Taiwan Shaved Ice

Tired of reading about Eric and Martin’s Hawaiian shaved ice stories, I decided to get my own while here in Taipei while working on a new movie, Like a Dream, directed by Clara Law. While on a break from promoting John Woo’s Red Cliff, Chang Chen took us to this place that had an interesting list of toppings. Unlike the brightly colored fruit squirts you get from the Hawaiian style, in Taiwan they cover the ice in a brown sugar type syrup followed by your choice of unrecognizable but tasty little tidbits piled into a hole dug out of the middle. The addition of the solid matter filling gives you a nice variety of different textures to balance out the ice. Kinda like a Donutman donut but in ice. Above was my concoction. Under that strawberry jelly is some chewy boba cha type balls. As Borat would say, “Very nice!”
Chang Chen had peanuts and a flan like custard in his. A very strange combo indeed but it actually tasted quite good.
Antonio opted to have the sweet tofu instead but by the look on his face here, I bet he was thinking, “Damn, I shoulda had the ice.”