Taipei restaurants can be clean. They can also be dirty. The food in Taipei can be delicious. But it can also give you explosive diarrhea. The best combination is when the restaurant is clean and the food is delicious. But in special cases, dirty restaurants can produce brilliantly delicious food. This food may or may not give you explosive diarrhea, but most times you have an hour or two to find that out.
I'm giving you this introduction to the Taipei eating scene because yesterday I had lunch with my mum at a place I haven't eaten at in a few years. It's a wonton and noodle stand that is extremely delicious and brilliantly cheap. But unfortunately, it is located in the underground level of an old mall, right next to smelly public toilets. People go to that corner of the mall to line up for the delicious wontons. Or they go to take a leak.
When I lived and worked in Taipei from 2005-06, I used to eat wontons and noodles at this place all the time. I'd go by myself or with friends, sit on a plastic stool, rub shoulders and clang chopsticks with other spicy wonton lovers. Sometimes my seat would be the one closest to the smelly public toilets but I didn't think twice about it. I figured if no one else was put off by the smelly toilets, then it must be okay. Maybe it was the price I had to pay for enjoying the delicious wontons. Or perhaps it was the germ-karma of having very high levels of hygiene in every other area of my life.
When I think about it now -- as someone with self-diagnosed progressive obsessive compulsive disorder related to cleanliness -- I can feel a little lump in my throat that's probably vomit.
So my mum decided we should visit the wonton stand for lunch yesterday. I was apprehensive at first (very, very apprehensive) but then excited because those wontons and noodles really are freaking delicious. They are wontons to dream about. Noodles to demand as your final meal on earth.
But it all turned out okay. We went before the lunch crowd had arrived and sat on the side furthest away from the toilets. We couldn't even see them! It was like they weren't even there. And the wontons were sublime. The noodles were perfect. I took these photos because I was so happy.
As I was enjoying the wontons, I thought about a column I read in the Sydney Morning Herald during the Beijing Olympics that said just about the funniest thing I've read this year: "These games have hardly begun and China have already served up a steaming bowl of pain noodles with a side order of humiliation wontons to the US of A..."
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