Taiwan little eats.
Lots of little cafes and shops like this dotted all over the San Gabriel Valley.
Nice Time Deli will always have a special place in my heart. It’s downward decline over the years is a little depressing.
Tofu King (Stinky Tofu King) is tasty and has smaller portions.
Old Country Cafe.
None of these places will compare to the shops in Taiwan, but it’s a nice reminder.
3 Likes
i ponder how the one child law is going to affect dining in china during the next few decades. family dinners just aren’t going to be that large anymore. there aren’t going to be a lot of aunts/uncles/cousins (biological, anyway).
The policy has been around since 1979, which means a vast portion of child-bearing families in China from that era have a single child who is now already in adulthood.
It appears to me that most of these older parents, especially the ones in rural areas, eat most daily meals on their own at home, as the child has moved out of the home and into the city for education or work. The frugal values of this parental generation prevents them from dining out on a whim. Dining out is reserved for special occasions (weddings, New Year, family reunions, etc.). And when that is the case, the meal occurs in a large round table setting, with family-sharing portioned dishes.
The filial piety / parent care side of this policy is far more reaching, but as this is a food forum, we’re not going to get into that…
1 Like
Thank you for that tip! We’ve just been ordering extra of the things that reheat well with steam but now? (insert evil triumphant laugh here)
IIRC, there were stories of some families completely spoiling their one child, resulting in a lot of them being grossly overfed as young children. that’s got to have some sort of impact on how they see food. still, i was thinking more along the lines of the second generation who would still be primarily adolescents right now; the eldest first generation members would be around 40 and having kids when they were 25-30 (if that’s realistic or not, i have no idea) who would now be 10-15 years old and having kids of their own in 10-15 years.
One of my favorite little eats that seems to be more mainland oriented is Yunnan restaurant. Just go to the cold case and point to order.