We live in bubbles. We all have our communities where we hang out and feel comfortable. In Taipei, Linsen North Road has traditionally been the Japanese community, the Filipino community on Zhongshan North Road near to the wedding shops, the Burmese in Nanshijiao and possibly the friendliest gay community I’ve ever come across (oo-er missus) is located in Ximending. Until today, I had no idea that the Latin American community is centered around the Yongan Market MRT area. Of course I knew there were Latin people here, I’ve had several students from Honduras, Mexico, Brazil and a few others I can’t remember now, but never knew there was a central hub.
I was flying solo today and taking a bit of a rest between the slow move from my tumbledown shack in Xindian, to my exclusive new bolt hole also in Xindian, where the Bao family fear we are bringing the tone of the area down.
Transporting my huge collection of horse brasses and Americana has been monotonous work, so a hop across the border to Yonghe’s Hola Caribbean Kitchen was just what the doctor ordered. This dear reader is how I found the community existed.
Taiwan has a dwindling number of diplomatic ties at the time of writing, having lost quite a few in the last couple of years to those pesky fellows over the strait. I’d been hoping to find at least ONE restaurant that covered the cuisine of her allies, but alas I’d so far only been able to find single dishes in random places.
As the name suggests the place has Latin cuisine, and (currently) five of the 17 countries with relations are Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, Paraguay and Nicaragua. Since 2017, we’ve lost Panama, Dominican Republic and El Salvador in the region. So I came to this place as a kind of pick and mix of Latin food, and tried my best to limit it to one place where possible. I’d already had Venezuelan, and Mexican and Peruvian will also feature soon-ish on this list, so there went nothing.
The place itself is quite small, nice feeling to it and it being Wednesday lunchtime, I was the only person there. The owner greeted me and turned out to be pretty fascinating. He is Taiwanese but spent a lot of his working life in Central/ South America. He has amazingly good English, but it took me a few seconds to compute because he also has the Taiwanese accent as well as a Latin twang when speaking English. You know the one I mean, where to native speakers of English when you hear Latin Americans speak English it sort of sounds like they are permanently confused.
Anyway, I posed this question to, now he did tell me his name, but I forgot it straight away because he said it too fast and I didn’t want to be rude and ask again. It was a case of “My name is <woooosh>.I asked him why there are no specifically, say, Honduran restaurants and he told me that because all Latin food is pretty similar and the people over there don’t really care that much. I ordered sancocho which was done in the Puerto Rican style, across Latin America it is served with chicken but in Puerto Rico it is served with beef. As you can see from the photo, it is not too intimidating, stewed beef with rice and a few veg. I enjoyed it and he said it is pretty popular with Taiwanese customers because it does look like something they’d eat. He has run the place for about six years and said he has changed the menu several times due to Taiwanese tastes, giving the example that red beans are a dessert here, but salty in Central America. This proved too strange to locals so had to take off a few dishes here and there. He did quite subtly say however that he can and will make some stuff off menu if Latin Americans want it, so I’d love to go back there with someone more in the know and gives the secret handshake.
Puerto Rican sancocho
Because I didn’t have much money on me so I couldn’t sample a lot of the menu, I went straight to the drinks. Aztec chocolate. Not something you see every day, so I figured why not. He warned me it was spicy and that he served it quite weak, but as you’ve probably noticed by now I’m game for anything.
Well, he wasn’t kidding. When it arrived, the smell of I think cinnamon was pretty strong and I thought, this won’t be so bad… It was unusual. Definitely chocolate but was designed by the Mayans and Aztecs specifically to make you sweat, and it did its job perfectly.
I couldn’t stay long, but can tell he has a fair few good yarns in his repertoire. I will be back for sure, not only for the menu we can see, but also the one we can’t, provided of course I can con a Latin American person to come with me.
Sancocho 280
Aztec chocolate 100
Address No. 213, Anle Road, Zhonghe District, New Taipei City, 235
Best MRT: Yongan Market then about 5min walk across the park
As an aside, I don’t normally mention anything outside the food or who I’m with, but today while going there I saw an old lady practicing the tango in the park. It is a cliché to see old people in Asia exercising in the park I know, but this lady was fierce, absolutely badass, like she had just stepped out of Argentina.
Taipei, still surprising me after all these years…
52 Cuisines? 