Sans Oil! This Fish Home’s Taiwanese Chinese Herbs Fish Soup Has a $300,000 Insurance Policy!? Trying the Most Luxurious Herbal Fish!

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Part 1: The Evolution of a Freak

I have spent my entire life becoming increasingly difficult to feed. Not because I’m picky, picky people refuse to eat vegetables, I refuse to eat… civilization. Some people collect handbags, some collect luxury watches. Apparently, I collect ingredient lists that are shorter than my ADHD attention span.

It begins much earlier than I know anything about organic, whole foods, clean eating, or even minimal processing. The only thing I knew was that I did not want anyone touching my food. No ketchup, no mayo, no mustard, no strange sauces whose names were longer than my life span. If you hand mini-me a plate of McDonald’s fries and a mountain of ketchup, I look at you as though you’ve just poured perfume into my orange juice.

People assume I’m weird. They’re right. Even today, I still don’t know why I’m like this. Perhaps it was just an accident when God put in the wrong software when creating me, perhaps I am a Labrador in the body of a person, perhaps, like Benjamin Button, I was born at eighty years of age. Whatever it is, I enjoy my food having its own taste. Apparently, it’s a matter of controversy.

Family Legacies and Asian Parenting

Compliments used to be as rare as a solar eclipse when I was growing up. My father is the most stringent human being I have ever known.. If Olympic criticism were a sport, he’d retire undefeated. This is the same man who once told his guests—while I was standing right there in the middle of puberty—that his daughter had “the face of a horse.”

Imagine being a teenage girl; Imagine already wondering whether your nose is too big, whether your skin is breaking out, whether boys think you’re ugly. Then your own father casually announces to a room full of adults that you resemble livestock. Therapy is expensive. Asian parenting is free. So when the same man praises one thing about me… It becomes historical: “My daughter doesn’t use ketchup.”

That. That is apparently my greatest achievement: Not good grades, not surviving childhood with him as a dad, not speaking multiple languages, not travelling halfway across the world. No. The family legacy is… Raw McDonald’s. To this day, I still don’t know whether that was a compliment or simply an observation. Knowing him… Probably both.

Friends think I’m insane. ‘You don’t dip your fries?’ ‘No.’ ‘You don’t use barbecue sauce?’ ‘No.’ ‘You don’t even want pepper?’ ‘…Why are you trying so hard to bully this potato?’

Becoming a Food Detective

As I grow older, my weirdness only mutates. College makes it worse. Most students take nutrition because they want six-pack abs. I value nutrition and am inadvertently bestowed with scientific legitimacy as I come to realize that maybe my taste buds have been conducting rogue experiments all along. I am now reading food ingredient labels. I am suddenly aware of food preservatives that have weird names sounding like Star Wars rejects. I am the individual that spends twenty minutes in supermarket aisles reading the fine print font size while everybody else has already gone to the cashier. I am now the human equivalent of a food detective – “Who are you?” “Why are you here?” “Exactly what is E something-something?” The more I know… The less I eat.

“Great chefs do not cook in order for their food to be critiqued. They create dialogue. And who am I to stand in the way? Paradoxically… The better the chef… The less sauce on the table, because confidence requires no ketchup.”

And then there’s my period of narcissism: those times when I pursue the Michelin stars just like teenagers pursue their pop stars. Except that all of my celebrities have chef coats on. I travel across continents, get tables booked at Reservations restaurants, and pinch pennies but for dinners that last for four hours long. I revere them, I respect them, I admire them so deeply that one day I am guilty of committing the most egregious culinary sin possible: I request salt from my hero-chef.

Silence. Not actual silence, but that silence of your soul that precedes your mind catching up: The look. Oh…The look. It’s not anger, it’s not disappointment. It’s more like seeing someone enter the Louvre Museum with crayons. Congrats, Tanya. You’ve just flown overseas… Spent hundreds of dollars… Waited months for a booking… In order to nicely ask a genius chef, “Sorry, but is it possible for your creation to taste somewhat more like KFC?” If embarrassment produced energy, I would have been able to power Hong Kong with it. Till today, I no longer ask. This single incident has rewired my brain for good.

When Life Forces a Re-evaluation

Years pass. Friends are slowly stopping to invite me to food gatherings. Not because they dislike me, but because dining with me is profoundly boring: Everyone orders spicy hotpot, I’m asking whether the soup comes plain; Everyone orders fried chicken, I’m wondering whether I can have the chicken before it becomes… fried; Someone suggests barbecue, someone else suggests Korean food, someone else wants Mexican, Someone wants Japanese, Someone wants Italian. On the other hand, I am on this side, happily munching on steamed veggies like an ex-panda. The dietary equivalent of taking soda water to Oktoberfest. Small wonder no one calls anymore. Really, I can’t blame them.

And then life feels that my tastebuds have not evolved, so it strikes me down with a stroke. Years later… a heart attack. Nothing reorganizes your priorities faster than early dying: One moment, you’re convincing yourself that guilty pleasures are worth it. The next… You’re staring across the table, staring at your seventy-something-year-old mother, while your own body starts betraying you.

The near-death experience has been romanticized by people to consist of bright lights. Mine involves bright lights in a restaurant. And the mother, my little mother, the mother who has seen enough heartbreak for a lifetime. I can still recall looking at her. Without fanfare, without heroics. Just… Looking, saying one sentence: “Please, God! Do not make her bury her own child!” There are many definitions of what it means to be an unfilial child. For me… It almost becomes dying over fast food. That is not how I want my obituary to read: “Local woman survives stroke… Travels forty-five countries… Swims with sharks… Only to be defeated by a piece of McDonald’s fried chicken.” Absolutely not. That meal becomes my last McDonald’s. Not because I suddenly possess incredible discipline, but because trauma tastes stronger than fries.

I leave behind my lifelong guilty pleasure with tears in my eyes. Not for myself, for the woman sitting across from me. The older I become… The lighter my palate grows. People think aging means craving stronger flavours. Mine seems to work in reverse. Today, I barely even add salt. Sometimes I forget it’s in the kitchen.

Finding An Anomaly: Fish Home

Home cooking is my place of refuge. Not that dining out is wrong, but because of how it is at home… Where each ingredient is allowed to be known; where the vegetables have yet to forget their field and the pieces of fish are fish and not chemicals. Some will say this sounds dull; to me, it’s serene. Then the unthinkable takes place. Many years ago, I worked with a Taiwanese company called “Fish Home.” I’ll never forget my first experience. Somehow, they managed to take an eel and remove its…

If you’re me… This is practically proof of extraterrestrial life. I have never understood humanity’s obsession with turning savoury food into dessert. Why? Who looked at perfectly innocent meat and thought, “You know what this needs? Sugar.”

Every bite of sweet-savoury food feels like my tongue accidentally walked into the wrong washroom stall. So tasting eel that simply tastes… Honest… Blows my tiny little food-loving heart away. Ever since then… Every package arriving from Fish Home fills me with childlike excitement. Not because free food is arriving. Although let’s be honest… Disabled hobo me isn’t exactly going to complain. No. Because somehow… Against every commercial instinct imaginable… They keep making products that suit someone as absurdly impossible as me. I honestly don’t understand it. Who designs food for people who think salt is already getting a bit adventurous? Certainly not marketing departments. Which is why every new parcel feels less like a delivery…And more like an anomaly.

Yet again, another familiar parcel comes through the door. Perhaps the delivery guy doesn’t realize he is delivering yet another boring box. Poor chap. He doesn’t have a clue about delivering one of the only commercially produced foods that will ever get me squealing just like a six-year-old realizing that Christmas really exists. The instant that I recognize the sender… I haven’t even managed to open the door completely when I’m already beaming, saying, “Oh my God!” “Oh, my God!” “OH, MY GOD!” That is my voice, and I have learned from experience that… Every time Fish Home shows up… I am in for another amazing identity crisis.

The Anatomy of Chinese Herbs Eel Soup

Inside is Fish Home’s Chinese herbs eel soup. I peel open the pouch. The seal surrenders with a soft pop, and before I even see the soup, I smell it. Oh. Oh. Not the kind of aroma that punches you in the face like hotpot restaurants trying to fumigate the entire neighbourhood. Not the kind that screams, “LOOK AT ME! I’M DELICIOUS!” This one… simply walks into the room. Quietly. Confidently. Like an old Chinese physician who’s seen enough of life to know he doesn’t have to raise his voice to command respect.

The scent of the Chinese herbs slowly wafts out, wrapping around my kitchen before reaching me. Instinctively, I close my eyes. It’s funny how smell completely ignores chronology. One second, I’m standing in my apartment. The next, I’m a little girl again—the weird kid who refused ketchup with McDonald’s, the one everyone thought would eventually “grow out of it.”

Spoiler alert. I didn’t. If anything, I evolved backwards. Most people become more adventurous as they age. I somehow became less compatible with modern civilization. My taste buds have become so light that these days I almost don’t even add salt when I cook. Friends think I’m one of those monks who meditate on mountaintops and survive purely on oxygen and positive affirmations. Trust me. I still enjoy food. I just prefer food that still remembers what it originally was.

I pour the soup into a bowl. The broth flows out first, crystal clear with a beautiful amber hue. Tiny droplets shimmer across the surface like liquid gold. For a split second, my brain wonders where the oil came from. Then I laugh. Right. There isn’t any cooking oil in the ingredients. Which means that’s just… fish. Imagine living in a world where seeing natural fish oil surprises you more than reading ingredient lists with thirty-seven things you can’t pronounce. We’ve really come a long way. Or perhaps we’ve gone very, very far in the wrong direction.

Then the eel slides gently into the bowl. It’s almost comical. Because it actually looks like an eel. Not a heavily breaded, deep-fried, sauce-drowned identity crisis. Just… eel. I pick up the first piece with my chopsticks. It feels delicate without falling apart, the flesh yielding effortlessly under its own weight. I blow on it once. Mostly because experience has taught me that my excitement consistently exceeds my ability to judge temperature. One bite.

… I am frozen. Not by the flavor explosion. By the lack of one. That is why it takes me by surprise. Somewhere down the line, we have confused intensity for quality. Everything nowadays has to be louder. Sweeter. Saltier. Spicier. Cheesier. It’s as if each meal were desperately trying to make it into a reality TV show.

Not this bowl, however. This one just is. And it starts with the herbal broth. Subtle. Comforting. The sweetness from the red dates isn’t the kind that hijacks the soup. It’s subtle, like someone smiling at you across the room instead of proposing marriage on the first date. The goji berries, angelica, astragalus, and codonopsis—each herb quietly contributes without trying to become the star. Nobody is trying to prove a point here. They’re just… doing their job. Really, I envy how humans cooperate.

And then there’s the eel. So soft. Amazingly soft. Not soggy. Not overdone. Just relaxed. It comes apart with very little effort, the sweetness in each bite of fresh fish, unadulterated by anyone’s idea of “enhancement.”

And then… The bones. I nibble on them. All those years of training during my youth shout at me, “You’re going to die!” But… Nothing. They’re soft. Literally soft. Not “just soft enough that it’s technically okay to eat.” Properly soft. I chew again just to make sure I’m not hallucinating. Nope. Still soft. Somewhere inside me, my inner child is jumping up and down. “Mom! Look! I’m eating bones on purpose!”

I swear, if five-year-old Tanya saw thirty-nine-year-old Tanya getting excited over edible fish bones, she’d immediately ask what went so catastrophically wrong with our life. The answer? Quite a lot, actually. But at least dinner is fantastic.

The Sodium Test

Then comes my favourite part. The sodium test. This isn’t something normal people consciously do. I’m aware of that. Without even thinking, my brain automatically searches for salt. Where is it? Commercial soups usually announce themselves with sodium before you’ve even swallowed. This one doesn’t. Salt is there. It simply knows its place. The ingredient list wasn’t lying. Salt is literally the last ingredient, and it behaves exactly like that. Supporting. Never dominating. For someone like me, that’s almost impossible to find.

I actually laugh to myself. How did Fish Home accidentally build products for someone as socially incompatible as me? Most companies spend millions studying consumer behaviour. Meanwhile, I represent approximately zero percent of the population. I don’t want sweeter. I don’t want saltier. I don’t want richer. I don’t even want more seasoning. Right now, the answer to what my favorite flavor is would probably be… “Original”

I used to get ridiculed for ordering my meals without sauce. But after taking some nutrition classes, everything I was doing had a scientific basis from that point on. The ridicule was just as much. It was only that the ridicule was for me mentioning my results.

Afterwards, I pursued many years worth of Michelin stars all over the world, believing that luxury meant rarity. Meals that lasted longer than some relationships. Ironically, those experiences taught me the exact opposite. The very best chefs never bury beautiful ingredients. They respected them. They understood something I was only beginning to learn. Food doesn’t have to scream to be unforgettable.

Embracing Ridiculously Simple Peace

Life eventually reinforced that lesson in a much harsher way. A stroke. Years later… A heart attack. Nothing reorganizes your priorities quite like looking across the table at your seventy-something-year-old mother while wondering if you’ve just eaten your last meal. That moment quietly changed everything. I let go of self-indulgence. I start embracing the search for peace. Physical peace. Mental peace. Knowing precisely what goes inside my one and only body.

Which is probably why this bowl affects me more than I expect. Because it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to impress me. It feels like it’s trying to take care of me. There’s something incredibly comforting about opening a package and recognizing every single ingredient. No dictionary. No chemistry degree. No guesswork. Just water. Eel. Chinese herbs. A little salt. That’s all.

This may be why this meal is strangely sentimental. Not because it is grandiose. But because it is sincere. I glance toward my mother, who’s busy doing her own thing, completely unaware that I’m having a philosophical crisis over a bowl of soup. She’d probably just tell me to stop overthinking and eat before it gets cold. She’s right, of course. So I take another sip. Then another. Before I know it, the bowl is almost empty. I actually slow down—not because I’m full, but because I don’t want the experience to end too quickly.

Once upon a time, I thought happiness had a taste of Michelin stars. Now, happiness has a different taste altogether. A taste of ingredients that require no disguising. Herbs that know when to speak in whispers. Fish that tastes like fish without any regrets. Like a company stubborn enough to believe there are people out there who don’t need their food drowned in sugar, oil, or salt to appreciate it. Apparently, I’m one of those people. Maybe I always have been. The only difference is that life finally caught up with my taste buds.

I used to think becoming older meant becoming more complicated. Instead, I’ve become wonderfully, ridiculously simple. Some people collect wine. Some collect luxury handbags. I collect ingredient lists that fit on a single breath. And somehow, against all commercial logic, Fish Home keeps making food that speaks my wonderfully weird language. I don’t know whether I’m God’s favourite child… Or simply the luckiest culinary oddball alive. Either way… I’ll happily accept another bowl.

Sans Oil! This Fish Home’s Taiwanese Chinese Herbs Fish Soup Has a $300,000 Insurance Policy!? Trying the Most Luxurious Herbal Fish!

Sans Oil! This Fish Home’s Taiwanese Chinese Herbs Fish Soup Has a $300,000 Insurance Policy!? Trying the Most Luxurious Herbal Fish!

Sans Oil! This Fish Home’s Taiwanese Chinese Herbs Fish Soup Has a $300,000 Insurance Policy!? Trying the Most Luxurious Herbal Fish!

Sans Oil! This Fish Home’s Taiwanese Chinese Herbs Fish Soup Has a $300,000 Insurance Policy!? Trying the Most Luxurious Herbal Fish!

Sans Oil! This Fish Home’s Taiwanese Chinese Herbs Fish Soup Has a $300,000 Insurance Policy!? Trying the Most Luxurious Herbal Fish!

Sans Oil! This Fish Home’s Taiwanese Chinese Herbs Fish Soup Has a $300,000 Insurance Policy!? Trying the Most Luxurious Herbal Fish!

Sans Oil! This Fish Home’s Taiwanese Chinese Herbs Fish Soup Has a $300,000 Insurance Policy!? Trying the Most Luxurious Herbal Fish!