Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Off topic slightly: After reading this fine review, the thought struck me - Do folks from other countries come here review our take on their food and then blog about it back home? It would be interesting to read what Mexicans or Italians for example, blog back home about the way their foods are served here, instead of the usual bickering amongst the local experts about what qualifies as authentic "insert your cuisine here".
Just a thought.

Great article by the way!

Sauerbraten and homemade sides.

Our favorite family dinner is Homemade Lasagna with a green salad and homemade yeast rolls.

Thank you so much for the chance to win.

We called it "chicken and glop", but it was chicken and rice. How did my mother put up with us?

meatloaf and mashed potatoes!

Wtf?! Are all Nello's dishes laced with gold??? I can't believe people are stupid enough to pay those ridiculously high prices...

This wasn't a meal; it was a money laundering operation.

ribs. lasagna. soup. anything my mom makes

@Eating The Road: I did end up trying a MOS shogayaki rice burger; China Airlines served them for breakfast during my flight back to the U.S. (see photo above) I decided against commenting on the burger itself, though, since after having been refrigerated and reheated as airplane food it was clearly not up to normal MOS standards. Like you, I've also heard many great things about MOS burgers - the next time I find myself in Asia, I'd be happy to write off my two experiences as unusual and give MOS another try.

@haappyhed: Thanks! My relationship with Taiwan is similar to yours - my mother was born in Taiwan and I spent many a childhood summer, as well as part of elementary school, in Taipei. As a rule, whenever I return for a visit, every square micrometer of stomach space is reserved for my grandparents' home cooking, tropical fruit, and Taiwanese street food... so this tour was a marked departure from my norm, instigated primarily by my encounter with those absurd mini-burgers.

I wish I'd known better than to try MOS' regular hamburger - from the sound of it, almost anything else on the menu would have been more satisfying - but at the time I intentionally ordered what an uninformed, displaced American might when searching for a hamburger that tastes like home. Given my preference for traditional Taiwanese food, my recent two-week visit was far too brief to accommodate a truly exhaustive burger roundup (I'm not a food writer and this trip was personal in nature), but in the future it might be interesting to seek out distinctively Asian re-conceptions of the burger.

@kkyoung: You're right, it's often foolish to expect familiar food to be prepared authentically in a foreign country. I was raised on homestyle Chinese cooking and if I went into a Panda Express here in the U.S. expecting similar, my soul would probably die a little.

Reasonable or no, for the purposes of this review I deliberately assumed the mindset of a homesick American looking for a regular burger. People who order Asian-style burgers expect to taste something interesting and unfamiliar, but a customer who orders a hamburger probably just wants a hamburger. Whereas the 3-inch mini-burgers don't pretend to be traditional and MOS rice burgers are a deliberate and successful departure from the norm, I'm pretty sure Mary's does attempt to make an "American" style burger, and when MOS offers an apparently standard "Hamburger" alongside its more imaginative entrées, I think it's fair to examine it according to Western standards.

I'll know better next time, though. ;)

Our favorite comfort food is mapo tofu - spicy and warming - over rice with some sauteed greens. Something about one bowl foods you can hold in your hand do it for us...

Boring but comforting - an overly stuffed tuna salad sandwich, on wonderful crusty rye bread, a slight smear of mayo, crisp iceberg lettuce, juicy tomato, cut in half please.

barbeque salmon and broccoli slaw, mom's favorite summer specialty