No plans on going back to China under the current administration. Maybe some day?
Good call. Maybe after WW3 is finished and Xi is removed from power.
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Can’t argue with that. Halcyon days for me. Found a pic in the archives of the mince looking thing I was served.
Would love to know what the dish was if anyone has ever seen it before…
A bad Chinese restaurant will at least taste like something other than watery vegetables… which is how I would describe what most Taiwanese food tastes like.
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Seeing this image earlier today got me craving some restaurant-made instant noodles, so I decided to go for a late-night snack, against my better judgement, and ordered the Taiwanese equivalent.
It tasted like cabbage water. The whole thing was just full of cabbage and watery broth. I have to say, Hong Kong got it right. Instant noodles and soft leafy veggies don’t mix.
Did you take this photo? That looks like satay beef broth. It was better than Taiwanese instant noodles, wasn’t it? Admit it.
Taiwanese instant noodle is much better than this crap:
But you really should try Japanese style Ramen. This is one thing they get right in Taiwan…
It is, but I was talking about the restaurant-made broth that is served with instant noodles.
Are you talking about real ramen (not instant)? I actually consistently had better ramen in the US. They were mostly Japanese chains, but even independent American ramen shops are better than most I’ve had in Taiwan. They don’t use enough salt/soy in Taiwan. Ramen broth is supposed to be rich and salty.
Although some places here will let you choose the saltiness, and those are the places I stick to. Always go for full saltiness for authentic taste.
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This is because Taiwanese seem to have lower sodium tolerance for some reason, so a lot of food is consistently low sodium. I hate this too.
But you gotta try different places. Some places like to fill the damn thing with cabbages.
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Ain’t that the truth. And they love their savory foods sweet, and love their sweet drinks without sugar. 
I don’t know what’s the deal.
The worst thing is most Taiwanese restaurants never have salt shaker and their food often needs salt. Learn to bring your own…
They always have soy sauce and even the beef noodle needs boat loads of soy sauce to taste like food.
Yeah, but they always have white pepper shakers, even when the dish is already way too peppery.
This is one reason why sometimes I prefer thick soups, those are often properly flavored, but any broth soup will have no flavor.
I give your 3 days break over weekend. You need more?
We all know Italian American food, Mexican American food are mediocre to original Italian and Mexican food.
So is Taiwanese food poor version of Chinese
Exactly. Czech is good for swimming, cause they don’t have too much of sea.
I didn’t . The last time I was In Hong Kong was before 1997.
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I love the thick corn soup here.
Where in “the west” are you thinking to support your argument?
That would make sense. These kinds of instant ramen joints were virtually non-existent back in the 90’s, and people would be crazy to pay for that at a restaurant.
Perhaps that’s an indication of Hongkongers settling for lower quality food too.
I picked the Vietnam War as a cut off point because that will give enough time for the influences of Late Immigrants and post war American aid to fuse into local cuisine. Take American aid for example, without the flour and beef that the Americans provided, Taiwan would never have developed beef noodle soup and other beef dishes.
However, with the influx of soldiers on R&R during the Vietnam War period, establishments tailored to the American soldiers became trendy, and instead of fusing new ingredients into exisiting culinary traditions, it began an era of just trying to duplicate or immitate American and European food. Those would be more similar to the Chicago pizza situation.