Dishes
Tangyuan (sweet rice-ball soup)
圓仔湯
Also called: 湯圓 · tangyuan · rice ball soup
Chewy glutinous-rice balls in a sweet soup, served hot or cold, often with red beans or peanuts.
Photo: Zheng Zhou, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Unknown, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: GT#4 - thank you for your support from Singapore, CC0What it is
Small, chewy balls of glutinous rice in a sweet soup. Classic partners are red bean soup and peanut soup, and the same rice balls also go over shaved ice.
Where it comes from
Tangyuan are traditionally eaten at the Lantern Festival and are linked with the winter solstice and Lunar New Year. The name sounds close to the word for reunion (團圓), so they are said to stand for family togetherness.
How it is made
Rice is ground, made into dough and rolled into balls by hand, then boiled. At Li Family in Kaohsiung the rice is ground each morning, the peanuts cooked for two to three hours until soft, and the syrup made with raw cane sugar.
How to eat it
Hot or cold, either works. The rice balls also come over ice as mixed ice with red bean, mung bean and taro.
In Kaohsiung
Li Family in Yancheng has sold just four things since 1953: red bean soup, peanut soup, rice-ball soup and mixed ice.
Where to eat it in Kaohsiung
李家圓仔湯Li Family Tangyuan Soup
Running since 1953 at the Yancheng market entrance, this sweet-soup stall is known for hand-cut square rice balls. Have them hot in red bean soup, or over shaved ice as the mixed ice.
合春圓仔（林園店）He Chun Tangyuan (Linyuan)
A roughly seventy-year-old dessert shop in Linyuan's old town, now run by the third generation, known for chewy handmade tangyuan served over shaved ice.
Sources