As similar as Taiwanese are there is something which drives a wedge between them. Are you a rice person or a noddle person? Well that's a huge exaggeration, but still it's a fun thing to declare your allegiance to either rice or noodles and argue why your side is better.
I myself am a rice guy. This is because in Taiwan when you get noodles, your meal is about 90% noodles and 10% whatever vegetables and meat they mix in with the noodles. While if you get rice, your meal is a slab of meat, three or more side dishes, and then a small bowl or rice. So you are actually getting a full meal.
So really it's not at all about the rice, and I usually don't get the rice if that's even an option. Although sometimes the rice is necessary if the food is too spicy. Rice is great at taking the burning sensation out of your mouth.
Most people buy uncooked rice in big bags from the supermarkets. However there are shops like the one above which just have buckets of various kinds of rice. Needless to say it's cheaper and it's fun to seem like a rice connoisseur, selecting from different types of rice.
While everybody has a rice cooker at home (I have two, used to have three) they can take awhile to cook rice. So sometimes people will go down to the local lunch box restaurant to buy just rice. It's not uncommon to see people go to get one or two bags full of freshly cooked rice to take them home and have them with their family's meal. The rare occasions that i make curry, I will go down to the local restaurant and get thirty cents worth of rice to go along with my meal. Partly because I'm lazy, and partly because even after all these years I still really don't get the nuances of rice cookers.
