I’m not saying it’s reasonable or that you should pay for it or can afford it. I’m just saying prices are way up in TW too. When I first got here, the only way you were paying over NT$35 for bubble tea was if you got 鮮奶. Now you’re paying closer to NT$50-70/drink (and over NT$100 if you want 鮮奶 in many places). That’s an average of a doubling+ of the cost over ten years. Inflation sucks but I don’t recommend getting grass is greener about it.
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Good to know but I can’t see 780nt for
8 chicken wings and a cup of rice In a paperbox and a coke with no glass im Taiwan
What used to be 8 bucks is now 20 in Bay Area simple restaurants
It’s getting to the point the customers are
staying away so they increase prices more to pay the bills and finally restaurants are closin
I ate out daily and now only a few times a month
Some of my fav everyday restaurants are closed and others are low on customers and in danger of closing
Only the ones in shopping centers retain crowds
The independent ones are cutting back on staff and hours
It’s a downhill move
That’s why this discussion
Prices may still not affect your willingness to spend in Taiwan but it affects many here in our neck of the woods where they are now affecting our willingness and ability to pay
I don’t have double the income I had five years ago and pay double the rent and these prices are closing a lot of restaurants here
Maybe for you 150 becomes 300 is still tolerable for most everyday man
But here 300nt becoming 800nt is affecting the man in the streets ability to eat out
And many restaurants are feeling the pain and loss of clients and closing
Only places with a lot of foot traffic without a lot of competition are staying around
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I get what you’re saying but you know food courts in Taiwan have all of those things, and they don’t cost over 800nt for a meal. As for street food, well I can’t always cook at home especially without a real kitchen, even gongyu have no real kitchen. And you’re hungry now, the kitchen is 2 hours away and you got work to do.
Plus it wasn’t this much back in 2014 where prices in america was only a little higher than 2014 Taiwan prices. McDonald meals being about 7 dollars or so when it’s about 150 in Taiwan. Covid is a crap excuse to quadruple the price, and its self defeating if restaurants can’t stay open since the price increase means less customers.
The mrt system and shopping malls that often locate next to mrt stations are Ada compliant by their standards.
With another trump term we can look forward to more price increases, with Taiwan following.
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Was this composed by Chat GPT? 
Guy
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@tommy525 I agree that the prices in the Bay Area have become ridiculous. If I didn’t find that nice lady selling pupusas on Mission I might have starved! I was also shocked by what I saw in Honolulu (which I expected to be pricey, but not that pricey!). How the locals survive there is beyond me.
In Taiwan absolutely prices have gone up, no doubt about it. However you do need to disentangle the vlog / instagramming crowd taking and posting pretty pictures (which is not my thing at all) and other options which do remain available. Earlier today, for example, I stopped by Zhenfei Coffee, a place I learned about from @tempogain , which is a well stocked and completely uncool shop serving delicious coffees made with beans from their dedicated coffee farm in Laos. Total cost for my caffe latte, with a table and chill atmosphere: NT$65. I could easily pay triple that price at some hipster cafe in Taipei, and in many cases it would not be as good.
So pick your spots, find your crowd, and enjoy your life within your means, as long as we remain on this beautiful yet fragile planet. I think this sort of approach is still possible in Taiwan, more so than in the pricey parts of the US and Canada, sadly.
Guy
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And if you care even less about the atmosphere, 711 still sells the medium latte for $45 - minus 5$ discount if you bring your own cup 
Probably almost impossible to find a similar deal for takeout coffee in the US nowadays…
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Forget about atmosphere! That would mean drinking rubbish, which I personally am unprepared to do. Hundreds of thousands of people think otherwise, though, as seen from the popularity of that drink.
Guy
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I’m not making excuses for anyone. McDonald’s and Starbucks specifically have been called out for raising their prices beyond reasonable in the US but that’s where dollar voting comes into play — don’t buy from them! You don’t need either of those places and if you’re in the US, even a trailer has a better kitchen than most TW luxury apartments. Learn to cook. Don’t have a car? I did that for multiple summers (during and since COVID) in a place where I would have literally died in the heat if I tried to walk to the grocery store. It’s called planning ahead and ordering your groceries for delivery. Or trying out the super discounts on all the meal delivery kits until you’ve figured out how to cook really nice meals all on your own. I will note also again that there are premade meal kits too. Pop in microwave, eat, decent food, real vegetables, substantial protein portions, meal kits. All of that is way cheaper than fast food and, while meal kits create a ton of waste, they create way less waste than getting take out. If people stopped supporting the mega corps that are trying to bleed everyone dry so their shareholders can get mega rich, the corporations wouldn’t be able to Jack up their prices. Instead, too many people just grumble about how their coffee cost US$9 and post all over socials about it, giving free advertising and normalizing simply paying too much for your coffee (no one pays enough for what coffee should cost if everyone up and down the production chain was paid a fair wage, but that’s a totally separate issue)
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This issue is very location dependent. I went out for drinks with some friends from college at a bar near my college (in the US) this past summer and one of my friends (who lives in a large US city) was happy to pay for the first round — US$22 for five cocktails. We all burst out laughing when we realized that, yeah, that was the total cost (still had to factor in tip). Even ten years ago in any big city, one cocktail would be at least 9-10 bucks, sometimes more like 15, depending on what was in it. But no one on the area near my college has the income to drop that kind of money on a drink. So the bars cannot charge those prices or they literally wouldn’t have customers. Big cities, however, particularly places like the Bay Area, have a huge market. Can’t afford our 20 dollar cocktails? We don’t want you riffraff around here anyway!
Taipei is the same. People are too price sensitive/cheap/wont or don’t put up with unreasonable prices. I was on UberEats one day and saw Bundaberg ginger beer on sale for NT$49/bottle. Usually it was NT$95 so I ordered a bunch. Three days later it was on there for NT$150. A week after that it was right back to NT$95 and I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re charging today. Carrefour thought they could make a bunch of money off people who buy imported soft drinks. People who buy imported soft drinks told them to eff themselves. Carrefour had no choice but to back down or sell no merchandise at all.
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I have too many opinions to outsource the writing of them to AI.
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Just clicked a random pho restaurant in london. 11 pound 25p. Over 14 dollars.thata criminal. Pho doesnt even fill me up.
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Kirkgate Market in Leeds—best Pho I’ve had in the UK. Around 7 pounds but worth it.
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Is that price still up to date?
I just looked up the one in my home town. 11.45.
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Still up to date in Leeds at K market albeit it is a food court and not a restaurant…but really good and authentic.
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No, OMG, nope. Taiwan is cheaper than US and US cheaper than most Latin America.
Them vloggers and YouTubers for tourists peddle middle to expensive stuff. Not to mention many people have been swindled with fruit purchases at night markets.
Coffee here is an experience, full service, each place competing in ambiance and flavor…unless it is a chain like Louisa or heaven forbid Starbucks. Mostly you are paying for a seat and a couple of hours of soft music.
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Indeed. Four corporations control potatoes. Like three control meat and poultry. Basically, a monopoly in each key area. That reduces quality, accountability and generates price gouging.
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How the heck do you control potatoes? Anyone can take a single potato, cut it into pieces making sure each piece has an eye, and stick it in the soil, in some months you get like 16 potatoes for each one you plant. It’s probably how people used to store potatoes, just grow the stuff. It wants to sprout even despite efforts to prevent this (as this makes the potato poisonous).
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How many potatoes have you grown in your life? For me the number is zero, because I can’t be bothered and don’t really have the space. That’s how. You could say the same thing about raising chickens or whatever, which I’m also not doing.
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I’m seriously looking into it, and if this is something I can do on a small scale, because potatoes are extremely expensive in Taiwan. I want to see if this is something I can do on say a porch garden.
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