口水雞
Google Translate
“Saliva chicken”
What it is
Mouth-watering chicken
Cold poached chicken in a numbing, spicy chili oil sauce with garlic and Sichuan peppercorn, usually ordered as a starter. The name is about your mouth watering.
The Taiwan Table app · Private beta
Know every dish on the menu (almost)
Take a photo of a menu in Taiwan and the app tells you what each dish is, how to say it, and what goes into it.
Join the betaFree to download, for Android and iPhone.
Two lines from a menu
We use Google Translate on menus here all the time, and it helps. But a lot of Taiwanese dish names are nicknames or old sayings, and a word by word reading doesn't always tell you what will arrive. This is what it gave us on a menu we photographed recently, next to what the app says.
五更腸旺
Google Translate
“Wugeng changwang”
What it is
Pork intestine and duck blood hot pot
Pork intestine and cubes of duck blood braised in chili bean paste, kept bubbling over a small burner at the table.
Pork
Blood
How it works
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1
Photograph the menu. English names show up over the printed lines. The reading happens on your phone, so it works without a signal.
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2
Tap a dish. See what it is, how to say it, and a card with the characters to show staff.
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3
Check for allergens. Dishes are marked when they usually contain peanuts, shellfish, fish, egg or gluten, and when they contain pork or blood. That's based on typical recipes, and dairy, sesame and tree nuts aren't covered yet, so always check with staff.
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4
Get a second look. When you have a signal, you can send the dishes the app couldn't read, or isn't sure about, to AI to check.
Cards to show staff
Pick what you can't eat, such as a peanut or shellfish allergy, no gluten, no pork or beef, vegetarian, vegan, no blood or no alcohol. The app puts it all on one card in Chinese, full screen, to show across the counter, including the hidden ingredients like lard, bone broth, dried shrimp and peanut powder.
Also in the app
- Every dish, to browse
- Look dishes up before you go, by category or by the kind of place you're eating at, from night markets and breakfast shops to hot pot. Search works in English, Chinese characters or pinyin.
- Places near you
- Every restaurant and night market on The Taiwan Table, sorted by how far away it is, with a map when you're online, and a button to open any of them in Google Maps.
- Our reviews and guides
- Everything we've written, ready to read offline.
Join the beta
We are inviting testers in small groups. Android testers join through Google Play and iPhone testers through Apple’s TestFlight.
The app is free to download. Menu scans are free during the beta. After that, scans will be a paid extra, and everything else in the app stays free.