Food Court

There are several big department stores in Tainan and they are laid out like US Macey's or Nordstrom's, cosmetics on the ground floor, clothing on the second, ...
But they also have a food court in the basement and also a supermarket like QFC or WholeFoods. I think most of these department stores are associated with department store chains from Japan so many of the products are from Japan. But they also include the more expensive Taiwanese products. It's a good place to shop for well packaged Taiwanese specialities.


I went to the food court with my Japanese schoolmate and he was amazed as how inexpensive the food is compared to similar amounts in Japan. Japanese food seems to be expensive and comes in small portions compared to Taiwan. We probably made a mistake and went for the big platters with "American Sized" platters.

He talked me into buying the most expensive platter on the menu, that was 299NT or about $10US. I didn't finish it.

It was a pork shank, french fries, omelet wrapping rice, carrots, broccoli and pickled cabbage.  He ordered the fish platter for 160NT,

Fried fish with curry was the only difference, so you can see that fish is much less expensive than the pork. We bought a couple of 16 oz cans of beer at the supermarket and drank while we ate. I don't think the food was particularly good but there sure was a lot. There were other food stalls maybe I'll try it again and try something smaller.

We were there on a Monday night so there weren't many people. I know even Taiwanese have some apprehension about eating on the street and in a respectable place like the Japanese food court I guess everyone feels more secure. I would guess that the same meals on the street might cost half as much.

Compared to the Taiwanese street resturants, the food court was well lit and clean and spacious and relatively quiet. This was the stall from which we ordered.

And of course, one of the stall was something like Benihana.

My schoolmate stumbled upon this place my accident, I suppose all Taiwanese know about it from talking with friends, relatives or coworkers. But students just don't have as many contacts and aren't there long enough to know all the ins and outs.