How many times to you visit Western Restaurants?
- 1-3
- 4-6
- 3-5
- 7-10
- 6-10
- 11-and over
0 voters
Please include visits to franchises, sandwich and coffee shops.
Thanks,
Alleycat
According to the survey, there’s one vote for NT50,000 a month. I think that’s going to make you fat!!!
Pizza does that too. 
Something fishy going on with the poll, alleycat. I tried to fix it, but it looks correct on the editing screen.
Anyway, since I’ve lived in the boonies, I only eat out once a week, twice in a good week, and usually at western establishments, unless i get dragged to some crappy hotpot place by my precious, and then i don’t even eat.
The poll should have had 0 - 3 as the first choice. I may average below 1, partly because I’m trying hard to save money, partly because I eat at home usually and partly because the local food is usually good enough for me.
On the other hand, my co-worker was born in Taiwan (but is white), speaks decent Chinese, and has lived here for the past 5 years, but he eats western almost exclusively and is afraid of the local food. He finds foods like intestines and pig feet disgusting, is afraid of local sanitation and believes they might sell you dog meat. I believe he has a mental disorder. If it’s good enough for 23 million locals it must be edible. Besides, a diet of Subway, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Swensens, etc. doesn’t sound any healthier to me.
I rarely eat out, and nearly never at western places, as I live far away from everything. Like korean and japanese food. If I need to have western food, I cook it. I even bake all my bread. Cheaper and better. The locals down here are better at cooking Chinese foodthan they are at the western variety.
Why would one have a mental disorder if they don’t eat pig bits and find the roadside sanitation revolting? I guess I’m mental too, then. 
23 million locals have grown up on the stuff. I doubt they’d eat a bowl of grits and find that as appetizing as I do.
Keep on topic, “nimrods”… :x I have buttons on this side.
Don’t really count but 7-10 times at least. Just love my bread, not the chewing-gum style local stuff but baguette or German bread.
As well I often go to Starbucks to grab a cup of cappuchino and once in a while have dinner at a Western restaurant.
I am however limiting my visits to McDonalds, once a month on average is enough. Though I must admit I like it (or do I have to say “I’m loving it”?).
When I bring food I’ve made at home to the office, my colleagues often comment on what I’m eating: salads, pastas, soups, sandwiches (today). I never order the biandangs here, but sometimes order rice to go with something like chili I’ve made, etc.
One of the colleagues, a vegetarian, always hangs over my cubicle and revels in the aroma when I bring pastas and soups. I eat in my cubicle because our office is in the boondocks and there’s nothing good around here anyway. But it also saves money.
Meanwhile, my lunches are healthy, while theirs are greasy and chock full of cholesterol and same-same taste everyday.
I think western food which includes many kinds of cuisine (mexican, spanish, italian, french, california, etc etc) is far more varied in style and flavour than local food. At least we can use more than just five spices (garlic, chili, ginger, anise, and soy sauce).
My spice shelf includes everything from (mid-range) curry spices to roasted pimentos to dill, oregano, tarragon, and thyme. I pick up spices whenever I travel abroad and they last for ages.
There’s nothing insane about that.
I eat western when I eat out, or cook western and eat at home. ‘Western’ means Indian, Thai, Mexican, or anything with potato in it.
The ‘chinese’ food here is awful, and I’m sticking by that statement. There are times when, due to poor planning, I find myself wandering disconsolately around muttering that “there’s nothing here I can eat”. It’s not that I actively dislike the tastes, it’s that my body screams “No! No!” whenever I try to put the stuff inside it. And, in any case, it’s hungry again ten minutes later.
It was OK at first, but after two years of MSG and grease the healthy me is in open rebellion against the bit that says I should live and die like 23 million other people: lethargic, undernourished, and with bad skin.
I’m off to see whether Yamazaki have got around to baking any real bread yet, then I’m going to have chip butties for lunch. Butter and HP sauce running down my arm!! A fried egg on top! Just like my mum used to make.
Dave and Busters -once a week. We use to go to Subway once a week as well, but, lately we’ve been making our own subs.
Chili, Pizza, Sandwiches make on our own.
I always eat western food. I like chinese and other Asian food, but I prefer to whip up my own meals and i’m not such a great cook of Aisan style meals. And then If I’m going togo out why bother with a Chinese restaurant I can have that any day of the week.
What I meant Alien is that when our firm goes out for a company dinner at a fancy restaurant my co-worker usually won’t join us because he doesn’t eat local food and everyone knows it, but if he does go he might pick at one dish and eat half a bowl of rice. It’s not just the intestine dishes. He won’t even eat dumplings or fruit – it’s got to be Subway Sandwich or a burger and fries. He told me he doesn’t like Japanese food. . . except for tempura. He’s afraid to eat virtually anything local because he perceives it as strange and dangerous. In my opinion that’s an irrational, almost debilitating fear that could be classified as neurotic behavior.
Apart from occasional visits to Au Bon Pain, I nearly always go to Chinese vegetarian restaurants when I eat out. If there were a good Indian restaurant anywhere near my home, I’d be a regular patron there – but as I’m not blessed with any such choice, I’m happy enough with the local veggie stuff, especially at my favourite organic veggie joint.
I always have a hard time defining what exactly western food is. Do you mean French or Italian? In that case I would seldom eat that food in Taiwan unless I make it myself as its usually disappointing.
When I first came here I thought I was in food paradise - fried chicken on every corner, and wonderful “mysterious” food everywhere you look. It wasn’t until after 2 years of eating at my current employers restaurant and the subsequent gain of about 15 kilos that I changed my habits.
We take advantage of a few select places for good bread, fruit, avoid McDonalds and the rest like the plague they are, go easy on the pringles, and vary everything else. Lunch box one day, curry the next. The surprising thing about living in my neighbourhood is that there is so much good “non lunch box” food to be eaten.
As much as I hate to admit it, Hsinchu is leaps and bounds above my hometown in terms of culinary choice. Where I come from in Canada, eating out means having fries with your order.