Hi everyone, welcome to Potluck Food Talks. Today we have a very special guest, Leslie
Wong from Taiwan. Hi Leslie.
Hello Eric.
We've been talking online via chats for a couple of years. I remember when I was in
Bolivia I saw your work. Well, first of all, let me present Leslie. She's an illustration
artist focused on food and gastronomy. So she travels, she draws street foods or dishes
and drinks from the places she visits. My first question would be, Leslie, how did you
start drawing? What got you into the world of, in the broad term, just drawing and illustration
before food? Or were the two things together from the very beginning?
Well, I was studying art school actually when I was in elementary school in Trinidad High.
But after I didn't study art anymore after I go to the college. However, I still really
like to work on something visual. So during the studies, I always drawing and sketching
on my notebooks. But what I draw is about what I'm going to eat later.
That's how it started.
Yeah, that's a diary and like what I ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And that's starting
to become a habit of just recording the food that I ate for four years during the college
of time. And then I started to realize that this is drawing is something I'm really passionate
about. And so I started to apply to the grad school to United States study environmental
graphic design. And another passion of mine is about gastronomy. So there are opportunity
to go to Gustu, working with NGO with our university workshops, like summer workshop.
That's why I get into know about what fine dining is about and what the food world is
about. So I didn't have any background about food education, but that's the starting point
of my career about art and food.
And Bolivia, you did the work documenting street food vendors, right? Like I know that
probably that was pretty cool. And also I have to say like street food in La Paz is
super nice. I really like what I had there.
Yeah, I'm curious which part of illustration or art versus scene in Bolivia.
Well, all the ones you did for Gustu, actually.
Yeah, the menus, the menus. Yes. The mirrors.
And also, yeah, like there was this project, I think it's called Summa Payada, that was
about street food vendors. And yeah, it was, it was a different, the most iconic street
food dishes of La Paz. Yeah, that was pretty cool.
Yeah. Since that was the first time for me to travel to South America. And there are
so many different kinds of ingredients that I have never seen in Taiwan. Also, of course,
not in the United States. Yeah. So I, as a foreigner, as a tourist, I think it will be
struggle for people if they want to order something from the menu, but they don't know
what exactly the ingredient is. There are so many ingredients that didn't even have
an English name. For example, the papas, hundreds of different potatoes. How can you describe
what kind of potato it is? So I started to working on research to documenting the ingredients
that they use in the restaurants by illustrations. So that's a system that I created since 2013
and 2014. Took me about one year to finish hundreds of different kinds of ingredients,
illustrations, bank, which they are still using right now on their menu. It's a system
that they can easy to change by themselves and sustainable system. So that's one part
of my research at that time. What other countries have you drawn its food?
Yeah. After Bolivia, I started to do the backpacking, traveling. And the first stop I say it's Portugal.
I went to Europe for backpacking. And then of course, Copenhagen, I went to Noma to see
what actually this come from. London, Paris, Milan, Spain. I just traveling all around
Europe. And then when I come back to Taiwan, I started to travel around more Asia countries.
So like Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Korea for the past 10 years.
Yeah. I've been following you on Instagram for a few years and I always see you like
visiting these cafes and places and restaurants all over Asia. It's super interesting.
Yes. I was working on a project called Alice Magazine.
Ah, yeah. I've seen it on your social media.
Yeah. It's a small illustration booklets that documenting my food diary while traveling.
And that's only one of the way for myself to learn about the cultural differences through
food. And that's also why I started to work on my new book, which introducing the Taiwanese
street foods, because I have so many friends that they are not familiar with Taiwanese
food as well.
Okay. Let's get into that. But before we get into your book and Taiwanese street food,
let's introduce a little bit. What are the main influence in Taiwanese food culture?
Because it's not simple, right? Like you have Chinese heritage, but it was also occupied
by Japan, if I'm not wrong. So you have like a mixture of different things. So how could
you, how would you describe or explain this?
Yeah. Before I get into this, are there any Taiwanese food that are coming to your mind
that you think it's familiar with?
Not really. No, not really. Because, and actually one of my favorite food movies is this Taiwanese
movie, Eat Man, Woman, Drink.
Oh, wow.
And for me, it was always, every time I would see it, I was thinking this Chinese movie,
you know, like I wouldn't like my brain wouldn't process that, that is a different and separate
thing, you know, like because culturally it's very similar, right? It has very close links.
Yes. But you are familiar with Chinese food and Japanese food, right?
Exactly.
Yeah. So I think that-
But I couldn't name not a single Taiwanese, not food, not even tea, nothing. No, it's
interesting.
Yeah. But Taiwan are renowned for our food. So I'm curious about like what kind of food
outside of the world understand about Taiwan?
Well, what comes to my mind, of course, are dumplings. That would be the first thing.
The ding tai feng, the soup dumplings, xiaolongbao.
Xiaolongbao I have tried. Yes.
Xiaolongbao. Yeah. Xiaolongbao is from Taiwan. Boba tea, you can see here.
Okay. Xiaolongbao is from Taiwan. Okay. I didn't knew this. I have cooked that actually.
I don't know. I see.
Xiaolongbao and I didn't knew that.
Yeah. Originally from China, from Shanghai, but in Taiwan we have our version. They're
thin skin and boba tea is very popular and also guabao.
What is boba tea?
Boba tea, bubble tea.
Ah, bubble tea, of course.
Yeah.
Yes, yes, yes.
Yeah. Bubble tea also called boba tea. So it's from Taiwan.
Ah, I didn't knew that as well.
Yeah. So that you can refer to our tea culture. It's very like, it's everywhere. So from
authentic gongfu tea, which is a very good tea too. Like every day you can see like tea
stand of boba. This is also one part of Tony's culture. And street food, it's so many. We
have bunch of night markets and there are street foods called pork rice, braised pork rice,
beef noodles, the pork blood cake, stinky tofu.
Ah, stinky tofu I've tried. Yeah. That's nice.
Yeah. Stinky tofu and all kinds of street foods that you can see the influence of Chinese
and Japanese culture. I'm going to give you some examples. For example, sushi. It's very
interesting that there's kind of way of prepping sushi here in Taiwan, but you couldn't even
find it in Japan. We usually put a lot of ingredients from the locals, right? So we
put meat floss, for example, in the sushi.
So there is like a, how to say, Taiwan has its own sushi culture.
Yes. I would say Taiwanese, Japanese, a Taiwan version Japanese food culture.
Okay. Yeah. Because you have the same thing in Peru, for instance, like a Japanese Peruvian
thing.
And we do have many of those kinds of Japanese influence food that you can only find in Taiwan.
And also I like the way of saying, instead of saying Taiwan is a melting pot, you can
describe it as Taiwan's spicy hot pot. Have you heard of the hot pot? It's divided in
two. Yeah. To kind of broth. Yeah. Because we are mainly influenced from Chinese food
culture and Japanese food culture because we were occupied by Japan for about 50 years.
And before that, there are also different East coast of Chinese migrants come to Taiwan.
So we also have Hoklo and Hakka kind of Chinese culture.
These are groups of people of Chinese. The ones you mentioned, Hokko and Hakka.
Hokko and Hakka. And the way of their cooking, their food is very different. Hokko food
is more like light soup and seafood, this kind of flavor. And Hakka food is more strong,
saltier, a lot of fermentation, a lot of conserved food preparation techniques. So we do have
a lot of these kind of mixtures. And after the World War II, the Western culture come
to Taiwan. So we do have a lot of American influences as well. So we do have like a bunch
of burger shops, which is called Mayor Mei. That's very popular in Taiwan. It's a kind
of breakfast shop you can find basically everywhere. Okay. But what is it exactly? Burger for breakfast.
The burger is only one part of the menu. There are like 20 different variations of breakfast
options, but you can see like sandwiches, hamburgers, but these are all Taiwanese flavors
with mayo, tomato sauce, but can taste definitely different from American version of burger.
No, absolutely. I was recently in Singapore. It was my first trip to Asia and I would see
the burger restaurants and I was like, okay, this is like a super Asian adaptation of burgers,
you know, with, yeah, I don't know, fermented spicy sauces or these kinds of things. Yeah.
But I think it's pretty cool though, those mixtures. There are also many steak houses,
but it's variation of different kinds of price ranges, range from $5 for a steak to $200
for a steak. So it's like huge here. You can see the mixture of it. So it's from Western,
but it's cooked on the iron plate. It's more like Japanese style, right? Teppanyaki kind
of cooking. Yes, but on top of the steak, we'll put some noodles, which is like noodles
and sunny side up eggs and the sauce of mushroom. So which is like, you can find like many different
kinds of combinations in one dish. This is like super fusion. This is like a street food
dish. What did you just describe? Yes, you can find on in a night market. Okay. What's
the name of this one? The steak. It's iron steak. Okay. Yeah. The other thing I wanted
to ask you, I got really enthusiastic about tea recently and every time when I talk with
tea experts, they always put Taiwan on the top three. They talk, yeah, Japan, China and
Taiwan has a very special place in the tea world. Why is that? And what has Taiwanese
tea different from others? I understand it's also a mixture of Chinese and Japanese, right?
Yeah, definitely. But, um, be honest, I'm not a master of tea person. So I would say
for, for myself, my personal experience drinking teas, like drinking water, like very, very
common beverage that we drink every day. I have a glass of tea right now with me and
you can see all kinds of different bottle tea and of course different regions. I think
the geography of Taiwan, cause we have mountains and we are very geometrically or climate friendly
for tea growing and also the development techniques. It's from like hundreds of years of developing.
Is there like a, I don't know, like a famous Taiwanese tea, like a type specific or a place
that is worth visiting or something like that? There are six main regions of tea growing areas
and they are basically around different kinds of mountains. So Taiwan is not big, it's an
island, right? But we do have many mountains. So there are teas from Alishan, which is like
very, very high class tea. Sanlinxi, Lishan, Lugu, Dongding, Oolongcha. There are so many
different kinds of variations of tea that you can find basically in different regions.
Good. Now that we have all this background, let's talk about your book. It's kind of like
a guide for people to find places. How would you present your book?
Okay. Let me show you the book. It's an illustration book that introducing 200 different kinds
of Taiwanese street food stalls all around Taiwan. Cause there are so many street foods
and the regional variations are quite different. So I decided to work on this book since the
COVID-19 start. I couldn't travel anymore and for myself finally have time to deeply
go into Taiwan in different cities. Nice.
Yeah. Cause for myself, even for myself, I'm from Taiwan, I don't know the differences
of different places, regional food differences. And I really take time. I take three years
to work on this. Oh nice.
To actually go to visit local friends and eat the food that they recommend me. So it's
really from the locals recommendations. What is it with the book and numbers exactly?
You documented 200 stalls and how many regions all over the country?
All over the country. Covered the 16 different cities. So it's from Taipei to like all around
Taiwan.
Oh, wow. What a wonderful project to visit 16 cities and find their best street food
places in each one. That's something I want to do.
Yeah. I'll definitely show you around. Cause the reason why I start on this book is I want
to show this to friends. I want to learn first and I have some places to bring you around.
And this is something I have to definitely start. So I didn't know that's such a big
project. I was expected maybe one year I can finish like traveling. And then when I start
traveling, I feel it's so many, so many different nations and different kinds of food that you
can find. Hard to find in Taipei. Taipei is a capital, right? But you can already find
many kinds of street foods from all around Taiwan because people come to Taipei for living.
They start their restaurants and stalls, but there are still many different street foods
that you can only find in certain regions because of the, maybe the ingredients and
the way of cooking and the way of tasting differently.
What do you show from each stall? Like just the dish, also the stall. Do you tell a story
of the place? Do you describe the best dish? How is exactly the each stall in your book?
Actually every single restaurant, I definitely taste it. So it's a personal experience of
documenting the feeling and the texture and how the food tastes like. But the majority
part is my personal experience by discovering Taiwan culture by eating. So this is basically
not just a where to go eat guide. It's more like informing an idea of what is Taiwanese
food about, what is Taiwanese street food about. Because when we go to night market
or when you search online, there are definitely like 10 street food must to eat in Taiwan.
But there are not just 10. For me it's like after digging in, there are like hundreds
of different variations. I believe in your country, there must be so many regional food,
right?
No, of course. And in all of the countries that I live, of course, there is like an idea
of a standard dish and there are millions of variation. Everyone has its own secret.
Everyone recognizes a dish that it is the thing, but you know, everyone has its own
touch. That's the thing. I think that's what gastronomy is about.
Yes. And also it's memory connections with friends. So yeah, it's a mixture of both
like personal experience and also like the illustrations of documenting like an illustration
book.
What is your process when you illustrate a place or a dish? Do you do it by memory?
Do you take a picture and then use it as a guide? Do you do it before, afterwards, while
you're eating? I don't know. How is it?
Usually when I'm traveling, I usually draw on the dining table because it's a fast sketch.
When I eat it, I just document it right away. So I will bring the material that it's easy
to travel with, which is just a notebook, but with scratch paper and also with color
pencil because color pencil is so easy to bring with you. And it's, let me show you
something more like this techniques.
That's part of the book. Okay. I can see it. So it's the text and the illustrations merge.
And yeah, it really feels like a, like a diary, like a travel diary with illustration. Super
nice.
This page is talking about tea culture in certain area in Miao Li. Miao Li is center
of Taiwan. And this is three kinds of tea. Lei Cha and this is the Oriental beauty tea
is also oriented from this area. And this is called Suan Gan Cha. It's a tea made inside
of this kind of orange and you dry it and ferment it for a while. It becomes this color
and then you pour into the hot water. It becomes like this kind of orange flavored tea. So
this is a very special tea that from that region.
It's also a very good example of how your storytelling works because there you illustrated
like a fermentation process, like the evolution of the product from one state and one color
to the other, all in the same time. It's kind of like an infographic, like the whole book.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. And for this kind of tea, Lei Cha, it's interesting. It's
more similar to Mo Cha, Matcha tea in Japan, I think. The same technique, but totally different
ingredients. Just inside there are tea leaves and also all different kinds of nuts. They
are like different nuts. So you ground it and then you pour tea inside. Then become
like more like a soup dessert kind of tea. Tea dessert. Super nice. Yeah. And you can
have DIY. They have like experience place for people to work on this pace. It's very,
very difficult for me. It takes about half an hour to grind those nuts before you actually
eat it.
Do you have like any special, like a special story to share during your trips across all
the cities and all these stalls?
Yeah, definitely. I feel amazed by how different it could be for one single dish in different
cities and different regions of ways of prepping. There's a street food called Ba Wan in Taiwan.
I think Ba Wan is one of the most underestimated street food.
What is it?
It's a meatballs. It's a shape of meatballs, but covered in, it was made in sweet potato
starch and filled with meat, pork meat. And sometimes there are bamboo shoots inside and
in different regions, they might have a little different of the ingredients. But in different
part of Taiwan, they are steamed Ba Wan, they are deep fried Ba Wan, they are like hand
fried. So it makes it all different kinds of flavor.
Yeah. You will see the same, for instance, here in Spain, you have like the potato omelet,
you know, like the tortilla, the Spanish omelet. And wherever you go, they will do it different
sizes, shapes. Some people add onions, some nuts, some people add pepper, some people
add some yolk to the mixture. You know, some people fry the potatoes really dark, some
people just poach them. You know, there are like millions of variations, but everybody
recognize as a tortilla if you see one, you know.
I think I tried that. Yeah, but only the one kind. I didn't try the variations. So this
is the Ba Wan, the meatballs look like. It's like a sticky slimy texture, kind of, I don't
know how to describe it. It's covered with this potato made starch. And inside it's meat
and bamboo shoots. But on top of the meatballs, we also use different kinds of sauce to make
it different. So in different region, the sauce are quite different. Like this is the
way of making it in like a small plate and put the starch and then put the bamboo shoots
and meat and cover. And then after they steam it, they fry it. Oh wow, that's super nice.
Yeah. And put on the sauce. And this is a variation in the center of Taiwan, Puli. The
way of they serving, they put a pot of broth on the table for you to pour into the bowls
after you finish eating. This is more like a Tian Bu La, like Japanese, kind of, you
know, when you finish eating and there's a little bit of sauce, sweet sauce, and you
pour the soup and drink with it. So I think that's something very special kind of Taiwanese
food. You probably couldn't find it anywhere else.
How was the process of publishing the book? Did you self-publish? You went to publisher?
How was this experience?
Yeah. I worked with a publisher since they know I've been working on food illustrations
and documenting food cultures all around different cities. And we were definitely coming to an
idea how to, how about creating this book that talk more details about Taiwanese street
foods. So that's, that was a common idea. And then I start to work on this process and
I was planning on finishing in one year and took me three and a half years. So I just
published last December. And yeah, I think it's a starting point for myself to learn
more and deeper about Taiwanese cuisine. And this is something I think is interesting because
the culture is always changing because of the migrants. So for instance, after the 1990s,
there are more and more Southeast Asian migrants also moved to Taiwan to work. So there are
Thai influences, Filipinos kind of food and Vietnamese food that are mixtures more and
more and making Taiwanese more variations. Yeah. And this is like an ongoing process.
And this, this migrants, you find them also in street food stalls or do they open their
own restaurants or both things?
Yes, they are. They opened their restaurants definitely, but you can also find like mixtures
of the dishes. There's one dish called it's a bento, you know, Japanese bento, bento shop,
but they sell Thai version of fried chicken on the bento. Oh, nice. And this dish are,
you can find many, many bento shop, but if you go to Thailand, there's not such a thing.
Just a new Thai food in Taiwan. And I think it's so funny.
That happens a lot with migration because you have to adapt to the local customers,
right? So you need to do adaptation. That's a, I learned a lot about Chinese food in the
States, how the whole adaptation and creating the concept of dim sum just to, to make it
more popular for, for American audiences. And this was exported to many other countries.
So it's quite interesting to understand these kinds of things. I also have worked like in
Spanish restaurants in Germany and you cook their Spanish food that you want to find in
Spain.
So it happens everywhere, right?
Yeah, of course. Yeah. I think it's something natural. Yeah.
Yeah. Because of the globalizations kind of merging to new shape.
Yeah. Or cultural adaptation. Like the same thing you said that you have like a very specific
type of sushi. That's kind of like the same thing, right?
Yeah. And there's also a very famous restaurant called Bao in London. Have you heard B-A-O?
Not really. It's a, it's a Taiwanese street food. They sell the Gua Bao, which is the
steam version sandwich.
Ah, yes. Of course. I know it. Yeah. Right. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I follow them. So this kind
of sandwich is Taiwanese street food and it's very like easy, easy going. Like you can take,
grab and go the shape is like this, right?
And how do you call it in Taiwan? Also Bao?
Gua Bao.
Gua Bao. Okay. Gua Bao. Yeah. It's, it's like a pocket.
And you just fill with pork belly, braised pork belly and cilantro, peanut powder, pickled
radish. These are the main ingredients and the most traditional way of making this sandwich.
However, when they open a new restaurants in different city, we also make variations
in different kinds of flavors to make it more like welcoming in other countries. So it's,
it's quite interesting for us to see cause we don't see these kinds of variations in
Taiwan.
Yeah. That's also interesting. Like when a food culture reinvent itself outside of the
country and then they bring that back to the country.
Yeah. And then we would feel like, wow, modern Bao. It's something that becoming popular
right now. And I also got a client it's from Portugal. Actually they contact me, say they
are going to open a Bao restaurant also because they love Taiwanese food. They want to open
this Bao restaurants in Portugal. So I was working on the illustrations menu for them.
The other thing I wanted to ask you is if, for instance, me, I I've never been to Taiwan.
If I travel there and you have to say me, you have to try five things. These five things
are musts that you can't leave without trying them. What would you tell me?
Wow. Do you eat spicy food?
Yes. I love it.
You love spicy food? Wow. I think five.
And also strong, strong aromas like stinky tofu and these kinds of things I really like
as well.
I will say you have to eat five different kinds of food a day and you have to stay at
least 10 days.
For instance, if you go to night market, you can just eat every stop, every stops, you
know. So it's definitely not enough for you to try only five. But I would say, um, if
you want to see the whole pictures of Taiwanese food culture, maybe try a little bit of Taiwan
flavored Japanese food. It's one and maybe try some kind of variation that I mentioned
like the Thai version of Taiwanese bento and the mixtures of all kinds of this variations.
But definitely street foods. I think there are at least 10s, 20s, different kinds of
things to try and definitely don't just stay in Taipei because Taipei is the capital, but
outside of Taipei, there are also a lot of things to see.
What places do you recommend food wise outside of Taipei, like cities or regions?
Okay, let me show you. This is the map of Taiwan, right? And the Taipei here, I would
recommend Jiayi. Jiayi is in the south.
Southwest.
Yes. And Jiayi has a lot of interesting food that is hard to find in Taipei. There's a
kind of cold noodle, but with the mayo sauce. And this is only you can find in this area.
And they also have like turkey rice and the fish head soup. There's also Netflix episodes
talk about Taiwanese food. I can send you the link to see they, they introduced Jiayi
this area quite well.
Okay. Super nice.
And if you want to see more differences, go to the East coast. There are a lot of indigenous
kind of food culture. There are 16 different tribes in Taiwan, the indigenous tribes. So
for their food culture is more like scavenger and more like hunting and wild ingredients.
So it's also very interesting on the East coast.
What about the mountains?
Like here, this is a very high, the tallest mountain in Taiwan, the Yushan mountain area.
So in this region you can buy like very good cabbage and there are so many fresh ingredients
that were made into dishes like bamboo shoots, crusades, mushroom crusades, and also tea.
This is the tea farm.
Ah, nice.
All different kinds of region. There are six different huge mountains areas that you can
find very good tea. Yeah. So many things to see. Don't just stay one week. If you want
to discover food in Taiwan, I recommend like stay a little bit longer before your belly
will explode.
That's it for this week's episode of potluck food talks. If you like what we're doing,
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