Tainan has a few items of cuisine that you cannot find elsewhere in Taiwan, such as Tainan-style Mi-kao (
Rice cakes in Tainan don't look like cakes, they are more like a bowl of rice topped with plenty of side dishes, including stewed meat sauce, stewed mushrooms, boiled peanuts, dried fish and slices of white radish. Rong-sheng's rice cakes embody the traditions of Tainan dishes -- small but delicate and with rich ingredients.
PHOTO: YU SEN-LUN, TAIPEI TIMES
Last year, when President Chen Shui-bian (
Rice and meat sauce are two essential items in Rong-sheng's rice cakes (NT$30). Starting from the Japanese era, the Kuo family selected high quality glutinous rice, first soaked it in water for two hours and then steamed it until it turned soft and sticky. As for the meat sauce, "You have to sautee the meat with scallions and garlic shreds, cool it down for two days so the meat softens and then stew it with soy sauce for at least two hours," said second-generation owner Kuo Tien-shun (
Experienced customers at Rong-sheng commonly use their chopsticks to repeatedly stir and mix the meat sauce and ingredients with the rice, so the rice fully absorbs the sauce. They then take a big bite of the rice. The stewed mushrooms taste extra rich and have a soy sauce fragrance, another plus to the rice.
"I've been coming here to eat since I was 10. The taste here is very rich and smooth and you never get tired of it," said a a 30-year-old graduate school student who gave his surname as Lin.
To accompany the rice there are fish ball and meat ball soups to choose from (NT$20). All meat balls here are home made and no preservatives are added. A bowl of rice cake plus a bowl of soup costs just NT$50. And starting last year, Rong-sheng began its rice cake nationwide home-delivery service.
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