Where to Buy a whole Turkey in Taipei?
It is Thanksgiving / Christmas, and you are looking to cook a turkey in Taipei for your group of friends. You came at the right place!
Costco (available in 2024!)
In November 2024, Costco has Taiwanese Turkey! They cost 315TWD/kg, between 1800 to 2400 TWD for a 6 to 8kg one:
Previous years, they had the Frozen, pre-brine, Butterballs Turkeys , which appeared around mid-October to December at all Costco locations in Taiwan. They weighed about 7kg (16lbs) and were imported from the US.
Here is a photo of the US Frozen Butterball Turkeys from the US (not the Taiwan one):
Note: Costco did not have turkeys in 2022 and 2023.
From a farm (online)
Chiayi is home of the turkey rice (jirou fan). Many local farms can sell you from thei online shops or Line. I’ve listed a couple ones I’ve contacted:
Idol turkey on shopee
Believe it or not, we ordered the turkey on shopee in 2022 and 2023. And it turned out really nicely. You’ll receive the turkey frozen, so account 3 days for defrosting it in your fridge + 3 days for brining it.
Here the result:
2000TWD for a ~8kg bird 2500TWD for a ~10kg bird
Pasta & Co
Take home price : $5,990 NTD
Turkey (6/7KG) is brined in a special white wine brine for 96 hours then it is air dried in fridge for 72 hours, roasted and then crispied in the fryer. The last date of pre-order (if quantity is still available) is 11/15 12PM
It seems to include a cake, mac and cheese and potatoes.
Order: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DkuVpVza7/
Taiwan Turkey Store Food
I didn’t try that one yet
- Shop: https://foodstore.qdm.tw/
- Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/taiwanturkey
1900TWD + 200TWD delivery for 8kg (17lbs). They will send you the frozen turkey.
Turkey Chef (火雞總舖)
- Shop: https://shopee.tw/turkey_chef
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TurkeyChef/
They have quite big turkey, 13kg (28lbs). But way too big for my oven.
Thomas meat (in Taipei)
They seem to have options from 1200 to 2600 TWD for a 4.5kg cooked bird
- Shop: https://www.thomasmeat.com/index.php?Page=Search&Keyword=%E5%AD%A3%E7%AF%80%E9%99%90%E5%AE%9A&utm_medium=post&utm_source=fbpg&utm_campaign=turkey23_organic
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thomasmeat
Dimensions of a turkey by weight - Will the turkey fits inside my oven?
If you are really lucky, your apartment in Taiwan will come with an oven integrated in the kitchen. And here come the question… will the turkey will fit in your oven? Turkeys vary in size and all the same, here some dimensions I found I hope will help you:
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4kg – 22cm (w) x 30cm (L) x 15cm (h)
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7.4kg - 27cm (w) x 35cm (L) x 19 cm (h)
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7.5kg - 26cm (w) x 33cm (L) x 17cm (h)
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10kg - 32cm (w) x 39cm (L) x 19cm (h)
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10kg – 31cm (w) x 38cm (L) x 20cm (h)
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12.5kg - 30cm (w) x 41cm (L) x 20cm (h)
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13kg - 30cm (w) x 43cm (L) x 20cm (h)
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13kg – 33cm (w) x 39cm (L) x 20cm (h)
If you are not lucky to have a big enough oven, it exists some really big portable oven like this one from yamazaki but might be really expensive (maybe 25,000TWD). An other alternative is to book a cooking class that have those integrated ovens for a few hours and host your party there.
Next read:
🍤 Restaurants I recommend after living 5 years in Taipei
🚲 Taiwan’s amazing bike-sharing system
💰 How to invest in ETFs and Stocks from Taiwan
Thanks for reading
As always, hit me up and let’s hang out. I am thinking a lot about AI, Health, Tooling, Hacking and other stuffs. I now focus on TaipeiDev and HackersBait. If you are in Taipei, come hang out.