A Hualien hotel has launched a series of wild food banquets, letting guests enjoy five star service in the great outdoors. Chef Lin Chih-hsiung is a Hualien native and a lover of local produce. The first stop on his culinary pilgrimage is Ceroh village, where diners can enjoy a meal with Indigenous flavors in the middle of a rice field.

Indigenous youth dance for their visitors, and pull volunteers in to join the fun. Then the village elders lead the group in making an offering to the ancestors, in a taste of the traditional culture.

In the multicultural village of Ceroh in Yuli玉里 Township, Hualien, Indigenous people live alongside neighbors who are Minnanese, Hakka or more recent immigrants from China.

Lin Chih-hsiung
Hotel chef
The cultural atmosphere here, the fusion of ethnicities – it’s 50% Indigenous, 30% Hakka, and 20% Minnanese.

Locally grown rice, arrowroot and kingtol are not be missed. This chef from a Hualien restaurant is also a native of the county. The village is where he starts off his culinary pilgrimage, using local ingredients to produce this five-star wild garden banquet. Guests dine in the paddy fields, enjoying haute cuisine grown where they sit.

Lin Chih-hsiung
Hotel chef
We have salted pig from Hakka producers, which we’ve roasted on a high flame, along with a soup brewed with local kingtol. Here onsite we use wild herbs from Indigenous people, as well as Indigenous betel leaf. We place red-hot stones inside in the Indigenous stone cooking method.

Chef Lin Chih-hsiung explains that apart from the unique culture and cuisine of Ceroh, he appreciates it as the first spot in a walking pilgrimage made by the late documentary-maker legend Chi Po-lin齊柏林. The next stop on the chef’s wild food tour will be not on a mountain, but by the sea.

Lin Chih-hsiung
Hotel chef
I have a fishing boat myself. We’ve talked with a local fishing boat captain in Hualien, to see if we can bring our guests on the water. It might be catching fish or spanner crabs, to enjoy the Pacific Ocean we have in Hualien.

Hualien’s natural wonders are astonishing. And for foodies, there’s just as much to enjoy as any nature lover. A wild banquet is one way to indulge in both at the same time.