I mean, it’s fine for jelly, once in a while. It’s not really what I’m looking for in a main dish though. 
Chinese/Taiwanese and other Asian cuisines are not lacking in variety of texture. Some are just textures westerners tend not to enjoy. That is characteristic of the cuisine.
Fuchsia Dunlop says texture is the “last frontier for Westerners learning to appreciate Chinese food. There’s no equivalent to eating rubbery or slithery things in European cooking, which (in China) are deliberately cleansed of all innate flavour before they’re dressed up in soups and sauces. This just doesn’t make any sense unless you enjoy the texture,” says Fuchsia.
5 Likes
Thank you. I deliberately put “services” in quotes for the lol factor 
1 Like
I compare Taiwanese food to Thai food and real Chinese food. These are Asian countries.
Well real Chinese food as you put it is full of foods that many Westerners do not find acceptable. There are many different types, and many dishes in Cantonese cuisine for example westerners would not care for. Again no lack of texture. To each his own.
I can find foods I like and don’t like in any cuisine.
1 Like
What are your top 3 eateries in Kaohsiung?
I don’t live in Kaohsiung so couldn’t tell you. Last time I was there for more than a day was Christmas of 2021.
Why do you ask?
Because the food in the restaurants here is so consistently awful. Unlike when I lived and traveled in China, India and Thailand etc., and pretty much every place I went to was at least decent. The problem isn’t that my palate isn’t Asian enough, I believe my palate isnt Taiwanese enough to really enjoy the food in Taiwan. If you enjoy it, I would have been interested to get some perspective.
4 Likes
We just need to train our palates to enjoy rubbery and slithery things, whereupon we’ll be rewarded by being able to enjoy rubbery and slithery things. I admit the reward to effort ratio seems a bit low to me as well.
4 Likes
You may be getting consistently poor food because of location, language barrier other factors. But if you’re going to write off an entire cuisine, I’d generally assume it’s from lack of experience.
Why dont you start with dishes first? Are there any Taiwanese dishes you do like?
Here are ones I like:
Guabao 刈包
Xianbing 餡餅
Congzhuabing 蔥抓餅
Pepper bun 胡椒餅
Shuijianbao 水煎包
Beef Noodle Soup
Hongyouchaoshou 紅油抄手
Braised pork rice 滷肉飯
Danbing 蛋餅
Fantuan 飯糰
Sesame buns 芝麻包子
Tianbula 甜不辣 and 鹹酥雞 xiansuji
Lots of rechao 熱炒 dishes 炒龍珠， 客家小炒
Many different textures there that aren’t rubbery soggy. If you can’t find something good to eat, then I don’t know why. I haven’t had that problem and can find dishes I like in just about any national cuisine.
4 Likes
Possibly the Kaohsiung factor, but I find a lot of people here on the flob have the same opinion
My Chinese is way better than my Thai, Arabic, even better than my French. Probably this is not it
Local preferences remains the prime suspect. Some people don’t like spicy food, some do. Some people don’t like soggy and bland, some do. I like variety, but soggy and bland are near the bottom of my list
It is true I lack experience in enjoying restaurant food in Taiwan, and many other people I know feel the same (many of my students these days are not Taiwanese). But I don’t know if cuisine is the issue, because I have tried Indian, Thai (lots of different restaurants), and Vietnamese here (used to date a Vietnamese girl, her mom couldn’t speak English but she could cook)
I have also been to “Hunan” and “Sichuan” restaurants here, but having lived and traveled in both places, I think to call that food those cuisines suggests the people here have not experienced the food
That’s fine. It is common to adjust restaurant food to suit the local tastes. Good business, even. But it neither means that I am writing off a cuisine nor speaking from lack of experience
To be honest, the only things on that list i recognize are beef noodle soup (soggy, sometimes there is salt at least) and danbing (soggy, flavor depends on the chemical sauce they use). In the years I have lived here, experiencing the food, probably I have eaten some of the other things.
I think having a local wife or girlfriend would be very helpful
2 Likes
LOL except for the 熱炒 all those have carbs, which I do not eat.
Actually, I do like the beef noodle. Well, kind of. It might just be the only Taiwanese dish I’d expect to probably enjoy if – gun to my head – I’m forced to seek out a Taiwanese restaurant outside of Taiwan. I used to have it, and generally enjoy it (with some exceptions), quite often when I first came here. That said, I haven’t had it for maybe 2 years now despite living here, so I can’t miss it that much.
Yeah, fine, I’ll admit it. Danbings are okay once in a while for low-quality breakfast grease. I’ve even had some quite nice ones. I can’t imagine I’d miss them immensely after leaving Taiwan, but they’re okay.
I feel like I’ve had most of these at least once, or something very similar, either here or in China. Some of them were probably fine, I imagine, and some of them probably ended up in the bin after one or two bites. None of them were remarkable enough that I bothered trying to remember the name.
It’s just fried chicken, yeah? Okay, fine. But, I mean, it’s fried chicken…
Meh. I went for rechao with some foreign and Taiwanese friends tonight actually. We perhaps ordered at least 20-25 dishes, I assume a fairly representative selection, and a couple of them were reasonably pleasant IMO. Nothing to write home about or seek out, but okay. Several more were edible or borderline edible, some others not my thing, and a couple I sent straight across to the opposite side of the table (generally because they were seafood, but that’s a personal thing of course). Rechao is fine once in a while, but more for the social aspect with friends rather than the food tbh. It’s definitely cheap though.
Isn’t that from Sichuan?
1 Like
Avoid Starbucks