No ratatouille on Taiwan menu, but plenty of rat

By Ralph Jennings

CHIAYI, Taiwan (Reuters Life!) - Diners at two Taiwan village restaurants smell a rat each time they sit down to eat. And they love it.

The Ho-la Diner and the Jiashing restaurant opposite have run five or six rat eateries out of town over nearly six decades of business to become the top two ahead of the Year of the Rat, which begins on Feb. 7.

Both display hairless rat carcasses in their kitchen windows before chopping off the heads and throwing the pint-sized bodies and tails into pots with basil and sweet, black sauce.

Both restaurants are full at meal times as the rat race for gnawing customers reaches fever pitch.

"Competition isn't too bitter yet, and we like customers to compare the two places," said Ho-la owner Lin Ming-chih, 54, whose father opened the diner and whose son cooks the rats.

"Most people who come in here at first have a psychological barrier, but once they take a bite, they don't mind."

The rats grow up on crops from fields surrounding the 18,000-population village of Lucao in Chiayi county -- which means they are not dirty rats from sewers, Lin said.

And Ho-la chef Lin Kuei-chien is proud of his sauce which he keeps secret amid allegations of recipe copying. Customers seeking one restaurant often go in error to the other, the proprietors complain.