Author Chris van Laak
Photographer Chris van Laak、@photoammon(cover photo)
Editor Julien Huang
As a traveler, you might have your favorite food spots in places you’ve visited. Eating there again after many years will feel special, and even more so when your favorite eatery is so small, so local that it cannot even be found on Google Maps and muscle memory has to help you find it again in a little-known neighborhood.
Joe Parilla, whose YouTube channel “Hungry to Explore” has nearly 42,000 subscribers, has such a favorite spot in Taipei.
“It’s basically just three seats in front of a food cart,” he said. “When I discovered it, I saw that the owner served steamed rice with pork and gravy, but that she also added liver. That was the most astonishing thing I had in Taipei; on a cold evening, watching her cook it over the flame, the liver really quickly and then that comforting rice cake with the rich pork, oh my god!”
“Ever since I left I’ve been dreaming about that,” he added.
Under (not over)rated
Parilla couldn’t be happier to be back in Taipei, this time with a group of British social media food influencers eager to discover the lesser-known depths of Taiwan’s cuisine. As the only one in the group who had been to Taiwan before, Parilla knew a bit better what to expect.
“If you think of food in Asia, Taiwan doesn’t really come up in the conversation,” he said. “When it comes to those things it’s more about who shouts loudest and also where most tourists go—and that’s not Taiwan at the moment.”
When I asked him during a cooking class in Taipei earlier this month whether Taiwanese food is underrated, he said it definitely is.
I also asked him whether there’s any dish he finds overrated.
“No,” he said in a decisive tone. “I haven’t had a single bad dish in this country.”
Explore and tell about it
Telling the stories of authentic food, with depth, but in an accessible way—that’s what sets “Hungry to Explore” apart from other food and travel channels. Parilla has a knack for finding truly special food experiences even in places where travelers flock to in droves—Bangkok, Seoul, Portuguese beach spots—but also where they hardly go at all, places that are sometimes just a side street away from major tourist sites.
“I obviously had soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐) and they were truly great, but I also made sure I try them at a local place so I could compare,” he said.
Asked to give traveling foodies a recommendation for their visit to Taiwan, he hesitated briefly, and then came up with an unexpected answer.
“Don’t just stay in the city,” he said. “There’s way more to Taiwan than Taipei. It’s utterly stunning, from the rice paddies to the tea plantations in the mountains.”
Island of authenticity
Parilla, whose journey into the food and travel space began with a world trip during shortly before the pandemic, has made his home in Madeira, a Portuguese island in the Atlantic.
Despite all the differences, he said Taiwan is similar to his second home.
“The reason I love both places is because you have the coast, you have the mountains, you have all these different microclimates,” he said, adding that local ingredients make Taiwan’s regional cuisines unique.
One thing, however, determines whether you’ll get the full experience of authentic food more than anything else: Your openness to jump into the unknown, regardless of whether it’s in the city or the hinterland.
“What I love to do, and I think Taiwan is fantastic for that, is just walk around and use my senses,” he said. “When you see a place and there are lots of locals around lunchtime, when it looks inviting, when it smells good, I’ll just say, ‘Let’s walk in.’”
“What I have found is that I’m most happy in a restaurant where no one speaks English and all the other guests are locals,” he said. “I love this, even though I know it can be intimidating, but in Taiwan, restaurant owners are very friendly, they’re welcoming, you know they make an effort, you have a laugh with them, the food comes out, and sometimes they say to you, ‘You should try this as well.’”
![After the work was done, some of the influencers experimented with “bubble tea highballs.” [Warning: Excessive consumption of alcohol can damage your health.]](https://taiwan-scene.com/app/uploads/2025/02/7b-1160x1160.jpg)
Unexpected fame
Traveling like this—without a plan that might get in the way when you’ve run into something unexpectedly awesome—is not always possible for Parilla. Shooting for YouTube requires a bit more research and planning, but authenticity is nothing Parilla’s willing to compromise on.
“I don’t script my videos beforehand,” he said. “Everything is how I feel in the moment.”
After his sabbatical, during which he first traveled from the UK to Portugal, and then onward to Spain, Greece, Georgia, China, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand—he chose this route because he’s not a fan of long-haul flights—Parilla became a full-time YouTuber.
It wasn’t planned at first, though.
“My ex-girlfriend at the time and I were watching YouTube videos and I said to her, ‘This isn’t very good. Is it?’ And she was like, ‘Well if you think you can do it better, why don’t you film a video yourself?’ So I picked up a camera,” he said.
His first video didn’t get many views at first, but after a few months Parilla discovered that clicks had suddenly shot up, to about 50,000 within a few days. The platform’s algorithm had apparently picked it up.
Travel with Joe, eat like a local
His focus has always been on the connection between food and travel. Food was his first love, though.
Even before he said goodbye to his corporate job in the UK, Parilla said he had a collection of about 200 cookbooks.
“They fill a whole shelf in my place,” he said, adding that even back in the day, he “would just read recipes and watch TV and try new recipes and create my own recipes.”
With his success on YouTube, his creative journey came full circle.
“Before, I never thought of myself as a creative person,” he said. “I’m a very logical person, a very analytical person, but this allowed me to find a creative outlet to grow another side of myself I didn’t know I had.”
His videos are maybe as much about discovery as they are about traveling and food.
“My favorite comment I get on a food video is when a local is saying, ‘You eat like one of us,’” Parilla said.
On his second YouTube channel, “JoeyP,” where he focuses more broadly on travel content, his favorite comment is, “’It’s like I’m traveling with you,’” he added.
Visiting places recommended by Joe Parilla is only one way of traveling with him, though. The other way is discovering for yourself—in a “Joe Parilla mindset.”
Take, for example, his favorite eatery in Taipei: So far, there’s no video about it, there’s no way to find it using Google Maps. With the right attitude, however, everybody can find their secret, favorite spot in Taipei.
