A new day in Tainan teeming heavily throughout the whole morning, I actually started at too early an hour that many of the shops and restaurants near the famous tourist site Chikan Tower had not yet been opened.  Actually beforehand I had never had schedule to visit this noodle eatery, it was by sheer chance when my umbrella didn’t seem quite capable of keeping away all the splashes that I stumbled across this eatery in the street corner, and the sudden thought sprang up to my mind that it is a rather famous one selling the tradition Tainan Tan-Tsai Noodle.  

A lot of people were eating there and worse still they were not willing to leave even after their meal as the weather outside was still appalling.  When I finally could manage a seat sharing a table with some other tourists, I ordered only a small size Tan-Tsai Noodle, simply because I couldn't anticipate with people standing all around me with their dripping umbrellas I could relish slowing reading my newspaper for a bowl of noodle.  

It is not a large bowl of things with a fish ball, a soy braised egg, 4 small fresh shrimps, and some fermented black bean favoured meat paste as the main contents. Garnishing includes coriander, green onion, and mung bean sprouts atop the noodle.

The noodle is not the chewy type and is delicate and soft, the soup while not special by itself accentuates the deliciousness of the noodle.   The fish balls all over Tainan are the same incorrigible artificially favoured, monotonous texture type.  The soy braised egg’s egg-white after prolonged steeping in marinade evinces a hard instead of the usual elastic texture, one may say it is special but it doesn’t impress me.  It is the orchestration of different textures, and freshness of the garnishing things that give the uniqueness and scrumptiousness of this famous Tainan tradition cuisine.  

Worth it, and I could relish it, even in the rain.  Shouldn't I have ordered a large bowl instead!