I've talked about it before, but typical lunch of most Taiwanese is the "lunch box." Basically a take out box of rice, a few side dishes, a piece of meat, and usually a cup of soup and some tea. The great thing about lunch boxes are their convenience and price. No matter where you are there is usually a lunch box place around, and the price is generally affordable, usually under 3 bucks.
You'd think that at that price, they'd all taste pretty much the same, but this is not the case. Each lunch box place is different from the next. The big difference is normally the quality of the meat, but other factors can be the variety of choices of side dishes, the amount of oil they use to cook with, the quality/freshness of the vegetables they use. In my own neighborhood the one I go to depends on what I want at that time. For example, one has good green vegetables, one has better pork, another has a larger selection of vegetables. Where i go usually depends for what specific variation on the lunch box i'm in the mood for that day, and with them mostly being the same price, I can afford to be picky.
Prices are changing though. The costs seem to go up very gradually, usually in intervals of 15 cents. One place that has tried to answer this unhappiness about rising lunch box prices, is the pictured 50 (Taiwan) dollar lunch box restaurant. In USD that's around a buck and a half. Not bad for a complete meal. but of course with that price comes sacrifices. Essentially the meat is extremely poor quality. Whatever you are imagining, it's worse, much worse.
That doesn't mean this place is terrible though, in fact they usually have a much wider selection of side dishes than most other restaurants. And with their desire to save money it appears that instead of using even the cheapest oil, they just try to use as little oil as possible when cooking, so in a way their vegetables are (possibly) a bit healthier. Although the poor meat quality has me suspicious of everything there. But sometimes when I needed something different, I would go here and just have the "vegetarian" option, which for most lunch box places is what they call it when you just get side dishes and skip getting the meat. Granted they will usually give you more side dishes to make up for it.
This particular one is one that popped up near where I previously lived. It was during the 50 dollar restaurant craze where it seemed like there were 2 or 3 different chains of these places popping up around the city. I actually haven't seen one around in a long time, so I'm not sure if it's because they have been closing down, or just because there were never any in the area I now live. If they are all gone, that's a bit sad. Yes their food quality wasn't great, but I was always happy they existed as an option. Besides you never know how your finances will go. Today you're living like a king, spending $2.50 on a lunch box, but tomorrow you might only be able to spend $1.50.
