A Week in HengChun (A Mini-Culinary Review)

Vietnamese soup noodles, stir-fried veggies, and a Jenny-Monster

After one of the more trying days of Jenny's scuba class, we decided to cycle into town (Hengchun) to grab a bite to eat.  Unfortunately, we arrived a little too late to patron one of the town's many vegetarian restaurants (they start closing up around 7:30!), so when Jenny spotted a small Vietnamese restaurant on the side of the main road, we were a little dubious that they would be able to make us anything vegetarian since most Vietnamese restaurants use pork broth (高湯） for their noodles.  Unfortunately, pork is actually the hardest meat for humans to digest (just in case you need to know for a trivia night), so vegetarians have an especially hard time consuming it or anything cooked with pork products, like lard (we lack the enzymes to digest it, so it can even lead to vomiting- so much fun).

That said, we were genuinely excited when the boss told us that they didn't use pork broth for their noodles.  Even though they used chicken broth, which still isn't vegetarian, the chicken broth wouldn't make us sick, and honestly, we're all for less waste since they use the bones and chicken scraps to make the broth (so, our motto is actually something like, 'if it had to die for consumption, we'd better eat the whole damn thing and waste nothing').  Win-win. 

The boss was even able to stir-fry up some veggies (water spinach- 空心菜, kongxincai) that were totally vegetarian and totally delicious!  The soup noodle was a basic lamian noodle with fried shallot, spring onion, and cilantro, and each table had a small box of kumquat fruit (small citrus fruit like a lime) we squeezed into the broth to give it a kick.  The taste was absolutely wonderful- the fried shallot added a really rich flavor while the cilantro and kumquat gave it a really fresh kick.  Jenny then added some spicy chili paste, which she said was quite good (but I almost never try because it's just too spicy!).  I thought this meal was one of the best we had while we were in Hengchun- it was simple, but incredibly fresh and delicious.

The restaurant has a large red sign, is on the left hand side, and is the first one you'll see if you're coming into Hengchun from the main road (coming south from Kenting and traveling north through Hengchun.  The business card reads 簡太郎，but unfortunately the rest of the business card is in Vietnamese, and I can't type in Vietnamese (I'll work on that though).

After our amazing dinner, we were craving something substantial, sweet and local, so douhua (豆花) immediately sprang to mind.  Douhua is a Taiwanese specialty that can be found across the Chinese cultural area, including Malaysia and Singapore; it's a soy product, sort of like silken tofu or pudding, to which they add a sweet brown sugar syrup and your choice of toppings.  It can be served hot or cold, so it's an all year dessert, although usually people eat it as a snack, popping into a small Douhua Shop or 豆花店 to nibble as they chat with friends.  It's sort of like the Taiwanese equivalent of afternoon tea (that can be eaten well after midnight!).

A two minute bike ride down the road, we found a cute little shop where they make their own douhua the traditional way- we were especially impressed by how soft and fluffy this shop's douhua was.  If you look really carefully at the photos, you can see the little air bubbles in the slivers of douhua.  By far the best douhua I've had in a long time- the beans were sweet and firm, rather than smooshy, like most shops who buy pre-made bean pastes, and it was sweet, but not too sweet.  It was so good, in fact, that when we arrived we ordered one bowl of red bean (紅豆 hongdou) douhua and finished it so quickly that we had to order another round of green bean (綠豆 ludou) douhua!

If you're in Hengchun, I definitely recommend this little shop.  The douhua is great and the shop owner serves it with a smile!

PS- If you find that you like douhua/豆花,  look for the 綠豆湯 ludoutang sign- the sign reads 'Green Bean Soup (a sweet green bean congee)," but almost every one of these "soup" shops will have douhua.