Master Chefs’ Banquet X Real-life Adventure – Five Highlights of the Tainan Food Festival

By MOOK Scenic Spots House, compiled and reported

The 2018 Tainan Food Festival takes “seasonality” as its theme, promoting the idea of “eating local and seasonal,” with a focus on enjoying exquisite dishes made from seasonal ingredients in tune with the solar terms. A series of events has been planned, ranging from food and cuisine to chefs, and from city-based real-life games to origin-based culinary journeys. There's much to look forward to, especially with the integration of Tainan’s traditional banquet culture and the creative planning power of local Tainan start-up teams. This promises an extraordinary annual food carnival for all.

The 2018 Tainan Food Festival invites everyone to Tainan to discover how local communities make the most of ingredients by “eating seasonal.” The goal is to make enjoying local and in-season cuisine a more central value of travel, allowing ingredients to reach their full potential. Travelers can thus enjoy a more local and fulfilling journey through food, savoring masterful dishes where chefs deeply connect with their ingredients — all set against Tainan’s beautiful scenery.

Moreover, through the annual preparation of the Tainan Food Festival, valuable culinary information about Tainan is gathered and accumulated. This helps visitors understand what and how people eat in Taiwan’s food capital, how the city’s entire food industry operates, and how it caters to the discerning palates of Tainan locals.

Unlike previous editions of the Tainan Food Festival, which were held in the fourth quarter, this year’s festival aligns with the solar terms and launched a spring origin-based culinary journey titled “Seasonal Journey – Grain Rain: By the Salt Fields, an Unparalleled Grand Performance by Two Master Chefs” at the end of April. It has received widespread acclaim.

In addition to the origin-based culinary journeys, a series of events will be held starting in October, including the “Master Chefs’ Banquet” by the renowned Chef Yong, where a thousand guests will be treated to a feast; the “Origin-based Culinary Journey,” where chefs take participants to the source to explore seasonal produce; the “Tainan Gourmet Forum,” an annual gathering of culinary professionals; the “Tainan Food Flavor Handbook,” documenting the city’s seasonal delicacies; and the “Real-life Game,” where participants uncover the secrets of seasonal ingredients through local produce.