Yeah, good information! I’m used to cooking without an oven. I’ve become an absolute whizz with the rice cooker/steamer though. I used to have a toaster oven but it was only good for cheese on toast or a bagel. I’ve been told you can get some pretty good ‘counter top’ ovens in Asia but I’ve never stumbled upon one that could replace a more conventional oven. Although, I never really looked very hard.
I managed to save a little bit of money and maintain my health, while living in the centre of Taipei on a salary considerably lower than an English teacher’s, by renting a room without a kitchen and using a rice cooker to cook healthy meals. I didn’t know until I went to Taiwan how useful and versatile rice cookers are, but it turns out that many Taiwanese people rely on them (apartments without kitchens are common in Taipei) and have developed many methods to get the most out of them. When I go back to Taiwan, I’ll consider sacrificing a kitchen to live in the centre of town again now that I know how much you can get out of a rice cooker, but I’d probably invest in a slow cooker/Crock-Pot too.
You can see this thread for information about home ovens. The big North American units don’t really exist here, but there are a couple of decent options.
Not sure how a North American style oven looks, are they different from the ones in Europe ? I saw in sogo a bunch of ovens that are same same to the ones in Europe. I even think many of them were from europe, they seemed to have some German and Swedish brands at least.
There are also some shops that have Bosch ovens close to Howard plaza, a little bit past it when you walk from the direction of sogo.
Many (most?) North American ovens are a big unit with oven below, and stove elements above, all in the same big piece of furniture - often at the bottom there’s also a drawer for pans.
I’ve bought a Doctor Goods in Taiwan. In size and appearance that’s more like a typical microwave, or a really big toaster oven, in North America.
They’re about 1.5 to 2 times the size of European ovens and can heat things to 500 degrees, but apart from that they’re pretty much the same.
You mean something like this http://www.bosch-home.com/us/products/cooking-baking/wall-ovens ? Those are the same ovens we would have in europe, and you can find those in e.g. sogo.
More frequently they come in a unit with the stove rather than wall-fitted. The stoves are huge and so are the ovens below.
I know what you mean, in europe we use the integrated units in public housing.
In Taiwan, the most economical solution is to purchase one of those large steel ghost money burners (the type with the chimney). You’ll put a couple portable gas stoves underneath and turn them on. These things can handle anything from Sunday roast to pizza.
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