Taiwanese food sucks!

Proud of what??

No kidding, if being a veggo is so friggin great, how come they’re always making crappy fake meat stuff.

You don’t see meat-eaters artfully fashioning butt steak to bear an uncanny resemblance to asparagus, right??

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Ya know vegetarians in 3rd world countries have been shown to be healthier than vegetarians in developed nations, because 3rd world countries generally don’t have to deal with strict regulatory agencies governing how many insect parts are allowable in consumer produce.
So vegetarians in poorer nations ingest more insect parts, and thus more animal protein.
Food for thought :smiley:

image

not asparagus, but…

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You’re preaching to a very proud meat eater. My favorite pics of a recent trip to Korea are those in which much alcohol and meat are being enjoyed. I guess I’m just saying that if you’re going to be anything, be proud of it!

Mmm, I can just imagine the lovely fragrance.

That looks like a screen cap from one of @whatsisname’s DVDs…

Of your pee!

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Your pee smells like raw meat?

That’s a bit negative. Rather than trying to improve something simply ignore it? That’s not how progress works.

it’s tasty to cook your greens in it… Get your (quality) oil hot, add a 1/4 teaspoon along with some chili flakes and a teaspoon of mustard seeds. Then wilt your greens. Delicious.

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Someone who loves and admires me so much has to know very well that nickname. Probably you even murmur it in dreams.

Then what am I going to complain about?

Last night we were stuck in Shuanglian for dinner, that alleyway of eats near the MRT. After a week enjoying the vivid reds and greens of Bangkok street food, grey Taipei street eats were a saddening sight.

Walked around the corner into the alleyway, lots of bowls of grey, some grey soup on the corner with intestine, probably 死神湯,grey looking bowls of 湯麵,and big grey bowls of gloopy 羹. (Bowls were grey, soup was grey). I did spy Cantonese congee on one of the menus so ordered that. Seafood congee. Just wanted something simple without grey ingredients. Good option for a whinger like me right? It was apparently the last serving left as they hauled the pot out if its place on the street, turned it upside down, and scraped it until the trickling congee slowly filled my bowl. At the table, as I broke the surface of the congee with my prison issue metal spoon, under the ambient office fluorescent lighting of this roadside establishment, an unexpected smell wafted up to my sensitive, easily offended nose. I gave another stir, perhaps I was smelling the dish belonging to the diner next to me. No this was definitely my dish. I stirred more. My spoon hit upon big clumps of something which was not seafood. To my horror, the congee was full of these hard clumps. So many I could not remove them all. Among a couple of bits of seafood these clumps I would then identify as chopped up 貢丸. My congee was full of this vile grey meatloaf, chock full of it. And it had taken on the taste of the meatballs too, perhaps even being cooked in the water used to make the 貢丸湯。A fact which I became more certain of as the meatball taste repeated on me on the bus on the way home.

Don’t mess with the classics…

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You get bad congee. But you can also get very good congee in Taiwan with fresh seafood. Just not at the place you went to.
I don’t like si sheng tang or congee myself but they are distinctive dishes , how do you dress up intestines ?

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And this is a good example for comparing foodie Taiwan with true food destinations in Asia.

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I had a very interesting dish yesterday which was described to me as braised mullet tendons. Obviously it can’t be the fish, so I assume it was some kind of connecting tissue - probably beef knuckle.

It didn’t taste of much but had a nice texture. I always try to order the weird stuff.

But I can get all those vivid and diverse dishes at any rechao, I wouldn’t look for them at a night market.

A great example of very authentic and unique Taiwanese food are some of the stalls at Keelung nightmarket. Do they fit with the standard idea of Asian food being South East Asian food with chili and lemon?
Are they even easy to eat or recognize ? No.
But you won’t find some of the food there anywhere else!

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@bdog has identified a key point: not that all food in Taiwan sucks, or that Taiwanese are bad at congee (which they are compared to Cantonese folks), but this: that the food scene here has vast heaps of rubbish being served in a city with some fantastic food.

In my view, the key adjective to describe what’s happening is uneven. Taiwan is startlingly uneven, especially for those of us who have lived in places like Japan where the wretched unprofessional culinary conduct described by bdog would not be tolerated for one minute.

Guy

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At least you had your protein for the day!

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Remember Asian tourists come to Taiwan for the food, carrying a magazine or booklet highlighting the 10,000 or so ‘special’ and ‘famous’ restaurants.

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