Taipei, Dec. 1 (CNA) Hundreds of food lovers braced the heavy rain Saturday to attend the opening of the annual Taipei International Beef Noodle Festival and sample the city's famed dish.
The festival, which featured an area for prize-winning vendors, drew excited visitors who wanted to try different varieties of the dish at discount prices.
"Our 400 bowls of noodles were sold out long before noon," said Lee Cho-ying, a chef at Old Dong Beef Noodle restaurant, which won the festival's beef noodle competition in 2006.
Having sold out of the noodles, which were sold for NT$50 (US$2) per bowl instead of NT$200, Lee said he had to suspend business temporarily so his colleagues could prepare more noodles for sales in the afternoon.
Besides the vendor area, the festival also featured a beef noodle competition and a gallery describing the dish's history.
Described by Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin as the city's "business card," the dish created revenue of over NT$1 billion (US$34 million) in 2011, compared with NT$780 million in 2008.
The free festival will run until Sunday at Taipei Expo Park. For more information, go to http://www.2012tbnf.com.
(By Lee Hsin-Yin)