Hakka Cuisine

Mouthwatering specialties and aromatic entrees prepared using the finest, freshest, in-season ingredients grown locally; food so good gourmands can never get enough.

With its heavy Hakka concentration, the cooking style is largely Hakkanese - salty, fatty and distinctively aromatic. The many Hakkanese pastries, snacks and pickled vegetables as well as dishes made with farm products are excellent food choices visitors must try.

Hakkanese Snacks

Hakkanese specialties such as slow-cooked pork soup, crystal dumplings, ban-tiao (flat rice-noodles), leicha (grounded tea) and mochi (sticky rice balls with filling) are must tries.

Hakkanese Dishes

Hakkanese dishes are mainly boiled, stir-fried, crispy-fried or braised. The must-tries are four braised dishes and four stir-fried dishes. The braised dishes (pot stews) are braised pork tripe with pickled cabbage, braised turnip with pork, braised pork, and braised dried bamboo shoots. The four stirred ones are stir-fried pig intestine, Hakkanese stir-fry, stir-fried celery with tofu skin, and stir-fried pineapples, mushroom with pig lungs.

Cooking with Red Dates

Gongguan Township is the only township dedicated to growing red dates in Taiwan, a crop that is inexpensive but highly nutritious with medicinal properties. Many places do cooking with red dates, from red date rice to red date chicken soup to red date ice cream.

Local Seafood

There is nothing better than eating seafood at the port where they are caught! Jhunan’s Longfeng Port is known for squids, mullets, snappers and hamachis. Waipu Fishing Port is the place for white croaker and bonito. Yuanli Port is for crabs and yadai fish, to name just a few.

Strawberry Cuisine

Dahu Township is famous for its strawberries. Many local restaurants offer these fresh sweet fruits in forms of pastries and ice, as well as in creative meals such as strawberry chicken with lemongrass, strawberry sausage, strawberry pasta, strawberry shrimp balls, etc., dishes so good and so fresh you'll never get enough.

Creative Fruit Cuisine

Jhuolan Township and Dahu Township, Sanwan Township are not only packed with pick-yourself fruit orchards, they offer the best cooking with fruits too, such as beef stew with fresh pears, fried tomato and cheese dumplings in honey and Osmanthus sauce, chicken drumstick in citrus sauce, and pear chicken roll.

Tea Cuisine

Sanwan Township infuses Oolong and Oriental Beauty and Green tea brews directly into Hakkanese courses such as chicken in tea aspic, cakes and rice balls. The aroma of tea bursts in your mouth with every bite and leaves you with a refreshing clean finish.

Charcoal Cuisine

Zaoqiao Township, where charcoal was once its main industry, has originated stunning arrays of yummy dishes cooked using charcoal, such as charcoal egg rolls, charcoal buns, charcoal noodles, charcoal coffee, charcoal pumpkin, and charcoal ox tongue-shaped biscuits.