Nope, Taiwanese food in America is mediocre and you just take what you can get. Typing this from Taipei as of right now, can confirm.
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Enjoy the food over there and the hot/humid weather. 
This might belong in the hot takes thread but I find Taiwanese food generally to be pretty mid.
Enjoy Taiwan! Love them breakfast slingers all over the place. #DouJiangSaoBingYeoTeow
assuming ‘mid’ is mild, during my time there (albeit multiple decades ago) i would have described the food i was exposed to as being more intensely flavored/spiced, but in much smaller portions which tended to encourage non-stop snacking, especially at night when you had access to all those stalls/little shops at the night markets
Mid means mid, as in ok or average lol
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ok. never mind. lol
Hard agree. MASSIVE delta between native Taiwanese food and Taiwanese food in LA.
I was incredibly lukewarm on Taiwanese food in SoCal until I actually went to Taiwan and proceeded to have my mind blown multiple times over. So many dishes there don’t even exist in SoCal.
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Thanks for your perspective. Surely the food in Taiwan is better than what we have in the SGV. Taiwan has a whopping 43 Michelin-starred restaurants. Taiwan MICHELIN Restaurants – The MICHELIN Guide
I’ve never been. Except to the Hello Kitty themed airport in Taipei. And then the flight attendants giving me Hello Kitty swag on the plane. Can’t get that out of my head.
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mid=middling (or at least that’s how I think of it)
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Got a coming trip to Taiwan in the next few years and I can’t wait.
I think another issue is the menu is the same at every Taiwanese spot. So predictable.
Eat Joy is at least doing some deep cut dishes (deep cut for So Cal). Check Clayfu recs for this place. I had a duck blood and offal dish that was probably one of my favorite dishes this year.
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Maybe that’s why they’re slacking? If people still come in, perhaps low motivation to maintain the standard?
There’s usually picked veg in a fan tuan. The acid gives a much needed contrast (although I think a good fan tuan is great w/o). Yours looks like it doesn’t have any? The quality and packing of the rice also makes a big difference, I think.
I have never thought about eating a fan tuan w/ additional stuff. But maybe that’s just the way our family did it. To me, chili oil on a fan tuan would seem a bizarre as chili oil in rice porridge.
When I have soy milk outside of the house, I always order hot. I’m not sure why. Ordering cold would seem kind of like a wasted opportunity? But I cannot explain why. I usually get sweet; I think mom likes salty. I never get plain.
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Food in the homeland should taste better, but I’ve felt like in LA, I generally don’t feel like there’s that much of a discrepancy between food in the homeland vs food in LA (think: Italian, Mexican, Thai, Korean, Sichuanese, etc).
I think its an issue of supply and demand - are we, as an eating population, informed enough to demand a higher quality product that rivals the homeland?
Before going to Taiwan, when I thought of Taiwanese food in the states, I always thought “isn’t it just Chinese food?” since you see a lot of Chinese dishes repeated in Taiwanese menus. it’s kind of like the “American food” of Sino-cuisine.
After the Chinese Civil War, the Mainlanders [Waishengren (外省人)] who fled to Taiwan brought their greatest hits dishes – spicy beef noodle soup is Sichuan, soup dumpling is Shanghai, stinky tofu from Nanjing. We basically understand Taiwanese food as what was brought over by Mainland refugees that wanted to preserve their favorite dishes while now identifying as Taiwanese.
Taiwanese food is transcendent when you can taste its world-leading produce and the influences from the Dutch, Japanese, Hokkien, Hakka, and others I can’t name.
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There was some pickled radish in there, but I could have gone for more to be honest.
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Wow, whopping.
Michelin in Asia? generally = avoid.
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Historically, many restaurants in the SGV have had menus with a majority of items being Pan-Chinese, with a few specific regional (or even municipal) items. Sometimes, these are very few. You mentioned the former Liang’s/Shang Jie. Great example. At least for a while, it maintained the old Liang’s menu and served Taiwanese fare, even though there was a separate small menu of lamb heavy Northern dishes because the chef was from Henan. More Taiwanese items, but not a Taiwanese place. Another great example: Yunnan (under its various names) has a menu that has far more Sichuan items than Yunnan, but no one calls it a Sichuan place. Which begs the question, what percentage of a menu qualifies someplace to be called a “place”?
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Good point. I’ve never seen items on the McDonald’s menu which I’d consider Scottish.
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HK Macau Bistro
New cafe that closes late right next door to Chong Qing Special.
Bright lights, Macau street signs, and mah jong tables that I love. Andy Lau’s greatest hits is playing. I know some of these songs! I just want some comfort food.
Mah jong decorated table, James Wang, and milk tea.
Curry beef. I guess I should have been more specific and asked for brisket lol which I think is standard? Felt like when you go to a Thai place and order spicy basil chicken. Than when it comes to the table its breast pieces. My bad. Tasty. I see pictures from Henry’s and Colette who also have a great looking curry (and I assume tasting). Food is probably better than your high school and college favorite cafe’s.
Macaroni soup. Ha I am a sucker for this.
I don’t think they have minchi
Also went to Aghoo’s earlier this week. As always it hits hard. The seaweed fried yellow fish is better than the Shanghainese places. Next time I have to get one of those shepherds purse soup
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New Mandarin Noodle Deli no longer has the oat noodles. We learned that the oats used in that dish are “naked oats”— 莜麦 (yóu mài) not 燕麦(yàn mài). The name of the dish is Kaolaolao/烤姥姥/栲栳栳.
I thought the food today was just okay. The noodles weren’t quite al dente enough for me. The kung pao wrap was too sweet.
p.s. The waitress said Kaolaolao is made from 荞面/qiáo miàn/buckwheat flour. But according to our research, Kaolaolao is made almost exclusively from 莜面/yóu miàn/naked oat flour.
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James Wang’s blessing is becoming essential…
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