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The story
A Japanese YouTuber based in Taiwan, “Zoro’s Taiwan Gourmet” (140,000 subscribers), sparked widespread criticism after calling street food “f***ing awful” in a video, and the controversy grew large enough that local Taiwanese media picked up the story. The YouTuber has lived in Taiwan since 2019 and also runs a dessert shop in Taipei. On 5ch, discussion ranged across whether the remark was fair, how the flavor of star anise shapes the taste of street food, and comparisons with other travel YouTubers who panned foreign cuisine in the past without ever facing backlash.
9/23 (Wed) 11:00
Taiwan enjoys friendly relations with Japan and draws large numbers of Japanese tourists. Social media and YouTube are flooded with content on Taiwan’s sightseeing spots and food destinations — but a video posted by a popular YouTuber living in the country has now snowballed into a full-blown “flame war” controversy that has drawn in local media.
The YouTuber in question is “Zoro’s Taiwan Gourmet,” who has 140,000 subscribers. According to a 2022 interview published by the web outlet NNA Campasar Web Magazine, Zoro has lived in Taiwan since 2019 and also runs a dessert shop in Taipei.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Guess it's not just this guy — the sense that Japanese people look down on Taiwan is spreading.
These days it's Taiwan looking down on Japan, if anything.
Liuhe (Night Market) has a lot of duds and it's overpriced — if you're in Kaohsiung, Ruifeng Night Market has better vibes and is cheaper.
I'm more of a Ziqiang (Night Market) guy myself — Ruifeng is just way too crowded…
Either way, don't expect much from Liuhe.
what a complainer (lol)
if you don't like it, just come on back home then.
say "what IS this, it's f***ing awful," leave it uneaten, and walk out — that's the idea, right?
While you're at it, might as well spit out what you already put in your mouth right back onto the plate.
Pretty sure it's not even a restaurant — I think it's a shop selling Taiwanese pineapple cakes…
It being bad is just a fact.
Everything smells like star anise no matter what you eat.
Well, I guess that's the same as everything in Japan smelling like soy sauce.
If you can't handle the taste of star anise, I don't think anything there is going to work for you.
To varying degrees, pretty much all Taiwanese food has star anise in it.
Background and Points of Debate
Taiwan is often portrayed in Japan as a pro-Japan country, so it’s rare for a resident’s remarks to get picked up by local media at all. Street food stalls aren’t necessarily chasing high ratings, given the constraints of ingredient cost and location, and posters in the thread pointed out that “Taiwanese food is shaped by the flavor of star anise” — the possibility that likes and dislikes here come down to differences in cultural familiarity tends to get overlooked. The thread also raised the example of another travel YouTuber with a similar subscriber count who harshly criticized foreign cuisine without ever facing backlash, and opinion was split on why this case alone became a controversy. The fact that the poster himself runs a food-related shop in Taipei may also have shaped how the remark was received.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Geisports Sokuho+) thread “Japanese YouTuber living in Taiwan spits out that street food is “f***ing awful,” sparking controversy… develops into a “flame war” picked up by local media.”
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