I’m an overseas Chinese living in North America; my parents were waishengren who grew up in Taiwan. They talk about how food in Taiwan is the best in the whole world since every province of China is represented there, but I find that hard to believe.
For one, Chinese people are not good at cooking dairy products. Secondly, I find Chinese food very lacking in creativity when it comes to cooking seafood. Is there anyone better than the Japanese when it comes to cooking seafood?
You’re using an unfair standard to judge food. Dairy is not a part of Chinese cooking, so of course you can’t look at that as an indicator for quality of cuisine in Taiwan. That’s like arguing that French food isn’t very good because they do sushi wrong.
I have no input on seafood since I don’t eat it. But as far as vegetarian cuisine goes, Taiwan rocks.
Of all the regional cuisines, I find Taiwanese to be one of the lamest. If it wasn’t for the forced infusion of waisheng cooking, the culinary situation here would be depressing indeed. Give me Sichuan, Hunan, Cantonese, Northern, etc. any day of the week. Taiwanese food? Let’s see…organs, chicken butts, “phoenix” claws, perfectly good vegetables ruined by tossing in dried shrimp so it tastes and smells like dirty socks, everything seasoned the same way: a little sweet, a little salty…
Regarding Chinese food in general, it’s definitely lacking in the soup and dessert department.
Good Taiwanese food can be amazing. It can be bland greasy salty crap, though. It depends on he ingredients used and how much care goes into it. Kind of like the food in my country, I guess.
I love the hotpot. I love the Japanese and Korean restaurants, although I’ve never been to either country so I don’t know if it’s authentic. The Thai food and the Italian food is absolutely rank, most of the time, but you can’t judge the place on not doing food from other countries well, I guess.
The seafood is brilliant in Taiwan, but I’ve never travelled to Japan. Cooking seafood isn’t a complex operation, however! It depends what raw ingredients you have to work with and Taiwan’s seafood is not vastly different from Japan’s.
Dairy doesn’t figure much, but then it doesn’t show up that much in Italian food either and that’s world famous. Cooked cheese is hardly a cornerstone of fine dining!
The markets are great for buying fresh ingredients.
Your folks are right IN THAT it’s nice to have many parts of China represented here. What’s “best in the whole world” is too subjective, however.
A ridiculous criterion for judging, as already pointed out.
Um, anything is better than serving it raw or deep fried. I prefer Spanish, Mexican and Thai seafood to Japanese any day.
The lack of dairy and potatoes, perhaps.
I tried to get decent beef noodles at a Chinese restaurant or two back home and had no luck.
I’m certain that I could find more that isn’t fried if I was better at reading the menus.
I’m not really into the rice and noodles.
Most of the other stuff is OK. Some of it is delicious.
A lot of furriners here could find much better food if they were better at reading the menus, or if they could read them at all. There are even some very good soups here at select establishments. And another point – if you’re (generic you) only spending $80-120 per mean, well, what do you expect? There’s often some very good stuff in the $300+ range.
Amy Tan once wrote that if some non-Chinese person said they liked Chinese food, and she asked them what their favorite kind was, and they answered sweet-and-sour pork, she would conclude that they knew nothing about Chinese food. By her standards I am an ignoramus indeed. I love that sweetened, boneless, saucy Americanized Cantonese fare.
I dislike the Taiwanese habit of coating what appear to be bare bones in a sweet-and-sour sauce, or chopping up the chicken with a cleaver (so that you get bite-sized bony bits rather than recognizable KFC parts), or sprinkling that damn red pepper over everything, and leaving chunks of ginger in the soup, or overcooking the chicken / bamboo / escargot until it’s tough and tasteless. Also, most of their soups taste like dishwater. And they totally don’t understand desserts. To finish a meal with fruit is just barbaric.
Oh no. Indian vegetarian food is best. Taiwan’s is too greasy (they’re trying to imitate meat dishes) and does strange things to my stomach.
[quote=“Dr. Milker”]Of all the regional cuisines, I find Taiwanese to be one of the lamest. If it wasn’t for the forced infusion of waisheng cooking, the culinary situation here would be depressing indeed. Give me Sichuan, Hunan, Cantonese, Northern, etc. any day of the week. Taiwanese food? Let’s see…organs, chicken butts, “phoenix” claws, perfectly good vegetables ruined by tossing in dried shrimp so it tastes and smells like dirty socks, everything seasoned the same way: a little sweet, a little salty…
Regarding Chinese food in general, it’s definitely lacking in the soup and dessert department.[/quote]
How wrong you are, Chinese soups are the best I have ever had, including the greats such as ginger clam, oyster, and the Herbal soups such as mayou ji and ginseng black chicken and fotiaotang. If I was sick I would go for those everytime, not a weak arsed western chicken soup.
Hmm, I find all those soups you just mentioned pretty awful. I think a previous poster’s use of “dishwater” is a perfect description. The worst, though, has to be that thin broth with eggs and seaweed. I gag just thinking about it. I can honestly say I’ve never had a Chinese/Taiwanese soup I could stomach…
Bone shards. While I don’t mind meat on the bone, sometimes it’s cracked in a way that you get small sharp shards of it throughout your food. I know it’s traditional, but it can be a pain when you’re hungry!
Being lazy, I also don’t like the fish with all the little bones. A lot of Taiwanese dishes, which I eat on a daily basis, seem to include the more boney varieties of fish.
I really don’t understand people who say that Taiwan has good vegetarian food. Sure, vegetarian food is plentiful and easy to find, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. I find that it is generally very bland and uses a really small range of ingredients. Perhaps that could be said about Taiwanese food in general. It all depends on your taste, but I think it’s easy to say that Taiwanese food is more “subtle” than other cuisines. It doesn’t tend to use a lot of herbs and spices. The flavors aren’t very strong. I guess that suits some people, but to me it just tastes bland. Anyway, I was just in India, and the vegetarian cuisine is about a hundred times better.
[quote=“brawnypandora0”]I’m an overseas Chinese living in North America; my parents were waishengren who grew up in Taiwan. They talk about how food in Taiwan is the best in the whole world since every province of China is represented there, but I find that hard to believe.
For one, Chinese people are not good at cooking dairy products. Secondly, I find Chinese food very lacking in creativity when it comes to cooking seafood. Is there anyone better than the Japanese when it comes to cooking seafood?[/quote]
Chinese food doesn’t contain much dairy and you can’t judge Chinese food based on how they do Western food like hamburger.
I find that Chinese food is very good and in fact demands far more creativity than Western food. Chinese food requires a lot of processing, from mixing sauce, to timing, as well as garnishing. Whereas Western food tends to be rather simple: Bake, boil. or fry. Sure, as far as professional culinary art it demands a lot but I find that in general Western dishes are easy to figure out. You can easily make home cooked Western meals just by going to allrecipe.com but I can’t say the same about Chinese food. Sure you can follow recipe but you absolutely can’t cook it the way some people cook it and get the same texture or whatever… it just doesn’t taste right unless prepared in very specific ways that aren’t easy to explain. I’ve never had much success cooking Chinese food from cookbooks.
Interesting. I always eat well in Taiwan, though I have the advantage that I’m usually there for short periods and can rely heavily on local friends and relatives to send me in the right direction.
The only complaint for me is that a lot of times everything is “slightly sweet” such that a main course and a dessert often deliver the same level of sweetness. That throws me off.
Like many Americans I could complain that there isn’t the variety of “ethnic” foods I can get home, but then, that’s sort of America’s thing is that it’s pretty good at everything. If I’m going to be in TW why not enjoy the local stuff I can’t get at home.
Other areas of observation:
Seafood – it can be had fresh here which is the important thing. Find the local favorites in the coastal towns and you won’t be disappointed with the variety of cooking methods.
Soup – I really don’t follow the complaints here. There are tons of good soups and not just of the “wash it down” variety.
Fruit – outstanding. I could live off it. Using it as desert makes perfect sense.
Regional Chinese – probably doesn’t live up to the claims that it makes Taiwan’s the “best in the world,” but I’ve certainly been able to find good Cantonese, Sichuan, Hunan, Dongbei, etc.
Also, I’m often impressed by the local specialties in various towns. Seems remarkable to find that many in a small place.
Dislikes? Grease (and msg)… hell I’ll take a hot pocket over panda express any day. On the other hand people have said that pe isn’t “real” chinese food (and I believe them). That being said I’ve enjoyed quite a couple of dishes that I tasted during my stay in Taipei.
Japanese food is amazing, I’d love me some sushi anytime. However, outside of japan there’s also gumbo, jambalaya, oysters en brochette, bouillabaisse, lobster bisque, cioppino, surf n turf, clam chowder, tacos pescado and camarones, ahi poke, ceviche, crab cakes, tuna melts, lobster rolls… I could go on.
Honestly all this food talk is giving me the munchies.