turned out that all the food on this particular buffet was vegetarian so I was very happy. No fatty fried meat to worry about! Yay! There were about 15 types of tofu and I tried most of them. Inside it looked like a soup kitchen: whitewashed walls, strip lighting, rows of trellis tables with lone diners joining other lone diners. People helped themselves to rice from a huge rice cooker and soup from a steaming vat. The food was really tasty. I’d go back. Our 2 plates of food cost under $175 (Taiwanese dollars). About 4 pound. Hang on, maybe it was a soup kitchen….