Some people are mentioning things like dumplings, gong bao ji ding, etc. Isn’t that Chinese food? When I think of Taiwanese food, I think of food from Taiwan.
I agree with the healthier part. Coming from the American south, the food down home was definitely tastier - mmm, mashed potatoes, cornbread, gumbo…drool…but very fattening. Taiwanese food is much less tasty, but healthier because it relies so much on tofu and vegetables. Everyone I know loses weight when they come to Taiwan.
[quote=“Bodo”]I can’T STAND IT ANYMORE!!!
Find a buddhist restaurant if you’re vegetarian. They make brown whole grain rice and well, they’re vegetarian.
I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree - but I think Taiwanese food is tasty and MORE healthy than the average American diet. Without changing anything except going from Western diet to the local diet when I was there, I was 15 pounds thinner.[/quote]
I’m not veg but I do go to a veg restaurant once a week. It does a great job of mixing flavors, probably because it is veg they have to try harder. It is also very clean.
The fake Donner Kebab place is also very clean, the food does not quite look like this but tastes very good. They also do a sand/wind chicken. You see the poor little chickens hanging in the wind generated by passing traffic for a few days, they were stuck in sand in the backyard prior to that. They do taste great as well.
My Taiwanese business partner goes to Korea regularly. He tells me “I can’t stand the food. Not oily enough”
I think that explains the subject of oil. There must be a bloody great oil pipeline branching off to all the restaurants.
[quote=“Ironman”]
My Taiwanese business partner goes to Korea regularly. He tells me “I can’t stand the food. Not oily enough”
I think that explains the subject of oil. There must be a bloody great oil pipeline branching off to all the restaurants.[/quote]
Reversely, Koreans say that Chinese food is too oily.
I really like the food here…not everything, but I don’t like everything back home either.
My bf is Taiwanese and have also been working in a restuarant for 4 years, needless to say he knows how to cook (LOVE IT) and knows where to find the good small and local restaurants.
I do need a binge (sp?) of western food sometimes, otherwise I go nuts in noodles and rice rice and more rice 
It’s good I don’t need to lose weight (ahrmm 
) because everyday I eat what some “specialists” would say I should stay away from; rice, noodle/pasta, white bread…
If it works for the asian people, why not for work for me too 
I had the best seafood dish in my life in Hsinxu, the best chicken hot pot in Ilan, the best BBQ Squid in a hidden pub in Kaoshung and I enjoy a lot eating on the night markets in Taipei. Do I love it ? I am getting there for sure, I am. It is healthier (in general) compared to all the greasy food I had before at home.
Taiwan is not as bad as I thought it was, but it has indeed a limited choice of tastes.
And if I am in a need for a real steak, I go to one of the foreigner places. Paying 800 TWD with a big smile.
The grilled dove and glutinous rice cooked in a bamboo section I referred to on p. 1 of this thread were both aboriginal specialties, and therefore clearly Taiwanese. I believe 三杯雞 san1bei1ji1 or 3-cup chicken is Taiwanese in origin, and it’s one of the most delicious things available on planet Earth. And a lot of local cooking is just simple stuff with fresh ingredients, including lots of seafood. It’s “Taiwanese”, but not well known by name, because much of it is just home cooking.
My comments about great food here refer to the mixture of Chinese and Taiwanese food, as well as Chinese food done Taiwanese style, which dominates in small, local restaurants. Taiwanese food is essentially a regional variant of Chinese food, with Japanese influence tossed in here and there, plus quite a variety of regional styles from all over China imported due to the civil war exodus. As a result, Taiwanese food in this broader sense is diverse and delicious.
Now, I’m not a big fan of some of the local dishes like congee with taro, or stinky dofu. But I’m not at all concerned about whether Taiwanese food exclusive of dishes of Chinese origin sucks. All I care about is that I’m surrounded by great food at good prices. Add to that the plethora of delicious imported cuisine (although often at less appealing prices), and I’m in heaven!
My brother lived in Korea for a while, and has travelled to China many times. The first day of his visit here in Taiwan, I took him to the hole-in-the-wall mom & pop restaurant next door, and ordered some typical dishes, like mapo dofu, kongxincai and some chicken, and my brother remarked that it was the best damn food he’d ever had in Asia. Cheap, too.
It’s all relative to what you like. I travelled on Korean air and was delighted with the plane food. I was given a large salad with lean meat and little packets of spice.
Heaven for me. Probably hell for somebody else.
I guess it’s all a matter of taste. One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
I’m partial to beef noodle soup. The beef noodle soup in
Taiwan is wonderful.
I also love stinky tofu. It’s like stinky cheese - once you get past the smell, the taste is delicious.
True. I think part of the problem for IM is that he lives in a very local part of Taiwan. Very hakka influenced which means salty and oily. It’s great of done by a good cook but miserable most of the time. Contrast that to Indian or Thai or Greek which is good most of the time.
That said, it still is a matter of knowing where to go. My parents live in a predominantly Indian part of Vancouver and there are only a few decent Indian restaurants around. Most are utter shit and are frequently monitored by the health board (know this from my sister’s partner). If you were just to walk into any Indian restaurant in this part of town the chances are you would not have a good meal.
Same in Taiwan.
The thing is to get recommendations from people whose tastes are like yours. In local areas, the taiwanese haven’t a clue what foreigners like. My wife was telling me how seeker4’s wife complained to her one day that s4 didn’t lke a certain dish. Of course my wife said. No foreigner likes that. S4’s wife was surprised. And yet she has lived abroad.
I don’t know about your SO, but she seems very local to me, with very little experience dealing with foreigners. Hence she can’t really help you find places that would suit your palate. My wife, when we are looking to eat out in a strange neighborhood, will let me know when I ask about a place if she thinks that the flavor is too Taiwanese, or too this and that, and I probably wouldn’t like it. She’s never wrong.
Even when we order she lets me know how certain new dishes are prepared so I can judge whether I will like it or not.
I recal that on our Wulai after hiking meals the two meals we had with my wife and Chris’s wife were both delicious as they helped to order. The time s4 came with us and it was just waiguoren and we listened to the laiban’s suggestions we had a fairly crappy meal. Stuff that just didn’t appeal to us but probably would have to a taiwanese.
So no, Taiwan food isn’t crap. We are.
Ah, in that case he has my sympathies. Move to Taipei, dude! 
Ah, in that case he has my sympathies. Move to Taipei, dude! [/quote]
Have to disagree. There are some real gems out here. Maybe I am just the type who likes Hakkanese though. Much of this thread is about differing tastes and I don’t feel like an “it sucks” No, it rules" kind of back and forth. Some people like the food in Taiwan and, I guess some don’t. I happen to like it. I can live with it if some don’t. Must make life hard for them, though, and restaurant choices more limited and expensive.
Ah, in that case he has my sympathies. Move to Taipei, dude! [/quote]
Maybe that is it. Maybe Hakka=salt=oil in more liberal quanties.
If I moved to Taipei I’d just live opposite Carnegies and go there everyday. Although there are some great little holes in the wall. Mei’s near Alleycats is one I just visited last weekend and of course Alleycats but I’ve not been there yet.
My SO is HAKKA and I visit her parents and the meals are not bad. I have trouble with the large and small pipes from pigs and the quivering mass of pig fat with little hairs sticking up.
Lots of Japanese food though, so that helps.
Well, I have lived more or less next to Ironman for a while now, and i think that I know him a fair bit.
I can see why he has issues with the food here, and I know how to get over those issues.
I took him to a Ningxia restaurant in Longtn - he loved it. I also hived him off to a Belgian restaurant in Sanxia - he dug that place too.
Another forumosan took him to a very traditional but good Hakka place in Yangmei. It was good, howeve rI don’t know if he liked that.
If you dare to go out and try different restaurants, then you will find different and better places - IE I would love to take Ironman to the Korean places in Longtan, or the Thai places you can find all over, where there are Thai workers.
I also would not mind taking him to sample more of the exciting nightmarket food - fried eggs with oysters - barbecued squid etc. Not oily at all and very tasty.
How about trying some of the aboriginal dishes? Barrel-roasted chicken? If you want some different food, I can take you to an indian restaurant - not to mention a sandwich/sub place in Zhongli?
Or, if you are into the the japanese stuff, then it’s fairly easy to set up.
Also, if you want them to go easy on the MSG and the oil, then you can tell them - it helps too.
But remember, if you want to find the good stuff, then you have to dare to go out and look. An open mind regarding what you fill into your piehole might help too.
No maybe, my fellow wanderer, definitely. It’s food for field workers.
Mr He, why is it I cannot read a post from you without hearing your accent in my head. I don’t do Australian in my head when I read IM’s posts. 
Yeah sound okay but you end up filling your belly out just as much. Tell Dragonbones where to go to find dove with the delicious head still on.
MM thanks for the clues regarding hakka food. It all makes sense.
Every mountain village, actually.
OK, I have a few suggestions - there is good food to get here. I like it here, also foodvise.
As promised, would like to take you on a gourmet tour of your immediate environs, read my post for ideas.
[quote=“Mr He”]I took him to a Ningxia restaurant in Longtn - he loved it. I also hived him off to a Belgian restaurant in Sanxia - he dug that place too.
If you dare to go out and try different restaurants, then you will find different and better places - IE I would love to take Ironman to the Korean places in Longtan, or the Thai places you can find all over, where there are Thai workers.
If you want some different food, I can take you to an indian restaurant - not to mention a sandwich/sub place in Zhongli?
Or, if you are into the the Japanese stuff, then it’s fairly easy to set up.[/quote]
I thought this thread was about Taiwanese food. By Taiwanese, I mean food that is native to Taiwan (or should I say endemic to Taiwan) rather than another country’s cuisine that is found in a restaurant in Taibei.
Let’s say that we’re all a bunch of Taiwanese living in the States and whining about American food. One guy stuck in Iowa is whining about how everything is deep-fried and put on a stick. Another guy in New Hampshire is whining about how the spiciest thing you can get is a tuna fish sandwich on white with Miracle Whip. Then along struts some guy living in New York saying, “Yeah, American food is great. Why, yesterday I ate at this fantastic Bolivian hole-in-the-wall restaurant that I know on the Lower East Side.” Well, good for him but WTF does that have to do with American food?
Perhaps we should be more specific about what’s good and what’s not.
Some Taiwanese dishes that I like are:
-stinky tofu (the deep fried type smothered in minced garlic and hot sauce. Not the mala hot pot type that comes full of pig blood and intestines.)
-茶沙羊肉飯 don’t know how that’s translated, but it’s some sort of sauteed lamb and spinach over white rice. Really good.
-Jiayi chicken rice. Tasty, but not substantial enough for dinner.
-胡椒餅 Buns with savory meat and (most importantly) lots of onion inside, with sesame seeds on top.
Dishes I hate:
-Oyster omelettes. God, those things are slimy.
-Oyster noodles. O-ah-mi-sua. Putrid.
-豬腳飯 Pig foot rice. I was surprised the first time I ate it that there was actually meat, unlike chicken feet. But it’s still ridicuously fatty.
-控肉飯. Pig fat mixed with rice. Yummy! Not.
-鹵味. I can’t stand the smell of anything marinated in that crap.
-Just about any biandang. Chicken leg biandang, rib biandang, Fulong biandang. The cut of meat is usually so greasy that I can barely stomach any of the cold sloppy vegetables or white rice afterwards.
-Plain old fried rice or noodles. God, would it kill them to put some sort of flavor in it?
-Etc. etc. Add your own.
Hey, that’s one of my favorite meals. How can you hate that? :s Each to their own, I guess.
Interesting thing about oyster omelettes. I live in Changhua. And there’s nowhere, absolutely nowhere, that I’ve found in Changhua that makes oyster omelettes. And I’ve been here for 3 years. Haven’t seen one.
However Lukang, which is about 10km away, advertises oyster omelettes as one of the towns specialty foods. Famous for it. And rightly so.
I can easily find oyster omelettes in Taibei, Taichung etc. But for some reason, they don’t exist in Changhua. I have to go to Lukang when I want one.
The reason we are not STRICTLY talking about TAIWANESE cuisine is that most likely the “chinese” or “indian” or “insert whatever region or ethnicity you like” food has a Taiwanese twist to it. I certainly wouldn’t call the pizza or spaghetti I get in the States true Italian fare - It is American food with an ethnic twist. Just like the Tex-Mex or New Mexican restaurants have food that is called “Mexican” but it’s really an American invention.
But, yeah, I get the distinction you’re making. Can’t remember what the different names you gave connote (it’s been more than 10 years since I was in Taiwan). What is a biandang?
Yeah, oyster omelettes are gross in my book.
I got food poisoning once eating truly Taiwanese food once, I think it was the rooster testicles - man those things are disgusting!
Bodo