Taiwan

Taiwanese cooking lives at the small-plate scale — xiao chi, or 'small eats'. A bowl of lu rou fan (braised pork on rice) at a wooden counter, a paper cup of stinky tofu at Shilin market, an oyster omelette from a metal griddle, a xiao long bao steamed to order at Din Tai Fung. Nothing is heavy on its own, and everything adds up to a long, grazing evening.

Above it all sits the great bowl of beef noodle soup — hand-pulled noodles, dark aromatic broth, tender shank, a scatter of pickled greens — the dish Taiwan defends as its own.