Taiwanese Food Fete - Culinary Feast in Camden Town

This weekend London, or Camden Town to be more specific, was home to the Taiwanese Food Fete, bringing together professional and would-be chefs, Taiwanese delicacies and a hungry crowd. And when I say crowd, I mean crowd.

On our way to the Irish Centre in Camden Town (Taiwanese food in an Irish centre?! We were confused as well), it was hardly necessary to look for the way. All you had to do, was walk in the opposite direction of the stream of Asian people leaving the festival.

The crowd was so immense that when we left at 3pm, people where still queuing outside of the building, on to the street and around the corner. My guess is the poor gits that came last had a two-hour wait ahead of them.

The queue to TFF

The whole system was set up very strategic, with a coupon purchase at the entrance. In exchange for £10 you would get your coupons, with the right to claim back any unused money. In the main room, a number of stalls were set up along the sides of the walls offering everything from Bubble Tea, over duck’ s tongue to Taiwanese fried noodles. In the middle of the room a couple of tables had been put up to eat at, but getting a place at one of them was virtually impossible. That just meant we had to eat and walk along the stalls, increasing our food intake efficiency.

Admittedly, the prices were not the cheapest, but depending on the stand there were good deals to be found, such as portions of spicy tofu skin麻辣豆腐皮 and spicy beef strips麻辣牛肉 for just £1. However, a small bowl of noodles could go up to £6.5. With a Bubble Tea at £3 that left no money for the delicious Taro buns, which would have been a sin to miss out on. Therefore, I quickly ran back to the entrance to purchase another set of coupons.

I think the most popular and also one of my favourites was the scallion pancake 葱油饼. It was so tasty that when we went back for a second round, we ended up waiting 20 minutes for the next one, due to the long queue. One of the other highlights was the chicken in batter, or fragrant chicken as it is called in Chinese (香香鸡).

TFF take out: (ltr) spicy beef and tofu skin, won-tons, shallot pancake, sticky rice in a bamboo leaf, fragrant chicken, Taiwanese noodles

Fun-wise my personal highlight was the cookie station. The system was simple, but brilliant: two Digestives and melted chocolate in a syringe. You were allowed to go crazy with the chocolate and write down any character you could think of. I decided to go with my name, which ended up in my belly a couple of minutes after completion. Yummy!

All in all, the TFF was a great experience for me to re-taste Taiwanese food and for my friend who was completely new to the concept. It seems the huge visitor numbers support our verdict: great event!

My "work of art"