Taipei Foodie Tour

My guide for the tour was Fu-Cheng. While Fu-Cheng is a nice guy and did what he could, both he and the tour company could have done better. The guide and I were apparently early at the meetup point. Our tour, however, started a bit late due to him not holding up a sign with my name — if that’s even a company practice — and he did not immediately know to figure out I was already next to him waiting for the guide. Despite spending USD $170 for this four-hour tour and being promised all food and beverages would be included, that was apparently not the case. I was made to pay separately for a pork bun at a vendor recommended by the guide at the start who poorly articulated as much after the order was already placed. The original advertisement for this tour makes no mention that guests have to pay separately for anything principally a part of this tour that wasn’t already paid in the original reservation cost and didn’t exceed any limits for what we wanted to get. I also had to pay separately for my final item — a pineapple smoothie — at another vendor after dinner as that was not included either. The guide informed me the main entree — and the only main entree anywhere I had during that tour — already exceeded the budget he was allowed to pay even though I didn’t ask for anything special and the only other item covered before that was boba tea at another vendor. I instructed my guide I was going to cut the tour short halfway through as I was already full and the final planned stop at a night market likely would have prompted him to continue asking me to pay separately for anything I wanted there instead of the guide covering all the costs. As for the quality and taste of the food and beverages during the tour, it was unremarkable — the pork bun, boba tea and the stir-fry entree I couldn’t fully finish. This tour was advertised as taking me to places seemingly remarkable enough to try but they didn’t seem much different from anything I could have tried on my own without a guided tour and for cheaper. I took a similar tour the year prior in the Shibuya District of Tokyo where the places that guide took me were remarkable in taste and quality as well as the guide covering all costs without once asking me to pay separately for anything. Whether this is an oversight on the guide or the company’s part or blatantly false advertising, I can’t say. What I can say is I am deeply disappointed, especially when I expected — and even as advertised — USD $170 should be enough to cover everything a tour like this entails. Please do better. I regret having taken this tour after the way it turned out.

Melody was our guide and we couldn’t have had a better one! I think she took us to her favorite places, introducing us to a few of her favorite foods and giving us a history of other foods. I tried octopus for the first time???? Melody also pointed out historic sites on our routes which was helpful and we really appreciated her sharing a bit of her personal life and the general culture of Taiwan. Thank you, Melody, for a great tour and an interesting food experience!

This tour was more than we expected. Our tour guide Carol was very knowledgeable about history, culture and food and shared a lot of details that we did not expect. We made stops at the Chiang kai-shek Memorial as well as the Longshan Temple in addition to trying local cuisine along the way. It was a unique way to see a part of Taipei. Carol is an absolute treasure and would definitely recommend this tour.