One of my classmates split her time growing up between the U.S. and Taipei, so she's well-versed in both cultures. While she dresses like a Taiwanese girl and loves Hello Kitty, she much prefers American food. So she suggested that we go to a restaurant (with several locations in Taipei) called The Diner, which (I'm sure you can tell) serves American diner food.

I wasn't expecting too much, or maybe I should say that I wasn't expecting to feel any which way about the restaurant, but surprisingly, the little things at The Diner made me realize how much I (or my stomach) do miss home.

Whenever I go to a diner, my go-to dish is pancakes or waffles, but despite being prepared to order pancakes, I ended up going with a dish called "Mexican Scramble," which was eggs scrambled with salsa, green onion and cheddar cheese and came with two slices of toast, sliced bananas, hash browns, orange juice, tea or coffee, and your choice of two links of sausage or two slices of bacon. This dish amounted to $8, which is not cheap by Taiwanese standards and probably not terribly cheap by most American standards, but cheap by New York City standards!