Restaurants 餐廳

Catching up on web surfing today, I noted a debate which I’m sure to be a day late and a dollar short on, but since the gauntlet has been laid down I’ll add my two cents about comparing Chinese restaurants in different places. A blog recently, you can find the link 連接 here, claimed that Taiwan Chinese food had lost its edge and was not even as good as that in America’s Chinese communities (he mentioned the San Gabriel Valley 南加州的聖谷 specifically.).

Chinese food in Taiwan is very good even if it is influenced by the regional Taiwanese taste. It is much better than in even the best areas for restaurants of U.S. Chinese communities like the San Gabriel Valley, with the likely exception of Cantonese food 廣東菜. Many immigrants to the U.S. are Cantonese and so that is a strong point for food, though they lag far behind Hong Kong or Guangzhou.

Even where regional Chinese food is influenced by Taiwanese taste 台灣口味, it is quite good. An example is a ‘Beijing duck’ stand near our house. The flavoring is a little different from standard Peking duck, true, but it was always freshly made and the quality (for a couple of $) was excellent. Seafood restaurants 海鮮餐廳 offering 20 or more types of live seafood are quite common (海產街).

I always use this quick and simple food test to determine the quality of food in a region. The more I find myself eating out when in a place, the better the food. In Taiwan, I found myself eating out almost every meal 雖然有廚房可是差不多每天都不在家裡吃, something I cannot say about that many places.