The tasty tradition of Taiwan’s midnight meals

While most countries only have three meals a day, Taiwan worships food so much that there’s a fourth and final meal: the midnight snack, or ‘xiaoye’ in Chinese.

BBC News
Date: 13 December 2018
By: Leslie Nguyen-Okwu
It was dark and sopping wet at the Ningxia Night Market in Taipei, Taiwan. Yet even as the rain continued to seep into my socks, the narrow alleys were still jam-packed with people, elbow to elbow.

All we do is eat
They were jostling to place their order at Li Zhang Bo, a small stinky tofu stall run by Yiwen Wang and Qirong Li, Taiwan’s self-described queen and king of stink. Their signature dish – deep-fried fermented tofu on a bed of pickled vegetables – would make even the most pungent locker room smell like roses. But still, the line of loyal customers threaded around the block, stretching as far as the nose-wrinkling odour wafted into the world beyond. The secret to their success? Here, in Taiwan, it is “socially acceptable” to go hunting for stinky tofu in the middle of the night, said Wang.

Welcome to a foodie’s final resting place.    [FULL  STORY]