I remember eating very well in Spain, for cheap
I’ve eaten at about twenty “Thai places” in Taiwan, and they’ve all been crap. I suppose they’re okay if you’ve never been to Thailand.
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To be fair, I’ve heavily influenced our home cooking. Much basic Taiwanese home cooking is far too bland and tasteless for me. But, I like that meat veg and rice formula (some other things too, even a varied but discriminating selection of restaurant/market food. That definitely doesn’t include “pink food” 
)
What’s that?
I hate rice. And I move to Asia. Smart thinking, Presley!
I’m not here for the rice, though. I’m here for the culture. It’s FAMOUS!
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I like the culture well enough, still very happy I came here. But the food has been such an incredible disappointment compared to every other country I have lived and traveled. After all the hype, so disappointing
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Oh ok. 
It would have been nice if you’d used the blur spoiler feature there. It can be a bit nauseating to see explicit, uncensored photos of Taiwanese food.
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I thought the food in China was better too, though that was my first place in Asia and I was more interested in trying new stuff. Still a fair amount of gross dishes and food safety issues of course, and more difficult to get non-Chinese food compared with here.
I basically never cooked in China though - for the things I knew how to cook, it would have been even more expensive to buy the ingredients than eat in a Western-style restaurant, so it was easier to either do that or eat in local places. The meat section of Chinese supermarkets, even more Western ones like Carrefour, always made me too nauseous to buy anything as well. I think I made scrambled eggs and rice several times, and hotpot once with some mystery meatballs, but that’s about it. Should probably have made more of an effort.
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I didn’t want to leave and never eat some of those dishes again, so I learned to cook before I left. Didn’t usually cook while there, because basically any random restaurant was at least ok
Thailand was my 3rd overseas country, same story
I quite liked the Lanzhou noodle chain-style places you could find anywhere in China. Shame they don’t have them here (AFAIK).
Yes most Thai places suck, true. But some have good quality on curries or fish at decent prices. Surely you don’t get anywhere near the variety of Thailand cuisine in Thailand.
For Vietnamese I found a very authentic and very cheap (120 btw for a pho that made you full, 90ntd for great papaya salad, and so on) place. All Vietnamese restaurants seem to be run by Vietnamese too. Very unlike say Korean and Japanese places.
Chinese food in China is surely better and cheaper Vs Taiwan (except in nice looking restaurants which are way more overpriced in China). But foreign food is way better in Taiwan over China.
Well. . . .
(square-bracketed words added by me)
–“Taiwan’s COVID-hit tourism stews as island shuns global reopening,” Al Jazeera, April 14, 2022
People who like things don’t go on the Internet to complain. They savour the moment detached from the Internet.
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Patently obvious to anyone with a brain and not living under a rock the dip in tourism is due to Taiwan’s self-imposed restrictions. I didn’t say anything because I was being charitable and assumed he was just trolling, and I’m busy.
I had this stuff in Maryland a few weeks ago. They used hoisin sauce.
That’s pig’s blood cake on the right. My first time.
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Kinda like Spaghetti Carbonara outside of Italy really.
Carbonara in Italy: creamy because it’s lathered in eggs.
Carbonara everywhere else: creamy because … of cream sauce.
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Over time, I’ve noticed that he does seem to defend Taiwan occasionally. I guess he does so when he thinks people’s criticism(s) is (are) unreasonable.
Then there’s also that part of human nature that enables people to be critical of their own group, country, etc., but to rise to its defense when outsiders criticize it.
Perspective and reflection usually take time and experience to develop, tribalism is baked in
It’s the approach to defense that I find particularly disagreeable