Count me in. Upset stomach once. Never went again.
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Damn. If subway was still open, dongang would be downgraded another notch:(
I am quite looking for to the pizza though, wood fired makes me huge difference in taste!
@afterspivak posted this article about the michelin star restaraunt also failing health inspections (along with 17 other michelin.star spots in taipei before).
I think you all know that local eateries in Dong gang are no where in the same realm of diligence that these places areā¦pingdong be ware. Its actually quite bad compared to taiwan national standards. Dont let the decore fool you! Not sure why so many defend them. Ignorance is one thing, but surely people have eyes and have seen their back area and/or washrooms.
More and more i cook at home. If i drive, bring a camp stove and a pot. But travelling on the train still stuck with restaraunts.
Thank you for the shout-out.
But what does this have to do with tourism in Pingtung? 
Guy
Read the above posts about food in pingdong and some posters thinking its quality. It will make sense then.
I am curios why you go visit often if not for the local (mostly seafood) DongGang unless you live there. I live not far away in Kao City and when I go there part of the reason is for the food (sometimes visit friends but in that case eat at their home mostly). After a few visits I would like find it not so exciting as its not a big town. Maybe you know something that is very exciting there that I did not see.
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Yes, photo taken last year. In mid-June, it was incredibly hot! Seeing these turtles so close to you (snorkeling) is a wonderful feeling.
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I have a lot of family there, some friends and i have some work related things i visit there for as well. So I am there often. Im not just shitting on a place i pass through randomly now and then.
If it makes anyone feel better. We went out for beers and seafood last week. Only 2 people got the runs, me and my wife didnt and had a wonderful evening of looking at the kaohsiung chemical factory lights while waves of trash crashed against the dock we were eating at (the market area near the ferry, you all know the place). Only saw 3 rats, and our places kitchen staff were only blocking the seating area with their dishwashing on the floor. Zero exageration. This is Dong gang, and it is observable every day of the week 
But all bullshit aside dapengwan bay will become a huge area once it grows in. Trees are getting way bigger, less bird poisonings. that i have seen anyways. Its going to be the next kenting for pingtung in my opinion, as kenting has kind of killed itself already.
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OK. FYI (I guess you know this) there are nice seafood places north of the Subway (same street). Nice I mean cleaner modern air con places (does not have mean expensive too) than the old open air market, which yes does have rats like many old markets (peopleās personal choices depending on whatās important or what your used to)
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I visited Donggang once in the early 2000s to sample their fabled toro.
I came away disgusted by how folks behaved and how roughly and casually they wasted food, leaving trash everywhere.
I have not been back. 
Guy
Youāre dismissing an entire county?
Not dismissing, just letting travellers unfamiliar with the area that it is well known for these problems. Quite well known. No one wants to get sick on vacation pingtung has improved a lot, but is still keeps having food problems.
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I dunno man. Food poisoning is a problem all over Taiwan, not sure why youāre singling out Pingtung because you had bad luck in Donggang. Is it possible you have a food allergy that youāre not aware of? That your diet is very restricted and eating āstrangeā foods has more of an effect on you? Or that youāre less able to distinguish bad/sketchy restaurants from good ones?
Not trying to defend Pingtung TOO hard, but Iāve been living here for eight months now and I havenāt gotten sick any more than I would have in Taitung, where I used to live.
Iāve only gotten sick once, from the new sushi train in Chaozhou. Iāve eaten in Donggang more times than I can remember, and never had a problem.
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I hear ya man. But i am in the food business and have worke in and with many food factories in pingtung as well a lived tgere ove a decade and still continue to work there. I only single it out because of my experience there. Lots of food companies open factories there due to leniency.
Its not just food poisoning, its contamination. Heavy metals, factory outputs etc.
But youre right, its island wide. i just know for a fact from first hand experience pingtung is BAD. So is koahsiung, but the city has done a lot to upgrade so they get a bit of a pass. The countryside of most counties are similar, however fda inspections are run county by county. So places like taitung and taipei and quite strict whereas pingtung is not.
When i first moved there, i defended it to the death as well. I was wrong.
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Can I ask what your food business is? And which food factories are bad?
We do supply chain sourcing and production (plant based), and consulting.
Sorry, i cant mention which ones are bad cause i dont want to end up sued, in jail or in a river. There are a number of people behind the scenes collecting evidence, be sure of that. There are reasons you see scandals now and then, people biding their time and pouncing at the right moment. Not as easy as calling up the newspaper with a picture of a bug, label mistake, hospital report of ecoli etc etc.
To be fair, taiwan is getting really strict on food. Its already reaching an unreasonable and un founded level of idiocy. But its because of lack of enforcement, as usual.
Check it out.
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Will you go? Looks like fun
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OK, but while youāre NOT mentioning any names people like me may be eating food from these companies. Can you mention any instances of things youāve personally observed? Point us in the direction of any evidence?
It would be hard to say as we wont know different factories customers. It gets spread all over. Only the fda and government bodies can request tracing records, which all wholesale food sales are required to keep. Companies should have a one step back one step forward system in order to be able to track where bad stuff went.
Some examples are i wont touch milk or pork from pingtung. Though some pork does seem to.be fine such as from Taitung and Tsingtao breweries. However smaller hog farms are notorious for feeding. them garbage, massive amounts of medications and they still use it lot ofgrowth stimulants like ractopamine regardless of whether people here think taiwan pork is clean. Usually this one is busted at the feed manufacturers not the farmers or pork processors.
I dont buy field vegetables from anywhere in pingtung, yunlin, chunghua and other heavily contaminated areas. Restaraunts you will never know.
I will start moving this discussion to an AG thread cause its probably a bit off topic, just wanted people travelling to think about food mostly at eateries. Actual food manufacturing gets shipped all over taiwan and abroad so isnt as relevant to pingtung alone.
Edit. Perhaps we continue on over here?:
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