Dishes
Wonton soup
餛飩
Also called: 扁食 · pián-si̍t · 溫州大餛飩 · 紅油抄手 · húntun
Pork dumplings in thin wrappers, served in broth or tossed with chilli oil.
Photo: bryan... from Taipei, Taiwan, CC BY-SA 2.0
Photo: Oldie~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0What it is
Thin square wrappers around a ground pork filling, served in a pork broth with greens and scallions. Shops often also sell them dry in a sauce of sesame oil, lard and chilli oil.
Where it comes from
Wontons appear across Chinese regional cooking under many names: húntun in Mandarin, wantan in Cantonese, pián-si̍t (扁食) in Hokkien and chāo shǒu in Sichuan, where they are served in chilli oil as red-oil wontons. In the Jiangsu and Zhejiang region, big wontons are made in an ingot shape.
How it is made
A wrapper of flour, egg, water and salt is folded around the filling, then the wontons are boiled until the wrapper turns translucent.
How to eat it
Have them in soup, or dry with chilli oil and a splash of black vinegar.
In Kaohsiung
Yancheng in Kaohsiung has three big-wonton shops from the same lineage. Hei Chien's sign dates it to 1958. Its wontons come in soup with preserved mustard greens and bok choy.
Where to eat it in Kaohsiung
黑乾溫州餛飩大王Hei Chien Wenzhou Wonton King
An evening wonton shop in Yancheng whose sign dates it to 1958, serving big pork wontons in soup or tossed in chilli oil.
哈瑪星呂汕頭麵Hamasen Lu's Shantou Noodles
Shantou immigrants brought these noodles over, and the stand at the Daitian Temple plaza is 60-plus years old. Order the dry noodles tossed in lard and garlic.
Sources