Taiwan Buffet: So much food, so little time
When someone first suggested I try a Taiwanese buffet, horrible memories of overpriced all you can eat Chinese places started to flood back.
Why on earth would I have traveled halfway across the world so sample an assortment of substandard dishes that I pay extra for due to the choice available?!
Thankfully someone forgot to tell Taiwan they could be charging through the nose for this service back in Australia.
Of course that’s not to say all buffet places here are good. I’ve certainly walked into my fair share of crappy limited selection offerings vs your ‘buffets-that-border-on-a-banquet’ style cafes.
One of my favourite buffet places to eat is a little place in Taichung. Small and not marked (at least not with anything I could make out), this little shop is usually packed during dinner time.
On offer is a massive selection of mouth watering food. From your heavy meats to your light meats, an assortment of vegetarian dishes and always a few soups on offer this store has everybody pretty much covered.
I recently came back with a sizeable haul…
Two slabs of Pork belly, a Chinese sausage, a mushroom salad, some spicy tofu, a selection of greens and a bed of rice rounded off the heartiest of hearty dinners for me.
And the taste? Oh my god everything was cooked to perfection!
Coming in at exactly 100 TWD ($3.30 AUD or so) I thought it was a steal. Buffets are something I hope never changes in Taiwan.
On the other hand with each meal I’m becoming more certain that the equation of Taiwanese food and myself is just a heart attack waiting to happen…
January 21st, 2010 at 2:04 am Yi(Quote)
man you need to lay off that pork belly!
January 21st, 2010 at 6:54 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Nevar!
You can take my pork belly when you pry it from my cholesterol filled, cardiac arrested hands!
November 5th, 2011 at 2:24 pm Tim Chuma(Quote)
There’s one of these recently opened in Melbourne, people will wait half an hour to get in:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/avlxyz/sets/72157627786880381/
There used to be one in an arcade off Chinatown not many people went to so it closed and turned into another Malaysian place.
November 6th, 2011 at 2:36 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
@Tim
That looks more like a lunchbox place with a set menu rather than a buffet.
In a proper Taiwanese buffet you walk in and the food is in little metal tubs, you help yourself to whatever you want.
I don’t think this would work in Australia, you’d have all the fatties completely overloading their paper boxes and driving the place out of business lol.