Taiwanese cuisine that features “mind-healing power” will be presented in Japan to strengthen relations between the two sides and boost Japanese tourist visits to Taiwan, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday.
The bureau said it would showcase Taiwanese gourmet food in Tokyo next Friday, when about 100 people can take a bite of dishes designed to “symbolize all the tastes of life.”
“The dishes combining both Taiwanese and Japanese ingredients symbolize our close friendship,” Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General Chang Shi-chung (張錫聰) said.
One of the featured dishes, called “Zen,” will combine Japanese ayu [a fish] and Taiwanese pickled cabbage and carefully wrap them in paper and tie them together with a cotton string.
The patience required before the dish is eaten symbolizes the twists and turns before a harvest, the dish’s creator said.
Chen Chao-lin (陳兆麟), leader of the winning team in the 2010 Domestic Culinary Contest, said he would prepare 10 different dishes, with each of them describing a kind of emotion in life.
“Life is a table of different dishes,” he said. “I think the food will resonate with Japanese people and lead them to ponder some of life’s meanings.”
Chang said he hoped the display of delicacies would serve as an incentive for Japanese tourists to visit Taiwan.
Many Japanese chose to travel to Taiwan last year to thank the country for its humanitarian efforts after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and Chang said the bureau was trying to maintain the momentum by introducing new promotions.
According to the bureau, nearly 1.3 million Japanese traveled to Taiwan for pleasure last year, a 20 percent increase from the previous year.
The bureau hopes that by 2015, travel exchanges between the two countries will reach 3 million tourists a year, up from 2.3 million.
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