For Eddy Gonzalez, eating in Taiwan isn’t much different than eating in Mexico. “Everybody eats at the stand … . A lot of good food is at the stands,” he says.
And so he thought: why not open a Mexican food stand in his neighborhood in Tamsui?
Located in the night market outside of Tamsui MRT Station (淡水捷運站), commonly referred to as the Old Street area (淡水老街), Eddy Burrito serves one of the best burritos I’ve had in Taiwan.
PHOTO: DAVID CHEN, TAIPEI TIMES
“I want to give customers in Taiwan the real taste, the taste I grew up with,” says the Canadian-born Gonzalez, whose parents are Mexican immigrants.
The Eddy Burrito stand is the standard night market set-up: a metal cart with a sign on top, with three plastic stools in front for patrons. But Gonzalez adds a personal touch with a Mexican flag draped behind the stand and recorded Mariachi music playing in the background.
The menu is simple: burritos (NT$79) and quesadillas (NT$59), which are filled with cheese, refried beans, Mexican-style rice, grilled chicken, and two different chili sauces (optional). Everything is made from scratch — Gonzalez and his wife, Jo Gonzalez (曾佩玉), spend each morning preparing the ingredients. The tortilla is cooked on an iron griddle as soon as you order.
It’s hard not to appreciate that everything is homemade, especially the tortillas, which had just the right consistency — soft and chewy. They were also thick enough to hold the filling, which prevented things getting too messy. My first burrito was a little dry, but I remedied this on my second visit by ordering extra cheese (NT$6) and “Eddy’s green sauce,” a combination of salsa, guacamole and olive oil.
The portions are on the smaller side, so for a full meal order a burrito and quesadilla, or two burritos if you’re really hungry. Vegetarians can order either item without the chicken, with grilled onions and extra refried beans as a substitute.
A couple of other things on my wish list: guacamole and sour cream. Perhaps when they expand. Business has been good, and the Gonzalezes are considering starting a restaurant in the Tamsui area.
For dessert, try the sopapilla (NT$25), which is a tortilla cooked with butter and sugar, and horchata (NT$35), a milky drink made of rice, cinnamon and vanilla. Horchata also goes well with the meal, especially if you’ve added a lot of Eddy’s chile rojo, a very spicy red chili sauce, also homemade.
The trip to Tamsui is well worth it for Mexican food fanatics, but if you’re wary of night market crowds, avoid the weekends. Not in the Taipei area? Eddy can deliver burritos anywhere in Taiwan within 24 hours through 7-Eleven’s “freeze-and-deliver” service. Shipping costs NT$150 for up to 20 burritos.
The stand is a seven-minute walk from the MRT Station. After exiting the station, find the nearest Starbucks and walk up the adjacent night market street half a block; it will be on your right. Alternatively, listen for the Mexican music.
Dissident artist Ai Weiwei’s (艾未未) famous return to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been overshadowed by the astonishing news of the latest arrests of senior military figures for “corruption,” but it is an interesting piece of news in its own right, though more for what Ai does not understand than for what he does. Ai simply lacks the reflective understanding that the loneliness and isolation he imagines are “European” are simply the joys of life as an expat. That goes both ways: “I love Taiwan!” say many still wet-behind-the-ears expats here, not realizing what they love is being an
William Liu (劉家君) moved to Kaohsiung from Nantou to live with his boyfriend Reg Hong (洪嘉佑). “In Nantou, people do not support gay rights at all and never even talk about it. Living here made me optimistic and made me realize how much I can express myself,” Liu tells the Taipei Times. Hong and his friend Cony Hsieh (謝昀希) are both active in several LGBT groups and organizations in Kaohsiung. They were among the people behind the city’s 16th Pride event in November last year, which gathered over 35,000 people. Along with others, they clearly see Kaohsiung as the nexus of LGBT rights.
In the American west, “it is said, water flows upwards towards money,” wrote Marc Reisner in one of the most compelling books on public policy ever written, Cadillac Desert. As Americans failed to overcome the West’s water scarcity with hard work and private capital, the Federal government came to the rescue. As Reisner describes: “the American West quietly became the first and most durable example of the modern welfare state.” In Taiwan, the money toward which water flows upwards is the high tech industry, particularly the chip powerhouse Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). Typically articles on TSMC’s water demand
Every now and then, even hardcore hikers like to sleep in, leave the heavy gear at home and just enjoy a relaxed half-day stroll in the mountains: no cold, no steep uphills, no pressure to walk a certain distance in a day. In the winter, the mild climate and lower elevations of the forests in Taiwan’s far south offer a number of easy escapes like this. A prime example is the river above Mudan Reservoir (牡丹水庫): with shallow water, gentle current, abundant wildlife and a complete lack of tourists, this walk is accessible to nearly everyone but still feels quite remote.
RSS