2022年5月8日 星期日

Taiwan 101: Chain Restaurants


Let me start from the places I know and work outward from there.  I live in Fangliao Township, Pingtung County, and I also have an apartment in Taitung City which I visit regularly.  I get up to Kaohsiung a lot, so my perspective on chain restaurants is primarily coming from these three places.

Fangliao is very rural.  All of the chain restaurants in this area are near the Fangliao Train Station, and all are located on the same road.  As you're walking away from the train station, you'll see a 6 Inch Plate brunch restaurant on your right.  After that, on the other side of the big intersection, is a Bafang Dumplings restaurant, followed by an 85 coffee shop not far away from the ocean.  That's about it for Fangliao.  I'm not counting convenience stores of course, or lunchbox chains which operate in the area.

There's a Japanese restaurant near Fangliao Fishing Port that might be a chain.  I'm not sure.  It feels like a chain, but maybe the owner is just more organized than other restaurant owners in Fangliao.

Now that I think about it, there are also a few breakfast restaurant chains operating in Fangliao, but it's hard to tell which ones are real franchises and which ones were formerly operated as franchises.  The new LaMorning near Bafang Dumplings is definitely a chain restaurant, but there are other places like it around town.

Taitung City has a much larger number of chain restaurants, which makes sense given its size and the fact that it's a major transit point in that area.  Taitung City also sees a lot more tourists, and moreover tourists hungry for the kind of fast, easy food that chain restaurants provide.

In Taitung City there are two McDonald's, two Starbucks, Louisa Coffee, Dante Coffee, a Mos Burger, a KFC, a Suen Dong Bao steak restaurant, Jungxian sushi, Yujhuandinghuang hot pot, Ju hot pot, Pintian japanese restaurant, Mister Donut, Pizza Hut, Domino's and an Wuhuama dumpling restaurant.  Taitung City also has everything that central Fangliao has.  I think that's all the chain restaurants in Taitung City, but there might be others.

Kaohsiung City has more chain restaurants than Fangliao and Taitung City put together.  If you like pizza, Kaohsiung also has Pizza Rock.  If you like burgers, Kaohsiung also has Burger King and T.G.I. Friday's.  Kaohsiung City has so many chain restaurants, in fact, that attempting to list them here would be a futile endeavor.  Just walk around Dream Mall if you don't believe me.  Listing all the chain restaurants in Dream Mall would take up a lot of space.

Which chain restaurants do I favor?  I'm not a fan of McDonald's lunch and dinner, but I do like their breakfast.  I tend to visit Starbucks when I'm in a big city, just because it's a more pleasant place to sit.  I like Mos Burger a lot, even though they're very slow.  Pizza Hut is, in my opinion, much better than Domino's.  I probably visit Jungxian sushi more than any other chain restaurant, simply because it's the only restaurant I, my wife and our two daughters can always agree on.

I have friends who won't eat at chain restaurants, and while I understand their reasoning I can't follow through on it.  Avoiding processed food in this day and age is extremely difficult, and as anyone who's delved into this subject knows, it's hard to know what we're eating, where it (really) came from, and what's in it.  I try to eat healthy, I exercise more than most people, and I figure that's the best I can do.

What about you?  What chain restaurants do you like?  Which ones are, in your opinion, terrible?  And are there any important chain restaurants that were left out of this entry?

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