Growing up, I had my fair share of fast food. It was not out of the ordinary for me to pig out on some Church’s Chicken, Burger King, and the almighty golden arches known as McDonald’s. That probably, in part, explained why I wasn’t the skinniest kid in the class either.
While I am all for experimenting with international cuisine, it’s a little hard when you can’t even read the menu. As part of our adventure here in Taiwan, Stephen and I succumbed to the allure of an English menu at a fast food restaurant. We don’t have Mos Burger locations back in Canada, so it’s almost like we’re trying something novel. Some of the stuff on the menu is your normal burger fare, while other items are a little more exotic.
Stephen decided to take the safe route, ordering one of their highly advertised special value meals. It consisted of what appeared to be a chicken burger, a green salad (with corn), and a cold drink. Stephen says that the chicken was crispy, but his overall experience was average at best.
For more of a unique flavor, I decided to create my own Mos Burger special value meal. I got a beef sandwich wherein the regular bun was replaced by a “bun” made of compressed rice. It was a lot smaller than I was expecting, but the beef rice burger was pretty decent in terms of flavor and originality. The rest of my meal consisted of five butterfly shrimp and an iced coffee.
Here’s a closer look at the beef, lettuce, and rice bun. The sandwich had a footprint that wasn’t much bigger than your average cookie. Shame. Maybe I should have ordered two or three instead.
Although Mos Burger is a fast food joint, there is some level of table service. After placing your order, you are given a number on a stand and they bring your food to you when it is ready. We got lucky number 28 (in Cantonese, two-eight sounds very similar to “easy to prosper”), but it seems that the number drew the attention of an undead spirit. I guess she really wanted my beef rice sandwich.
My assumption was that eating in Taipei would be similar in pricing to eating in Hong Kong. The total for our two meals came to 270 NT, which works out to about nine bucks. Considering the small portions, this isn’t all that cheap. Food is probably cheaper at places with no English, no public washrooms, and no health standards.
Our quest for good Taiwanese food will probably pick up when John Chow arrives, because his wife Sarah can actually speak Mandarin! That’ll certainly open some doors for the rest of us.
I’m hungry! Very hungry. 🙂
Just wait till John gets there, you can go to better places with more expensive food and get him to foot the bill 🙂
That’s true! 🙂
My first thought after reading this post was – Don’t go to a Chinese country to eat Western fast food and expect any kind of dinning “experience” out of it.
You guys should hit the Shihlin Night Market and try out all the local food.
Good food knows no boundary, language or otherwise. Just employ the trusted “point & pay” method, as long as you have NT in hand, you will never go wrong!
C’mon! Be ADVENTUROUS!!
OOOOH! The Shihline night market… quite an experience in so many ways… and the food is pretty good in many places… But yea! Taipei isn’t as cheap now because inflation (food inflation) is cranking up prices… for everyone.
But you can still buy some basic items for one dollar or less if you know where to go.
Kenneth
I’d think that the rice bun would completely fall apart once you tried to start eating it.
Hasn’t Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods been to Taipei? Now that is the kind of food I want to see you guys reporting on!
Ok, that’s actually a ginger pork burger and not a beef burger…
And MOS is Japanese, hence it’s not cheap as everything Japanese in Taiwan is expensive. Their beef chili burger is really tasty though.
Looks yummy. I prefer bread buns because rice buns are sticky to eat.