FIVE MUST EAT Taiwanese Lunchboxes! 🍱 😋 🇹🇼

Hello everybody, welcome back to the channel. My name is Alan. This is My Life in Taiwan. And in today's video, I'm going to be sharing with you Taiwan's top five must-eat lunchbox biandang shops, starting here at Dafeng Wuxiyuan Kuaitan, the cheapest biandang shop in all of Taichung. And then we're going to go on a bit of a journey around the city and see what other biandang lunchboxes are available. Different styles, different prices, different foods. We're going to eat a lot in today's video. So let's go to the first shop, check it out and see what all the fuss is about. Okay, so a couple of things to clarify before we get started. The price of the meal has gone up. As you can see from the sign, they've plastered over the $50 with now a $65 sticker. And also they don't have eat-in facilities. So I've crossed the road to the local temple, where I'm sure they won't mind me sitting and enjoying my biandang. And just take a look at this. Two huge pork meatballs on a light fluffy bed of white rice. Three different vegetables. I've gone for the diguai, the sweet potato leaves, a mix of egg and eggplant, and then a vegetable that I have absolutely no idea what it is. I tried to ask him in Chinese, and he told me I have no idea. Let's have a taste and see what I actually ordered. I have absolutely no idea what that is. And one thing that is very important when it comes to biandang, especially if you're asking Taiwanese people, there are two things probably. First of all, CPZ. Is it worth it? The CP value, the cost performance ratio. Do you get what you pay for? And the second most important is the hygiene levels. Of course, Taiwan is a little bit lax on some hygiene restrictions when it comes to street foods, but it looked like that place was relatively clean enough. And the food itself feels hot, fresh. Not like it's been sitting there all day. Let's get one of these meatballs eaten. Look at the size of that thing. Can you see the steam coming off it? Lots of meat, but really big chunks of fat in there. Nice soft fat, not like hard gristle. Let's team up the meat with a little bit of sweet potato leaves and rice. Look at that for a mouthful of Taiwanese goodness. I'm not sure how long they've actually been in that location, but when I googled online, Taichung Dui Pianyi Biandang, it popped up immediately. So I'm sure it's quite a popular shop. There was lots of customers there. So I have full faith that that place is a traditional, longstanding part of the community that people trust for their daily Biandang. In this video, I am going to visit another four different Biandang shops. So please leave your comments down below of your favorite Biandang shop, whether it's in Taichung, Tainan, Taipei, whatever city you're in, let me know where I should go when I come to your city, and which is your favorite Biandang style and restaurant. That is what I call a very standard lunch box. Nothing amazing. It isn't going to blow your mind, but if you're on a tight budget and you only have a couple of US dollars to spend every day on lunch, that's going to certainly satisfy you. And I just want to say, I sometimes have to stop and pinch myself at what my life has come to, sitting here in a very traditional Taiwanese temple, eating Taiwanese food that I just bought across the street from a traditional shop and sharing it with you guys. Thank you so much for being here with me. No time to get all emotional and thoughtful now. Time to take a break. And then we're on to the next location. And talking of the next location, we have come here to Zhengzhong Baigufan, an incredibly popular, famous chain store of Biandang shops that you can find all over the country. There's dozens of them. And they were started back in 1991 by a guy, Mr. Wang in Kaohsiung. And this place seems to be a little bit more organized, a little bit more professional than the last place. You go to a window to place your order, then you give your ticket and then they fulfill your order. Whatever veggies you want. Again, it's the same standard, typical three veggies, rice and meat. But it's a little bit more expensive here. It's $95 for the chicken chop. And just from the weight, I can feel that it's a lot more substantial. There's a lot more food inside. This time I've chosen to go with the chicken chop. Again, it comes with rice. This time the rice appears to be a bit seasoned. And this time for veggies, I've gone with some gaoli cai cabbage, some dong fen, some glass noodles, and a favorite of mine, some bamboo zu gen, which is something that I'd never eaten before I came to Taiwan. But actually now it's something that I eat relatively often. I like it a little bit crunchier than this, but not bad. Let's get stuck into this deep fried crispy skin chicken chop. Just look at the skin on that thing. It is crispy as anything. Probably not the healthiest food in the world, but I am all about that crunch of that skin. Oh wow. That is some succulent, juicy chicken. Another difference with the step up in price is a little bit of an extra service. There's black tea on tap. He Dao Bao. Whether or not black tea justifies the $30 price increase, I'm not too sure. So now that we've had our second lunch box of the day, we can actually start to make some comparisons between the two. I would say that they're pretty similar in standard with this one at $95 is 50% more expensive. And I don't think it justifies the CPZ compared to that cheap one I had earlier this morning. Of course, I'm eating a different meat, which maybe is a little bit more expensive, but I'm pretty sure that the chicken chop back in the $65 shop is also the same price. So I know I'm comparing apples with oranges, but I just think if I was doing this every day, that's $30 a day, that's $150 a week, $600 extra a month. Can't justify it. So far, so good. Not a bad lunch box at all. Maybe just a little bit overpriced compared to this morning, but I'm going to get it finished and then it's on for lunch box number three. And the third restaurant I've chosen to come to is Liang Si Han, which is a little bit of a different style of restaurant. First of all, the way you order your food is a little bit different here. They have a fancy computer touchscreen where you pay with a credit card or as I did with my yo-yo card, super convenient. And the system is kind of semi-English. It kind of guides you through some of the way, but then unless you've got a little bit of Chinese reading knowledge, you're going to struggle a little bit. But yes, I use that system to order this meal in front of me. And I've gone for the very traditional pie goo, like a pork rib. And just to mix the video up a little bit, I've gone with some noodles instead of rice this time. And just to add a little something extra to the video, I've gone for a tofu pidan, a tofu century egg, which I'll come to later. I had it last year with Ku in his video. I'm pretty sure I liked it, but we'll test that again later. Because first of all, we are all about the meat in this video. And look at that, a nice thin, crispy, deep fried pork rib. Not too bad. Juicy, succulent, but it could probably use a little bit more spice, a bit of flavor. So let's team it up with a bit of kimchi. Oh wow. I love the difference in temperature with the chilled kimchi and the hot pork and the extra spice and flavor from the kimchi really adds another level to the meat. So as I mentioned in this restaurant, I've decided to go with some noodles. And I know it doesn't look like a lunchbox, so to speak, but the place is super busy. They're whizzing out lunchboxes as I speak. So I think this still counts as a bientang shop. They are amazing noodles. I don't know what it is, whether it's the vegetables or the sauce or the oil that they've cooked it in, but they're full of flavor. Wow. And to talk about price, this is the first restaurant with triple digits for my dish. It's a hundred dollars for the meal and an extra $35 for this incredibly unappetizing looking tofu with pide. And as I said, I've had this before and I just want to check that I wasn't faking it for the camera. I really do like the flavor of it. I can't stand how it looks, but as long as you're eating this food right, a little bit of tofu with the egg. It's so good. I don't know how it looks so terrible, but it tastes so good. To make a comparison to the first two places I went to, I would say that this one is probably my favorite so far. The first restaurant is definitely the best value. Like if you just want a cheap substantial amount of food, but this one, those quality noodles and this really juicy pork rib. I think this restaurant so far is leading the way in my top five lunchbox challenge. On to the next one. And for that next one, we've gone the Uber Eats route because Biandangs by their definition are easy to transport, easy to order to work, easy to take to meetings or schools. So let's take a look at what we ordered. We went with Dong Chi Chi Shan Fan Bao. And the reason that I ordered from this restaurant is I went into the Uber Eats app, searched for Biandang and sorted them by best ranking and chose something that I like the look of and something that we haven't eaten yet. And that got me a nice pork belly on their website. It's called Kong Rou. I've never heard of that Kong Rou, but basically it's just a big healthy portion of pork belly with three veg. I think we've got gaoli cai, broccoli, dong fen again, but there's a couple of additional extras. There's this slice of Taiwanese sausage. There's a braised duck egg, I think that's going to be. And also a nice chunk of tofu, some kind of tofu. So there's a little bit more involved in this one. And that shows in the price. This is the most expensive Biandang I've ordered so far. And including delivery from Uber Eats, it came in at $135. I think $110 for the dish itself, which definitely makes it the most expensive. And I kind of like it comes in its own like kind of wooden box, very traditional style. And I think I should say that the whole history of Biandang is quite interesting. From what I read online, it was started by the Japanese and actually started on the railways. The railway bentos are also a very common popular type of lunchbox. And I think I'll probably do a whole video on them in the future anyway, because they're also quite interesting and delicious. But as always, first thing I'm going to do, stuck into this meat. I could write a love song about that. That is the most tender pork. It's like butter. That is amazing. That is really good for $110. I'm very impressed. Save a bit of the meat for later. Let's check out the veg. Let's see if they've got the veg right, whether they've overcooked them, undercooked them. Just about right. There's a bit of sogginess to the end of the broccoli, but the stem itself has a bit of crunch. I'm going to get my sausage, pop it onto the egg and eat that in one. I am really happy with this one. I think this one is challenging the previous restaurant for terms of quality. The level of ingredients is probably on a similar level. There's a couple of extras, like we had the kimchi back in the third restaurant. I think I'm going to put this into first place, with the third place into a very close second. Yum, yum. Let's get to the fifth and final biendang. And for the fifth and final lunchbox, we have decided to level up quite considerably. We've come to the department store, where the restaurants here in the food court also offer lunchboxes. And I've gone to Isan, a famous Japanese restaurant, where they offer lunchboxes for as much as $488. But I've gone for the $258 option. It's our first fish of the day. And let's take a look at what we've got. Immediately, as soon as I open the box, there's a different level of aromas and smells. And the presentation by far exceeds that of all four dishes that I've eaten already. And this shop is super famous in Japan for its eel, but I've decided to go for a slightly cheaper option. And I feel crazy saying that it's cheap at $258. But I've gone for the mackerel, and it comes with many different accompaniments. There's deep-fried mushroom, deep-fried corn, beans, potato, what looks like a type of cabbage, gaolitai, and a very traditional Japanese dish, the steamed egg with, I think, what is a radish in the middle of it. The mackerel looks absolutely delicious, but there's a little bit of seaweed between the mackerel and the rice. And I'm not a big fan of seaweed, but let's give it a try, see how it goes. Oh wow, really nice, meaty texture to the fish, not really that super flaky. And to talk on a personal level, me and my dad, we used to go fishing in the Isle of Man, and we used to catch mackerel, barbecue it. So this is bringing back some real childhood memories. Quite nice. The fish on its own is absolutely delicious, but the best way to enjoy a bit of mackerel is a nice squeeze of lemon over the top. Look at that freshly grilled, steaming hot lemon mackerel. This deep-fried baby corn is also something that's really interesting me. It's something I've never seen or eaten before. That is delicious. The really fresh, soft, tender corn surrounded by the crunchy coating of the batter really takes it to a different level. So to bring this video to some kind of summary, I think if I was to choose my favorite and balance it up against the cost, I probably would be stuck between the third and fourth meal boxes that I ate, the one from Liang Sir Hen and the Uber Eats. This final one is undoubtedly the most delicious and luxury ingredients, but as this channel is about life in Taiwan, trying to share real life in Taiwan, it's unrealistic that somebody would eat this every single day. So I'm probably going to give first place to the fourth restaurant that I ordered from on Uber Eats, the Wu Hua Rou, just because the balance between quality of ingredients and price was somewhat reasonable. All of the foods I've eaten have been delicious in their own way. Let me know in the comments section which one you think you would prefer. Would you prefer the cheaper or the more expensive if you were having to buy it every day? And let me know anything you've got to say on what I've commented on any of the meal boxes. I'm going to get this one finished and eat the pudding, which is an extra bonus that came with it. But I think that's enough. Hope you've enjoyed the video. If you have, don't forget to press like. But as for now and as always, I'll see you next time in My Life in Taiwan. Peace. Bye-bye.