Where to Eat

Where to Eat in Taiwan

Eating out in Taiwan can be quite expensive. The night markets and the cafeterias can be cheap places to eat if you want to maintain your budget. Inexpensive foods and goodies are available at reasonable rates. Be forewarned that the Taiwanese waste few animal body parts in their cooking. If this head-to-hoof culinary conservation principle makes you queasy, you should probably stick to vegetarian dishes. The Buddhist population does not eat meat and thus looking around for vegetarian food won’t be problematic. Vegetarian food is excellent here. Western food is considerably more expensive and harder to locate than Chinese food, so it is better to eat local dishes than to search for the familiar. Rice or noodle dishes are usually inexpensive and nutritious. When in doubt, keep these tried-and-true choices in mind:

Chow fan. Fried rice. You can order this dish with egg, with vegetables, with seafood, or with various types of meat. (fan means rice)

Chow mein. Pan-fried noodles with vegetables and/or meat.
Ji si tang mian. Soup noodles with chicken.
Shui Jiao. Boiled dumplings with pork and/or vegetables.
Xian yu tang. Fish soup.
Zheng Jiao. Steamed dumplings with pork and/or vegetables.

Groceries

You can find the Welcome chain of supermarkets in all major cities in Taiwan.The prices is fair and they offer a good selection of both Western and Chinese foods. Although these stores are becoming more popular and convenient in Taiwan, morning markets, which are prevalent in the smaller cities and rural areas, are still an excellent place to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.