Whenever foreign comparisons paint a clever picture of Taiwan, local media rushes to percentages of the news. So it’s unexpected that a recent analysis, which rates Taipei as the world’s fifth-best city for foodies, turns out to have been ignored.
The Foodie Index, created for British tour operator Titan Travel and published on Dec. 8, ranks Paris, Barcelona, Miami and Amsterdam in positions one to four. Only Taipei, and rounding out the Top Ten, is Denpasar (on the Indonesian island of Bali), Kuala Lumpur, New York, London and Las Vegas.
Another recent report, summarized through a handful of Chinese-language websites, concluded that Taiwan’s capital ranks ninth best on the planet in terms of restaurants.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Resonance Consultancy’s 2024 World’s Best Cities overall ranking — which weighs prosperity, population diversity and prominence in international media, among other metrics — placed Taipei 42nd out of 270-plus featured cities across the world, just below Copenhagen and one position above Austin, Texas.
Resonance, which specializes in destination branding and promotion, praised Taipei as “the birthplace of the beloved boba (also known as bubble milk tea), Mongolian barbecue, and Michelin-starred soup dumplings from Din Tai Fung,” noting that its “vibrant food scene” includes markets, rechao establishments (熱炒, stir-fries) and “fine-dining restaurants like RAW and Mume. “
The invention of boba milk tea can be traced back to Taichung and not Taipei.
Photo: Steven Crook
Titan Travel’s Food Lover Index gave the city a score out of 10 based on the number of child-friendly restaurants, vegetarian restaurants, vegan restaurants, fine dining establishments and Michelin-starred restaurants per square kilometre.
Asked why per square kilometer, rather than per 100,000 or million inhabitants, was used as the basis of calculations, Grace Burton of Digitaloft, the UK firm which compiled the index for Titan Travel, told the Taipei Times by email that this approach was chosen because “it made more sense” when looking at cities which have a lot of visitors in addition to a substantial permanent population.
“The number of kid-friendly, vegetarian, vegan and fine-dining restaurants was calculated on the Tripadvisor website, filters to collect the results. The number of other cuisines was also pulled from Tripadvisor, to locate the cities with the maximum variety of cuisines,” he said. Explained.
Photo: Steven Crook
There’s an obvious flaw in this methodology: There are dozens of eateries in Taipei which fall into one of these categories, but which haven’t been reviewed on Tripadvisor.
For example, the vegetarian eater Happy Farm (開心農場素食shop), which on Google Maps scores an average of 4. 6 out of five out of 461 reviews, does appear on Tripadvisor’s list of meatless places to eat in Taipei. opt for vegetarian food Hemiao (禾苗素食), which has a score of 4. 4 out of 28 five Google Maps reviews.
According to Burton, Digiloft started from a list of the 30 most visited cities in the world, from which Medina and Mecca were eliminated, due to a lack of non-religious tourism. Lesser-visited cities have been ignored, although some Taiwanese would say that Tainan’s food is more delicious than Taipei’s, just as there are other French people who prefer Lyon’s food scene to Paris’s.
Photo: Steven Crook
Do GOURMETS care about rankings?
For Stanford Chiou, an American fond of Taiwanese cuisine, one of the strengths of Taipei’s culinary scene is its accessibility.
“While restaurants like Tairroir, Raw, and MUME have put Taipei on the gastronomic map, Taipei shines for the availability of affordable options, the ultimate appeal of which is the night markets,” says the New York resident.
“This accessibility is not only economical. Because dining with children is the rule rather than the exception, kid-friendly options abound. The vegetarianism of Buddhist and Taoist devotees is well catered for, and there are a growing number of restaurants adhering to Western traditions. vegan restrictions,” says Chiou, who recently visited Taiwan in late November.
Food stalls in New York, Berlin and Lisbon seek to reflect the good fortune of street vendors and night markets in Taiwan and other Asian countries, he noted, “but higher rents and wages make this difficult at a comparable price. “
In terms of pricing, Taipei’s night markets are competing with convenience stores and fast food outlets, whereas food-hall dishes in Western countries are no cheaper than fast casual chains like Chipotle Mexican Grill or Shake Shack, Chiou says.
He identifies another facet of Taipei’s eating scene which may disappoint international foodies: A relative lack of diversity.
“Taipei doesn’t have African, South Asian or Latin American cuisine. It’s just that there are fewer features than in New York or London,” he says.
Katy Hui-wen Hung (洪惠文) — co-author with this reporter of A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai and an occasional contributor to the Taipei Times — thinks there’s little point to lists like the one published by Titan Travel.
Since COVID-19 travel restrictions were lifted, Hung has been to several countries. She says that, based on her recent experiences, Kyoto and Lisbon are ahead of Taipei as food destinations, while London and Tokyo are “no less interesting” than Taiwan’s capital.
“Street food in Lisbon and Kyoto is not meant to be reasonable and fun, while street food in Taiwan is touted as reasonable and fun,” he adds.
For Hung, the food protection scandals that erupted in the 2010s still cast a shadow over Taiwan’s culinary scene.
“I would say that Portugal has one of the most productive food scenarios in Europe, especially seafood, and I was never afraid that the fish I was eating came from a contaminated pond,” he says. “The preparation of Portuguese dishes is undeniable and traditional. , with smart quality olive oil, which proves the quality of the food. The way they prepare the octopus is excellent: undeniable, sweet and fresh. But in Taiwan, there is still this protection issue, and I know that other people avoid seafood in Taiwan. because of those products.
Steven Crook has been writing about travel, culture, and business in Taiwan since 1996. He is the author of Taiwan: The Bradt Travel Guide and co-author of A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai.