Food in Taiwan

Food in Taiwan is cheap and plentiful and for the most part good.
However, you may spend your first month or so in Taiwan in a pathetic, malnutritioned stupor like I did. A lot of this was because I am vegetarian. I think if I weren't, I would have just gone to a restaurant and pointed at random items on the menu, just to try something new. But because I'm a veggie it stopped me from doing that and lack of Chinese ability/culture shock induced shyness stopped me from reading/asking about the menu. (Written Chinese is difficult to look up in a pocket dictionary. Difficult or...nearly impossible because it's not phonetic). If you live in Taipei you will probably not have this problem as many menus are in English and you can probably pull aside the nearest person to ask questions (more people speak English in Taipei than in my little town).
Grocery stores are great and about anything you want is available, but you have to know where to look and again, not knowing chinese will hinder you- I so often bought packages of food and was so excited to eat, only to get home and discover that it was not what I thought it was. sigh. Also I spent hours and hours and hours wandering through grocery store aisles with a dazed look on my face, picking up and examining packages then staggering away. I would also wake up thinking about CHEESE! PIZZA WITHOUT CORN ON IT! GOOD ITALIAN FOOD! AMERICANIZED SUSHI!!!! I WOULD KILL FOR A FRICKEN REESES PEANUT BUTTER CUP!!!(about the only candy you can't find here). Food may be a major preoccupation for a while. It's all part of the experience.

Anyways, Now I can eat well on about $5 US a day. This is eating exclusively at restaurants.
I get this kick-ass breakfast sandwich from the local breakfast shop, there's a great vegetarian buffet near my work ($50 nt for a box, which is like a buck 30 US) and then teppanyaki for $80 nt (little over 2 bucks US) for a huge meal with soup, rice, sprouts, cabbage, and a main course which is all prepared artfully right in front of you. Sometimes I splurge and spend 140 nt dollars on a veggie burger at my favorite restaurant owned by this Canadian guy. Best veggie burger I've ever had. Prepared fresh. $140 nt. That's like, I dunno, 4 bucks? I know it sounds ridiculous but I walk out of there going man, that was so freaking expensive. The most expensive meal I've had here, in a 5 star hotels restaurant, was 800 nt dollars (bout $20 US?)(thank god Jody was paying). I cannot believe that I used to regularly spend that much money on one meal in America!!!

Anyways, the food is cheap and good, you just need to know where the heck to get it (another foreigner can help you out here).
but you will probably struggle for a couple of months just because it all tastes so different and your body is not used to it. I've never had food poisoning here although I pretended a few times to get a mental health day from Hess. bad Cami.
Anyways get yourself a fridge and a stove and force yourself to get out and try different restaurants. If you are vegetarian,learn the character for vegetarian and you will be able to pick out great restaurants with no meat products. And ask other foreigners...