Taoyuan Zhongli・Did you forget, or are you afraid to remember? Delicious ditch fish .ᐟ.ᐟ.ᐟ (Pure memory, 🤖life

Reading ht's recommendation of the day reminded me... I'll try to post a cross-regional recommendation! 🇮🇩 Near Zhongli Station, I ate at a place that specialized in Thai or Indonesian snacks for migrant workers? The whole place was full of Indonesians! As soon as I entered, the shop was piled high with fried tilapia. The way to eat it was to pick one fish and choose side dishes. The shop provided a dipping sauce that seemed to have lemongrass, chili, garlic, and peanuts in soy sauce, along with a hard-boiled egg. My guide X persuaded me not to eat the fish, saying that migrant workers caught them from nearby ditches to sell? 🥚 At the time, I didn't want to eat anything spicy at all, and most of the menu had chili. Among the few choices, I found Pad Krapow with Century Egg. It was supposed to be scooped from a pre-prepared electric pot, drizzled over rice and dishes, and then topped with a special chili soy sauce (?). Therefore, this step could be skipped. It smelled like a just-used train station toilet 🤢 but tasted absolutely amazing~ The aroma of century egg and minced pork first mixed and hit my nose; as I chewed, the oil spread the unique fragrance of fish sauce and krapow leaves; when I swallowed, the train station toilet smell came again 🤢, making me quickly take the next bite. From a third-person perspective, it was delicious enough to not be able to stop eating .ᐟ.ᐟ 🐟 As for the fried fish, it was fried until hard, and the fish meat had a slight earthy taste, which didn't quite qualify as a signature dish. However, with the sauce, it was a different story. It had the typical "smells bad, tastes good" base of fish sauce, with occasional bursts of lemongrass and unknown spices. The sourness of the lemon, the saltiness of the fish sauce, and the aroma of the spices – the sour, salty, and fragrant flavors completely masked the earthy taste, making it very appetizing with rice. The softened peanuts and some hard peanuts, the crispy surface of the fried fish, and the delicate fish meat inside offered a variety of textures. I'd call this the pinnacle of "ditch fish"?