Is it just me, or over time, many Taiwanese food places just seem like lazy cuts of mostly fat, ligaments and bone? As if they just… Tossed out the rest that the rest of the world considers the main parts?
It’s almost like a conspiracies of Taiwan LaoBan to save money by serving low quality leftover pieces shipped over from an American restaurant
Then what’s up with the prawns having the head and everything? What’s even the point of putting it in a soup if we have to get smoldered brains and third degree burns to access a single bite?
Then the chicken is always cutting through these super sharp bones, where even chicken “jiding” that shouldn’t have bones always end up having some jawbreaker in there. What the heck??
In a dish of Kong Rou, I’ll get like 4 good bites then the rest is just fat leftovers.
I mean, you say that, but… My wife’s dad is watching some restaurant featured as I speak that’s expensive and considered high class. Same thing, with those camera zooms to the jiggly fatty parts and gross lazy cuts of meat.
You get about 2x the amount of meat for breast than you do if you buy leg in the supermarket here. Why? cus people don’t really like those dry fatless bits of meat.
I’m half converted anyway. Before i wouldn’t eat any fat. Now i got no problem with it, and organ meat like heart, stomach, liver, Its all good.
The only thing i have no interest in is poultry thats still stuck on the bone. Can’t be arsed with it. Chicken, goose, whatever just give it to me bone less or i’d rather not even bother… unless its ji pai. Pretty easy to avoid the bone on that.
It has actually improved quite a lot! Believe it or not. The FDA and just regular customer demand has upgraded our foods leaps and bounds! Still some bad actors, but it was quite normal even just last decade to get expired, waste products in one’s meal. Even international big players like McDonald’s have been caught on oils and such in recent history. The FDA now is really over reacting, which sucks but is absolutely expected given the greed here.
For those that keep calling chicken breast dry, this is a Taiwanese copy+paste answer that their grandparents tell them and seem to pass on.
You need to tenderize it (smash it a bit with a hammer), then don’t overcook it, and never cook it in water. Tenderize, bake, don’t overcook, then behood the glory.
Edit: also don’t cut too thick, I often see grandma’s cube it and toss it in water (ugh; then it is dry and gross because it’s prepared+cooked dry and gross).
Try an an example at GBA and be stunned.
I remember back in America, they’d call “gray” meat poor man’s chicken. It’s really interesting how it’s swapped here.
It takes a modicum of culinary adroitness to cook chicken breast. For a cook who can barely fry an egg, this is orders of magnitude beyond. If you want to eat well and cheap in Taiwan, totally possible at home.
Da fuq? This is completely normal throughout Asia and in fact many chefs believe all the taste is in the head. Just how long have you lived or traveled in this area of the world?
Their chickens here are also a lot skinnier as they don’t pump them with as many hormones or force feed them as much. But yeah, the shards are annoying and potentially dangerous. I had goose tonight and it was an interesting challenge, I’ll just put it that way.
It’s pretty much just you and a few other (mainly North American) foreigners. This one is up there with moaning about how Taiwanese insist on using Sinitic characters to read and write or that funeral processions are noisy.
If you don’t like the fat in kongrou (which is the whole point), try ordering tipang ( 踢膀).
I can’t help you with chicken. Taiwanese like meat lovers in most countries around the world want meat on the bone.
You could try to order goose more often. That usually served with many slices that do not have bones. Your fellow diners will be happy because you will leave the good parts for them.
Prawns have the heads on because the juice in the head is delicious.
Soup is hot because that is the way most people like it.
Cook at home if you have different tastes. Taiwan has more than enough Costcos with and endless supply of tasteless chicken breasts for ‘baking’ and whatever else you want to do with them.
This is like being a Chinese person in Europe complaining about the ubiquity of dairy products and bread.
There are plenty of pork chop dishes in Taiwan that has no bones. Also, since traditionally people don’t eat with knifes, a lot of the times the best part of the pork is sliced or julienned to make it easier to be consumed with chopsticks. Pork in Taiwan tastes better than the US also seems a pretty common view.
Do the pigs care? They eat anything, even the pig farmer if they get the chance! They are smart enough to know they’re destined to be turned into bacon so if a pig farmer fell in they will eat him.
