Visiting Taipei as a Coeliac

Cuisine Food & Drink
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Hello everyone,

we used to live in Taipei from 2003 until 2008 and are going to visit for the first time since we left. Very much looking forward to it! :slight_smile:

Sadly I have been diagnosed with celiac disease about 10 years ago so I canā€™t have any gluten, not even the smallest amount. Cross contamination is also a no-go for me.
I am pretty sure Taiwan has changed quite a bit since we left, but my recent research still worries me about my food options. I donā€™t think Iā€™ll be able to eat at restaurant safelyā€¦

My plan is to bring bread and a few essentials with me and to rent an apartment with a small kitchen so I will be able to cook and maybe prepare and take bento box lunches with me.

But if you have any tips about eating as a celiac in Taiwan, please let me know. Maybe you know of safe foods at 7eleven, which bubble tea brands are okay, stuff like that.
It is always very hard for me to find safe foods while traveling and especially since I donā€™t speak Chinese (and celiac disease is not at all common in Taiwan) I imagine it will be a challenge. So any help would be appreciated. Thanks so much. Greetings from Germany.

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I am probably not as sensitive as you but had good luck avoiding anything with soy sauce and breading. I can speak Chinese ok and was usually with people who spoke better than me, so that helped. I have seen some online resources thought not sure how accurate they are. For example,

Good luck!

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Easy to avoid wheat, butcross contamination is hard. If you are in Taipei I suggest going to restaraunts like Plants and chatting them up and finding more options. Now a days, there are numerous gluten free options. Nothing like in the early 2000s. Cooking for yourself is, of course, always the sure fire way to be safe. But sucks if travelling.

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Gluten is in so many sauces in Chinese/taiwanese food though.

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Yup, and easy to avoid sauces. Loads of places take it as the norm to say no sauce. Wheat is everywhere no doubt, but itā€™s very much not a huge hurdle anymore to avoid it.

I would venture a guess hat a lot of eateries here arenā€™t even aware of the ingredients of many of their ingredients that come in a sealed bag from the factory. Easier to eat more whole foods if worried, which are now everywhere :slight_smile:

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Thank you for your replies.
The problem with the (hidden) ingredients in sealed / packaged food that come from a factury is a real one. And the amount of gluten people with celiac disease can tolerate is so minimal that I am not sure if I could, for example, eat Teppanyaki when soy sauce was used for the guest before and the grill is not thouroughly scrubbed clean. Quite annoying.

Do you know if Shabu Shabu is usually made with broth or plain water? I canā€™t remember. Broth made from those ready-to-use broth cubes often contains gluten. Of course if restaurants make everything from scratch itā€™s less of a problem.

Very much looking forward to exploring Taipei after such a long time, food is not the most important thing but I still try to come prepared as I donā€™t want to spend my time there looking for food options all the time. Thereā€™s much more fun things to do :slight_smile:

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Any decent hot pot place can certainly tell you if there is wheat, soy sauce or anything else in their soup :slight_smile: probably need to ask the sever to ask the chef. But I doubt itā€™s too difficult. Their table of helical for flavor enhancement on the other handā€¦might want to stick to the vinegar, chili, onion, garlic, cilantro etc and avoid those sodium pastes. Flour certainly is often used as a thickener.

Edit. Do check out ā€œplantsā€ in Taipei. They arent the only one, but I donā€™t know many off the top of my head cause i really like wheat. They have a very good menu and know all their sources and make their own food. I only suggest them because I think you could go there first, then spark up a conversation with them as I would assume they probably know a lot of places around taipei that are also suitable for your needs. They are vegan, but that iind of goes with the territory, unfortunately, so far as having a reliable and very well informed and very diligent kitchen within spending 6k on a few spoon fulls of food haha

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Itā€™s absolutely pointless to try to talk with restaurant. 99.9% people over her donā€™t understand what means absolutely no gluten. I guarantee 9 of 10 times they will unintentionally slide you gluten in. I know 2 restaurants in Taipei city that are gluten free. Other than those ones Itā€™s just a gamble. Regular soy sauce is not gluten free and thatā€™s literally in everything. Then even if you ask they prepare you food without sauce I bet itā€™s huge chance that you get gluten in food with cross contamination. For example you ask stir fry vegetables without any sauce (chef definitely wonā€™t wash a wok where he prepared previous veggies with sauce). Or there is restaurant that offers gluten free pizza (they have one owen where they bake all pizza). Cross contamination guaranteed.

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Beyond pointless asking, even if you have the language skills to do so. Whether coeliac doesnā€™t exist here due to ignorance, or actual low prevalence by evidence is an interesting question.

ęø…ē‡‰ style soups (look for those characters) at beef noodle shops. No soy in that, just boiled stock. Iā€™ve never seen or heard of gluten in 冬ē²‰, reasonably safe ordering that. A little less safe ordering ē±³ē²‰ļ¼Œ I did see wheat starch in the ingredients for one brand of rice noodles once. I suspect they may have been Vietnamese imports as I know Vietnamese like to put wheat starch in rice noodles. But I think in general in Taiwan, with the exception of soy sauce, they are not always sneaking gluten into everything like in a country where wheat is grown or where it is a staple. They developed fake chemical modifiers for starches years ago for fake tapioca balls in bubble tea to make them bouncy and fake, the way the locals love it, so they would rather use that rather than gluten, which they have to import.

Seafood restaurants: milkfish congee, clam soup, all reasonably safe.

The clear soups at 鬍鬚張, with plain boiled rice.

Sashimi at a Japanese restaurant. I heard of someone reacting to the dab of wasabi under the fish on sushi once, I wouldnā€™t be surprised if they skipped that step here though, so sushi might also be okay.

Turnip cakes at breakfast joints always made with rice flour.

Roasted sweet potatoes, preferably from a street vendor rather that Family Mart/7.

There are always bland options in Taiwan in almost every restaurant, in my opinion. I think some locals have really bland palates. Bland might mean less risk of a flare up for you is what I mean here.

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It ā€œdoesnā€™t existā€ in Taiwan because doctors globally, but in Taiwan specifically, are absolute morons when it comes to understanding the disease. If they have even heard of it, they believe firmly that if youā€™re not both genetically Italian and having the worst poops of your life, 24 hours of every day, you couldnā€™t possibly have celiac. This is despite the pretty well understood reality that there are well over 200 symptoms of celiac, including no symptoms at all. The reality is that globally, celiac has been found in about 1% of all human populations that were tested at scale, regardless of ethnicity/genetics/whatever buzz word needs to be used to get my point across that um yeah, that includes Taiwanese people!

The problem for people who need a strict gluten-free diet is that Taiwan got into the gluten free fad diet just a few years ago, long after most people in America gave up on it, which makes people who think gluten is causing their bloating feel better about themselves, but does absolutely nothing for people who cannot tolerate any trace amount of gluten at all, aka people with celiac. (the comparison I see most commonly is that, over the course of a day, someone with celiac can come in contact with a maximum the amount of flour in the ball of a ballpoint pen)

The other problem is that Taiwanese people/restaurant owners on the whole just donā€™t get allergies, food intolerances, dietary restrictions, etc. You tell them youā€™re Muslim and they say ā€œthis only has a little bit of porkā€. You tell them youā€™re fatally allergic to seafood and they assure you they took all the shrimp out of your portion, even though you can see bits of the tails, etc. I know people with fatal allergies here (have had more than one anaphylactic reaction) who are incredibly careless about what they eat. I have no words for themā€¦

As far as I know, Plants (the restaurant) doesnā€™t have any gluten on premise, so (double check with them) but that should be safe. Iā€™ve read reviews somewhere (Reddit??) that said Ding Tai Feng is good about cross contact with their fried rice and vegetables, though thatā€™s a heck of a lot of money to pay for those things if youā€™re not getting DTF soup dumplingsā€¦

If it helps, Mia cā€™est Bon often has 1:1 gluten free flour from Bobā€™s Red Mill. Itā€™s like 450NT/bag, but it exists! Thereā€™s also often random foods in the international section of carrefour that are certified GF. Iā€™d recommend a suitcase full of ā€œsafe foodsā€ from your home country for anyone with celiac. Worst case, Backpackerā€™s Pantry has GF meals, you only need to add water, and theyā€™re super light weight.

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They will cook ē±³ē²‰ in same water where they cook regular noodles.

Most of restaurants fry milkfish coated in wheat flour.

Everything at breakfast place is grilled at same grill plate, so those turnip cakes are grilled where was wheat pancake just minute ago, or they even grill next to it.

There is so many ways chef can do cross contamination. For celiac even small amounts are very bad. If itā€™s just gluten intolerance than probably wonā€™t matter much.

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Thanks everyone. Your answers confirm what I had already suspected, that for me it will be near impossible to eat out.

So Iā€™ll definitley bring a suitcase of safe foods with me, better to be prepared. Iā€™m glad we have a small kitchen so I can cook and take meals with me. I will try out Plants. DinTaiFung, as far as I remember, has this huge open kitchen and so many foods with gluten, I am not sure whether I am going to dare to eat their fried rice, but my family will surely eat their Xiao Long Bao and I can at least watch and smell :-)ā€¦

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Thanks!!! Will definitely go there!

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I was referring to these type of places below, the fish isnā€™t battered, you might be confusing with another dish.

https://www.google.com/search?q=č™±ē›®é­šē²„台北&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-m#trex=m_t:lcl_akp,rc_f:rln,rc_ludocids:8977327580046704774,ru_gwp:0%252C7,ru_lqi:ChLombHnm67prZrnsqXlj7DljJdIwISqhuaAgIAIWioQABABEAIQAxgAGAEYAhgDGAQiFuiZsSDnm64g6a2aIOeypSDlj7DljJeSAQRkZWxpmgEjQ2haRFNVaE5NRzluUzBWSlEwRm5TVU40TjBrMldFMUJFQUWqAXgKDC9nLzExeDd2djZwZwoJL20vMDFoczVwCgkvbS8wY2hfY2YQASoTIg_ombEg55uuIOmtmiDnsqUoRTIfEAEiG2z1poQV0deOqRlROxiP9cAs3TKGqaav6rFQpTIaEAIiFuiZsSDnm64g6a2aIOeypSDlj7DljJc,ru_phdesc:GbQLqMCbyLk,trex_id:kgGfef&lpg=cid:CgIgAQ%3D%3D

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To be fair, even massive chain restaraunts from ā€œgood countriesā€ like Japan canā€™t do shit right. Mos burgersā€™ vegetarian burgers were fried with all the other meat, and they told you so. Making the entire venture more than useless lol!!! No wonder they canceled it. Stupidity all around. Allergies are a bigger issue. People that actually have legitimate serious allergies to things like peanut, soy, crustaceans etc are going to have a hard time in Taiwan. Thankfully that level of allergy seems rare. But for those that are seriously that ill, walking down any given street is going to be a death sentence.

Anyway, gluten free exists here. Chat up the suggested and similar restaurants, many exist. Eating at places that make everything from scratch and know exactly where all their ingredients are from arenā€™t cheap, but do exist in Taiwan. Especially expensive in Taiwan as not so many allergies it seems and a lesser market han some other places. Very doable, no excuses. Whether or not you like the price points, thatā€™s up to each customer :slight_smile:

BTW as mentioned by others, eat more single ingredient whole foods. Things get simple, and healthier, REAL quick!

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Weā€™re back from an absolutely fantastic holiday in Taiwan and I thought Iā€™d give an update, mostly for fellow Celiacs who might search this forum for info.
While Taiwan in general is absolutely great, eating gluten free there was almost impossible for me and I was so happy I had brought so much food with me! We stayed at an apartment so breakfast was okay (I had brought bread and cereal). Eating out was a nightmare.
Gluten can be everywhere, even in flavorings, so technically I would have had to check the labels for every syrup and every sauce I was about to eat. For example Mango Shaved Ice. They put a scoop of icecream on it and some yellow syrup, and so I didnā€™t dare to eat it as the syrup was in a clear bottle with no listed ingredients. The lady was nice enough to swap the syrup for condensed milk and so I had crushed ice, mango and condensed milk instead, which was still quite yummy.
Also, often people just would not get what my issue was. They were super friendly, but when I orderen a fruit plate and the papaya was covered in cake crumbs, they would not unterstand the crumbs were the problem but kept asking if I was not happy with papaya and if I would rather have an apple. And my husband can speak Chinese fairly well, even he didnā€™t get through to them.

What I did was order plain rice and bring my own, pre-prepared veggies in a thermos with me, or sometimes a can of tuna or some corn.
For the two weeks we were there I was coping quite okay but I must say it was the hardest country to travel so far ā†’ it was really really hard. If you go, bring lots of food with you, otherwise you might be unhappy. Having to watch the family eat all the good street food was no fun at all so brace yourself! :slight_smile:
DinTaiFung has a menu with gluten free foods listed, though they use soy sauce on about half of them and I wasnā€™t able to find out if their soy sauce was gluten free. They do not clean their cooking utensily inbetween dishes, except for the pan for vegetarian fried rice, so that was the only item I feld safe ordering.

Thanks everyone for your help!
If you are only sensitive to gluten and donā€™t have Celiac disease, you might be more relaxed as you can probably eat more.

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