Taiwanese Lunch Truck in Manhattan

Leo was so excited one day after work because he discovered a Taiwanese lunch truck that will be coming near his office in Midtown. The lunch truck sells fried chicken legs, fried pork, Tempra (fried fish cake) box. The box comes with rice, meat sauce, pickles cabbage with an option of tea leaf egg. I immediately told him that I will be joining him for lunch when the truck comes.

The line was pretty long when we got to the truck stop and majority of them are Taiwanese or ABT (American Born Taiwanese). I was so excited to see fellow Taiwanese people getting together to have an authentic Taiwanese food. Fried chicken legs and fried pork were what I used to have when I was back home in Taipei. What is special of the Taiwanese style is that the batter is not thick, maybe just a thin dust of flour (no egg). Once it is fried, it is sprinkled with a lot of five spiced powder. The tea leaf egg that the truck is selling is actually soy sauce egg which is cooked in the meat sauce not with the tea leaf bag.

It is pretty common to find Tea Leaf Eggs in the convenience stores such as 7-Eleven in Taiwan. The eggs are first boiled in the water, then once 70% cooked, the shells are cracked so that when the eggs cooked the 2nd time in the spiced sauce (with leafs, I think, you can buy this spice bag in the traditional herb medicine store), the egg would have spiced flavor.

But it really does not matter!! this lunch box takes me back to Taiwan. The lightly salted sour cabbage and the meat sauce with the meat. Yummy....