Food

dedsall78
September 23, 2009, 07:11 PM posted in General Discussion

Alright, so I really want to learn how to read menus here in Taipei and actually know what the food actually is.  In Beijing, most menus either had pictures or had English as well... so I got pretty lazy with the menu reading.

Anyone know where I can find listings of what some of this food actually is?  There are a lot of street vendors in my area and I have no idea what they are selling.

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matthewjust
September 30, 2009, 06:21 AM

I think the easiest way to begin is memorizing the key characters for meats (beef 牛肉, chicken 雞肉, lamb 羊肉, pork 豬肉, fish 魚) and types of dishes (rice 飯, noodles 麵, soup 湯).

 

After that, perhaps learn some food styles e.g. fried 炸, curry 咖 喱...

 

I don't know if you have ever used the Audio Visual Chinese textbook series (available mainly in Taiwan), but book 3 has a chapter on food.

 

I'd also be interested to know if there is a good online resource on this.

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dedsall78
October 16, 2009, 04:09 AM

I guess I should have been a little more specific :)

Even though I'm still learning traditional characters, I can read the main things regarding a dish as you are stating.  However, at times, I have translated something just to find that I still have no idea what it actually is (except that it might contain some sort of fish or meat).

Of course, I could ask questions but I was hoping to find a listing of popular types of dishes and what they actually are.  I had a similar type of list when I was in Beijing but I don't have that with me at the moment.

Thanks for your input on the Audio Visual series, I may look into that.

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stevec
October 22, 2009, 03:13 PM

Hi dedsall78,

Welcome to Taiwan. Perhaps this will help?

http://felicialivingbristrot.blogspot.com/2008/09/traditional-taiwanese-foodsnack.html

Steve

 

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dedsall78
October 26, 2009, 04:00 AM

Steve,

Perfect!  That's exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.  Thanks.

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stevec
October 26, 2009, 02:41 PM

不客氣