Stir-Fries are Served!

In Taiwan, from big cities to tiny towns, you may find a little hole in the wall where the proprietor provides rechao style meals.

Such places create a comfortable environment for local residents, and tourists come searching for them, like treasure hunters. For the Taiwanese, stepping into such an establishment feels like returning home for dinner.

Rechao vs. seafood eateries

It may seem counterintuitive, but at northern latitudes in North America and Europe people eat their lettuce raw, and in Japan they often consume their miso soup and their bento boxes cold. But in hot, humid Taiwan, we prefer our meals piping hot.

Among our cooking techniques in Taiwan, we especially like stir-frying (chao).

Stir-frying is intuitive and simple. Using just a bit of oil, a cook can bring out the flavors in foods. Adjusting the flame can render just the right texture while yielding the sort of flavors that we Taiwanese prefer. We really love stir-fried dishes—not only when cooking at home, but also when traveling abroad, we can hardly stand not having stir-fried greens. According to food writer and cook Mokki Hsiao: “When we Taiwanese go out, if stir-fried veggies are listed on the menu, we’ll make that selection first before we’ll ever select blanched veggies.”

Sometime around the 1980s came the introduction of portable gas stoves, which triggered the appearance of food establishments that identified themselves as rechao, meaning “hot stir-fry,” eateries.

These days on the streets we often see seafood eateries, which are similar to rechao eateries. Or, one sometimes runs across rechao eateries that have seafood tanks and ice display cabinets stocked with fish and shellfish for customers to choose from. Such equipment is standard at any seafood eatery.

It is true that rechao eateries and seafood eateries look quite similar at first glance, but Associate Professor Huang Chih-yang of the Department of ­Aquaculture at National Taiwan Ocean University states that “there are clear differences between the two in terms of business models, prices, and dishes served.” As the author of Oddball Seafood: A New Guide for Island Dwellers, Huang is an expert in seafood.

Huang notes that generally speaking, at rechao eateries the prices are low and the chefs use no-frills cooking procedures. Menu items go for about NT$200, and ingredients are easily available on the market.

But a real McCoy seafood eatery will generally have trusted seafood suppliers. The catches accessed by their suppliers vary greatly depending on seasons, fishing grounds, fishing techniques, and climate.

Menu items are high-priced, and it’s not even possible to prepare regular menus, but Huang affirms: “Proprietors are sure to lay out the freshest, best looking seafood in their ice cabinets. As for how each dish is to be prepared, customers usually have to confer with service staff.”

Most rechao eateries serve exactly what their walk-in customers order, but the highly skilled chefs at seafood eateries might go beyond that. For example, when customers have left a bit of fish uneaten, the staff might suggest frying it up with some scrambled eggs. Some seafood eateries also provide catering service at weddings, New Year’s celebrations, and other occasions.

Stir-frying over a blazing hot flame mixes together the flavors of different ingredients, preserves their unique textures, and triggers a “wok hei” effect that thrills the taste buds.

At any rechao eatery there is no shortage of the Taiwanese people’s best-loved seasonings, such as scallions, ginger, garlic, hot peppers, basil, and onions.

Mokki Hsiao often takes foreign friends to share a meal at a rechao eatery, where they are invariably charmed by the unusual experience.

Spontaneous, unrestrained

But rechao eateries do have their own charms. Taiwanese-American journalist Clarissa Wei, who co-authored the cookbook Made in Taiwan, writes in the book’s “Beer Food” chapter: “As with any culture, food and enough alcohol bind people together, and the rechao experience in Taiwan—hot, noisy, and messy, in all its glory—remains my all-time favorite.”

The predecessors of today’s rechao eateries were the beer gardens that first came to prominence in the 1980s. One notable feature of rechao eateries is their jam-packed menus, which often offer more than 50 dishes to choose from.

Many are foods that are popular with people of all ages. Examples include beef with broccoli, three-cup chicken, shrimp balls with pineapple, and pork intestines with pickled mustard greens. Other common menu items are salt-and-pepper fried calamares and short-snout icefish, or perhaps unusual specialties like slices of octopus skin stir-fried in a generous mix of scallions, ginger, and hot peppers. In addition, rechao eateries may offer various foreign dishes, such as sashimi, Japanese-style broiled fish, beef stew, and Thai pepper chicken. From time to time, one will also run across creative options such as cooled fried eggs or fried stinky tofu.

To go well with alcohol, these dishes are sharp-­flavored. Cooks go heavy on such seasonings as scallions, ginger, hot peppers, basil, onions, and garlic chives. Some customers choose to eat fried-up meats along with delicately charred scallion strips or garlic. Different condiments like these can turn a single dish into several different taste treats.

Huang Chih-yang explains the similarities and differences between rechao eateries and seafood eateries.

At two open-air rechao eateries doing business next to Da’an Forest Park, the spacious setting allows diners to feel really relaxed.

This rechao eatery in the hills of Wulai offers special dishes featuring vegetables from the nearby mountains.

Restaurant hopping

Rechao eateries generally open for business in the evening, and many remain open for the late-night crowd. Rechao eateries, says Huang Chih-yang, can serve any of several functions. “After people get off work they can go there to get something to eat, or maybe get themselves and co-workers in a good mood before heading off to some event, or to have a bite and a drink while waiting for friends to gather.”

The “after party” is an important concept at rechao eateries, and is similar to how socializing works at Japanese izakayas, where people are apt to polish off a few drinks and appetizers at two or three different places over the course of an evening before going somewhere for a bowl of ramen noodles. After all, these places they go to are noisy joints, often with low plastic tables and chairs set out in the open air, near the street. These simple environments don’t beckon for customers to hang around for any too long, but eating one’s fill is no problem. You can grab free bowls of white rice or fetch beer from the fridge any time you like. Mokki Hsiao notes that “all these elements make for a unique experience.”

“Flexibility” is key to a rechao business. Customers need not order everything in one go. If they order too much, the proprietor knows that after three to five dishes have been brought out, people at a table will need a break so they can take their time eating and drinking. Food is not where the big profit margins are anyway. Real money comes from sales of alcohol.

Customers are always coming and going. The people around a table change during the evening. Situations and topics of conversation morph as people switch in and out.

Shrimp balls with pineapple, sweet with a savory note, are loved by people of all ages.

Deep-fried eel with red vinasse, in Matsu.(courtesy of Huang Chih-yang)

Fried peanut worms in Kinmen. In shape and texture, they resemble goose intestines. (courtesy of Huang Chih-yang)

Salt-and-pepper fried calamares, seldom seen in home cooking.

The garlic satay rechao dishes for which Keelung is known are typically fried up with octopus and pork.

Fried Japanese goose barnacles in Matsu. (courtesy of Huang Chih-yang)

Local culture in local flavors

The character of rechao eateries reflects their locations, demonstrating that their charms arise from more than just food and drink per se.

In rural and semi-rural areas we often run across restaurants that are offshoots of rechao eateries, such as free-range chicken restaurants, earthenware chicken joints, goose restaurants, mountain restaurants, and fish restaurants. Each type has evolved its own distinctive personality.

In a big city, people traveling on business can find dishes cooked up at particular rechao eateries “just the way Mom made them.” Some political party staffers or social activists, after working overtime or upon wrapping up an activity, like to get together for a meal at their favorite rechao place. People can also order rechao eats while they’re singing at a karaoke box. If you check into Hotel International on Yangmingshan, which was a favorite of Madame Chiang Kai-shek back in the day, after soaking in the historic Japanese-style hot spring there you can enjoy a spread of downhome rechao eats. And if you’re a vegetarian, there are rechao eateries to cater to your dietary regimen.

Rechao dishes with a special local flavor are the sort that gourmands don’t forget.

Tainan has its renowned stir-fried swamp eels and stir-fried egg noodles. The seaport of Keelung has rechao dishes seasoned with spices like curry satay. And rechao eateries on Yangmingshan serve up mountain specialties such as bird’s-nest fern and fiddlehead fern, as well as dishes made of locally sourced meat, e.g. white sliced chicken or chicken soup with mustard greens (all made from mountain-raised free-range chicken), or crispy butterflied stream prawn. In Penghu you can eat sea urchins with fried eggs. The Matsu Islands are known for their red vinasse, mussels, Japanese goose barnacles, and limpets. You can find out what peanut worms taste like only in Kinmen. In Huang Chih-yang’s words: “Chowing down on local delicacies is the best way to remember a place’s resources, industries, environment, and culture.”

Customers can fill and refill their rice bowls for free.

Customers can grab beverages directly from huge refrigerators.

Many rechao eateries in Taiwan have live seafood tanks to display what’s available.

Rechao can go high-class

Rechao food has always been seen as low-budget fare for the masses. But can it be more than that?

Second-generation restaurateur Liao Zheng-hong answers that question with a resounding “Yes!”

He runs Shouwu Hakka Seafood Restaurant in Taoyuan’s Yangmei District. “We originally sold bento boxes.” Having just finished the lunch hour, Liao takes off his apron and talks with us. He started helping around the restaurant as a kindergartener. Now he’s a strapping young man who already has more than 20 years of experience in the kitchen.

Two years ago, with a friend’s encouragement, he started serving up his own menu ideas at the restaurant, calling them “the cat man’s creations.” The new dishes became a hit in foodie circles, and it has become hard to book a table at his restaurant.

His dishes are mostly rechao style, but are more carefully executed than ordinary rechao fare.

The dish he regards as his masterpiece, “the big Hakka stir-fry,” is a reworked version of the staple “little Hakka stir-fry” that he’s spent half his life cooking up. It features thick slices of dried tofu, squid, plus pig-head meat that is first deep-fried and then stir-fried. The hearty texture and aroma of the ingredients combine perfectly with pungent spices.

Liao’s “shredded ginger and tripes” is a variation on the traditional Hakka dish called “veggies, shredded ginger, and tripes.” The fat-laden tripes, which are first marinated and then stir-fried, are very chewy. When mixed with pickled mustard greens and shredded ginger that have been stir-fried in vinegar concentrate, the taste is powerful and satisfying.

The inspiration for Liao’s “osmanthus with mullet roe and rice vermicelli” came from Chef Anthony Bourdain’s Sardinian spaghetti with bottarga. Not a single drop of water is added to the food during the stir-fry process, so the vermicelli comes out with a pleasingly puffy texture.

Says Liao: “As a Chinese chef who specializes in hot stir-frying, I want to be in control of how my ingredients end up when they finally get plated.” The special attraction of his creations is not in the exquisite quality of the ingredients, but in his ability to achieve just the right sorts of caramelization and Maillard effects while stir-frying at very high temperatures. But he also deconstructs the different elements in a meal, balances preferences and expressions in the interpretation of flavors, the way ingredients are selected and matched, and even the way different meals play off against each other.

To better understand cooking, Liao also likes to enjoy music and the arts, and says: “Cooking is a lot like music, in that it can be two-, three-, and four-dimensional. It’s an additive process, to be sure, but in fact there’s far more involved. The sensory experiences, in the end, rise to a sort of philosophical plane, which I feel is the most romantic place in all of human culture.” There is definitely more to rechao than just stir-fried meals, for the most exalted pursuit is the quest to take ordinary ingredients and enable them to reach extraordinary places that one might never think possible.

Liao Zheng-hong cooks up lots of rechao dishes. His meals have a sort of “split personality,” combining the devil-may-care nature of rechao with the attention to detail found in private cuisine.

Liao Zheng-hong frequently experiments with different cooking methods. He took his “big Hakka stir-fry,” for example, and reduced all the big chunky ingredients down to thin slices to provide a different sort of eating pleasure. (courtesy of Liao Zheng-hong)

As night falls, rechao eateries start opening for business. The food there will definitely fill a hungry belly and put a person in a good mood.