"I don't think Chinese sweets are really that noteworthy," said a friend, and he speaks without prejudice, because he's Chinese and runs a Chinese dining club in Los Angeles.
I find them fascinating, however, and worlds apart from such things as flourless chocolate cake, tiramisu and creme brulée.
Those that I tasted in Taiwan ranged from a porridge barely recognizable as a dessert to an East-West medicinal conglomeration decorated with chocolate (at top). Except for the latter dessert, they certainly wouldn't win a beauty contest, unless the judges prized various shades of brown.
The porridge, described on the menu as coconout milk with sago and taro, sounded like Thai bua loi, which is a heavenly concoction of sweetened coconut milk with taro and dumplings, served warm. But this was a cold gray soup of pureed taro with almost no sugar and so little coconut milk that I couldn't detect it.
The place: Evergarden restaurant at the Evergreen Plaza Hotel in Tainan.
Sweetened lotus seed soup with hawthorn had a smoky, tart taste, almost like wine, and so the brownish red color was appropriate. Served hot, it was very pleasing after a stir-fry of finely shredded beef mixed with shredded pickled cabbage.
The place: The Guest House Chinese restaurant at the Sheraton Taipei Hotel.
A clear, sweet soup of lotus seeds, young lotus flower petals and whole jujubes (Asian red dates) was a light and pretty finale to a lunch of so many dishes it would have been difficult to handle a rich pastry afterward.
The place: Szechuan Court restaurant at the Ambassador Hotel, Taipei.
How often do you find fragrant flowers incorporated into desserts here?
Even if you find such a dish, it won't be anything like gelatinous small cakes of sweetened red beans flavored with highly perfumed osmanthus.
The place: Silks Palace restaurant in the National Palace Museum, Taipei
An herbal dessert called "dragon eyes" (at top) contained lotus seeds, longans and white fungus beneath the glossy black "eyes." I have no idea what the eyes were, except that they were beneficial to one's health, but anyone could recognize the fancy chocolate decorations.
The place: Jianshanpi Jiangnan Resort, 60, SyuShan Village, Liouying Township in Tainan County.
A small cup of inky black pudding was also medicinal. One eats this during the summer, said a Chinese woman in the buffet line next to me.
Following her instructions, I spooned on honey and cream, not to disguise the bitterness of the pudding, but to create layers of flavor and texture so intriguing that I went back for a second helping, ignoring the luscious western desserts on the counter nearby.
The place: Ba Köln restaurant, Beitou District, Taipei.
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