Tastes in Taiwan cuisine can vary depending on a person's age, social status, and personal preferences. The choices range from the swankiest of restaurants to the most unassuming hole in the wall. The food may be innovative new creations or something more traditional, but it all reflects the unique culinary culture of Taiwan.

Eggplant, tofu, and tomatoes are commonplace staples of every pantry, yet these are among the ingredients of the dish that took first prize in the 2011 Taiwan Culinary Exhibition. Link restaurant in Yilan City uses local ingredients to whip up Taiwan cuisine that appeals strongly to an international clientele.

Gourmet enthusiast Ann Hu has a special place in her heart for Maoyuan, a restaurant on Chang'an East Road in Taipei.

In business since 1971, Maoyuan is a family-run establishment now into its third generation of proprietors. Noted for its traditional cooking, it makes very authentic bei-tsai-lo (白菜滷/stewed Chinese cabbage), bai zhan ji (白斬雞/white chopped chicken), kurobuta sausage, and more. Hu is especially fond of its steamed fish with white gourd and the stir-fried dried cauliflower and truffles.

"They do it the traditional way," says Hu. The stir-fried dried cauliflower is an unusual taste treat. Foreigners eat a lot of dried vegetables, so the dish is also quite popular with them.

Eggplant, tofu, and tomatoes are commonplace staples of every pantry, yet these are among the ingredients of the dish that took first prize in the 2011 Taiwan Culinary Exhibition. Link restaurant in Yilan City uses local ingredients to whip up Taiwan cuisine that appeals strongly to an international clientele.

Louis Liang, who loves to eat and is an excellent cook, says that if you want to cater to foreigners, you have to pay attention to both the food and the atmosphere.

At Shin Yeh 101 and Ding Xian 101, you can enjoy authentic Taiwan cuisine from high up in the Taipei 101 skyscraper, thus getting a combination of good eating and the best in urban living.

Known as the top of the line in Taiwan cuisine, Shin Yeh began doing business on the 85th floor of Taipei 101 four years ago under the name Shin Yeh 101, a move that has given Taiwan cuisine a much higher profile.

Shin Yeh's executive director Lee Hung-chun explains that Shin Yeh 101 provides Taiwan cuisine in a refined Western-style experience, but if you want to eat Taiwanese style with a huge spread of dishes covering the table, you can go Shin Yeh's older location on Zhong-shan North Road, which offers down-home cooking and is set up to accommodate large banquets. Its 120-item menu includes both traditional restaurant items (chao mifen [炒米粉/stir-fried rice vermicelli], mullet roe, a stew of chicken, pig tripes and turtle, golden shrimp cakes, sesame-oil chicken, stir-fried chicken kidney) as well as the sorts of dishes typically cooked at home (such as white chopped chicken, three-cups chicken, braised pork, and tsai-bo-neng [菜脯蛋/dried-radish-and-egg frittata]). There's something for every palate.

Lee believes that "Taiwan cuisine is not haute cuisine. It's straightforward, just like the people of Taiwan-not highly packaged."

Once the visitors have savored authentic Taiwan cuisine, Liang likes to take them into the mountains, to places like Mao-kong in Muzha, for example, to eat free-range chicken and have a cup of tea.

At free-range chicken eateries, you can truly get a feel for down-home eating in Taiwan while chowing down on free-range chicken, chicken-and-dried-radish soup, tea oil vermicelli, and shallot. Another good place to go is the tea plantations of Maokong for a cup of locally produced Tie Guan Yin tea.

For food lover Ann Hu, Maoyuan restaurant on Chang'an East Road in Taipei is the best place to introduce foreign guests to Taiwan cuisine. And many Taiwanese who have been away from Taiwan for an extended period of time will come running first of all to Maoyuan when they get back to Taiwan.

Kai-Ping Culinary School founder Hsia Hui-wen is a big fan of the Taiwan cuisine at Shin Yeh 101: "It's got an upmarket location, upmarket prices, and an exquisite menu. This is a really classy place to invite guests to."

There are also a couple of restaurants in the Yongkang Street neighborhood that definitely merit an introduction-Lao Zhang Beef Noodles and Din Tai Fung. The famed "18-fold steamed dumplings" of Din Tai Fung may not have been invented in Taiwan, but they've become a "registered trademark" here, just like Hainan chicken and rice after it migrated from China to Singapore, and egg tarts after they made their way from Portugal to Macao. Seven years ago, moreover, Din Tai Fung "retook the mainland" by setting up branches there.

Eggplant, tofu, and tomatoes are commonplace staples of every pantry, yet these are among the ingredients of the dish that took first prize in the 2011 Taiwan Culinary Exhibition. Link restaurant in Yilan City uses local ingredients to whip up Taiwan cuisine that appeals strongly to an international clientele.

Food critic Yeh Yi-lan, who often entertains foreign guests, describes just how very diverse Taiwan cuisine is.

She will typically introduce visitors first to traditional Taiwan cuisine by taking them to places like Ming Fu (on Zhong-shan North Road Section 2, in business for 33 years) and Golden Formosa (on -Tianmu East Road; specializes in Bei-tou hotel-style food), where one can feast on such delicacies as fo tiao qiang (佛跳牆/Buddha jumps over the wall), stewed chicken and glutinous rice, and "five willow" fish. A restaurant in Tainan called "A Sha" serves traditional banquet fare, about which Yeh writes: "Everything they serve-the 'six-flavor hors d'oeuvres,' wild mullet roe, shrimp balls-it's all just like what I remember from my childhood."

When it comes time to show a friend some avant-garde Taiwan cuisine with Western and Japanese elements, a good place to go is Chef Show Time in a lane off Anhe Road in Taipei. Some of the more creative items on the menu include snow crab with garlic slices, soy-simmered squid, and steamed sea perch with pickled cordia.

Needless to say, a visitor with a serious interest in Taiwan cuisine wouldn't want to leave without trying the pearl milk tea and Tainan-style snack food, which is quintessential down-home Taiwan cooking.

And last but not least, a foreign visitor really should stop in at a coffee shop. "Foreigners are often amazed at the high quality of the coffee in Taiwan," says Yeh, who explains that an overseas visitor fresh off the boat may be a total novice to Taiwan cuisine, and thus unable to tell what's truly good, but as connoisseurs of coffee they can tell in an instant just how much expertise goes into Taiwan cuisine, and what sticklers we are for quality.

Shi-Yang Culture Restaurant is the earliest of Taiwan's garden restaurants. It has changed location several times over the years, but what remains unchanged is the emphasis on beautiful scenery.

Apart from tasty traditional dishes, a strong spirit of innovation has taken hold in Taiwan in recent years.

Writer Jiao Tong states in Taiwan Wei-dao (The Tastes of Taiwan) that when foreigners come visiting, he likes to take them to Shi-Yang Culture Restaurant for a taste of Yilan-style innovative gourmet.

Jiao Tong is especially fond of the "mountain-spring tofu" appetizer, a dish dreamed up by the folks at Shi-Yang. He enthuses: "It's got a clean taste, and is pure white, soft, and tender. Just add a touch of wasabi and soy sauce, and it's the perfect, light-flavored dish to usher guests into the dining experience."

Shi-Yang, the progenitor of Taiwan's garden restaurants, first opened on the Taipei-Yilan highway before moving to Xin-dian, Yang-ming-shan, and now Xi-zhi. Amidst the moves, what remains unchanged is the emphasis on beautiful scenery. Mountains, cloudbanks, and forests add a priceless touch, soothe the spirit, and somehow make the meal taste that much better. The proprietor is punctilious about presentation of the meal, and serving it kaiseki style is a whole new wrinkle on traditional Taiwan cuisine.

Many have joined the bandwagon by serving up more creative twists on Taiwan cuisine in recent years, but the latecomers have generally been unable to do much in the way of scenery and have concentrated instead on presentation of the meal.

The cooking staff at Link in Yilan City, led by executive chef Chiu Ching-tse, took the championship at the 2011 Taiwan Culinary Exhibition. According to Chiu, the experimental cooking at Link doesn't draw much of a local clientele. Most customers are from out of town, and quite a few are foreigners. This is in contrast with Du Hsiao Yueh. This latter restaurant offers traditional fare and is run by Chen Chao-lin, who was once in charge of preparing the meals for state banquets.

Absolutely everything served at Link is a totally new creation made from local ingredients, be it appetizers (which are flavored with sour plums, sweet potatoes, bitter melon, and pungent XO sauce to symbolize the jumble of emotions that accompany human existence), lobster and deep-fried goza (an Yilan specialty), or steamed eel. Chicken soup congee with whitebait fish and shredded crab meat is a standard menu item that always goes over real well with guests. The set-course meals start at NT$1,200 and are delicious and filling. A new addition to the menu is the "champion's course" that won first place at the Taiwan Culinary Exhibition. It costs a hefty NT$3,000 per person, but many gourmet enthusiasts are not scared off by the price.

Shi-Yang Culture Restaurant's exquisite presentation adds beauty on the platter to the charm of the surroundings. Pictured here, iced fruit vinegar.

Noted food critic Zhu Zhenfan asserts: "No matter how many photos you see or how much praise you hear, you've still got to eat a dish to know it." In Zhu's opinion, rather than pulling out all the stops to achieve an attractive presentation, it is better to concentrate on the food itself. Innovation must be grounded in a solid mastery of cuisine-just doing something strange for the novelty of it is not a recipe for success. In his view, ritzy banquet fare is generally not as pleasing as what they serve at the neighborhood mom-and-pop restaurant.

Fan Zhongyan, a noted government official during the Northern Song period, once famously opined that home cooking is the best. And Zhu concurs that home cooking is the only thing you never grow tired of. His favorite restaurant is a streetside stall called "Ah Sheng" near his home in the Taipei suburb of Yonghe. The proprietor, Ah Sheng, used to work as the head chef at a big hotel. His skills, needless to say, are superb. Zhu has written glowingly about Ah Sheng's stall on his blog: "Chicken with scallions, chao hai-guazi (炒海瓜子/stir-fried Venus clam), red yeast pork, chicken slices in oyster sauce, beef slices with garlic shoots, satay beef, fried sponge gourd, fried eggplant with ground pork, home-style tofu... you name it, he does it to perfection."

In the diverse and rich world of Taiwan gourmet, some gourmands prefer haute cuisine, while others gravitate toward a more down-home style. Some like it fancy, while others prefer it unadorned. Luckily, there's something for everyone.