After flying in from Hong Kong, Mr FPJ and I stayed in Taipei for six nights. Taipei was a last minute addition to our trip. We were trying to find another destination in between Hong Kong and our next destination, Thailand. I’m always happy to explore a new country but didn’t know what to expect. Turns out, Taipei was one of our favourite destinations on the entire holiday. It wasn’t until around 8pm that we checked into our hotel in the Ximending district. Taipei is all about good food and I loved that one of the first documents hotel staff provided us was a food map of the area! One signature Taiwanese dish I needed to have was beef noodle soup. We made a beeline for ็ๅบ็่้ข Niu Dian (or Niou Dien) which I had read was really popular for the dish. As it was quite late, there was only a short 5-10 minute wait for a table inside.
I was surprised and grateful to find an English menu.
Mr FPJ ordered the small beef noodles (NT$180 or approx AUD$7.90). A big bowl arrived with udon noodles and a large piece of beef in the middle topped with scallions. I wish I had taken a close up of the beef. It was covered in a maze of fat and I remember thinking it was going to be so finnicky and troublesome to eat around the gristle, would it even be worth it? Turned out the beef had been stewed for so long that there was no gristle. That maze of fat was more like butter. The beef was so tender and just melted in my mouth. It was the best thing ever. It didn’t even taste like fat, just juicy beef. The broth was pretty oily but if I could eat all the fat on the beef, a little oil really didn’t matter.
I ordered the noodles with beef shank and beef tendon (NT$ 250) forgetting that I actually don’t like tendon. This was more expensive than the plain beef noodle soup and the beef and gravy came in its own pot, with the udon noodles in a separate bowl. The sauce was rich, full of umami and surprisingly not too salty. Similar to Mr FPJ’s beef, the beef shank was extremely tender but not as fatty. I could add as much sauce as I wanted to the noodle soup to flavour it, though it only needed a few spoonfuls. This was an awesome introduction to Taiwan’s beef noodle soup. I also liked that it came with English instructions in case we didn’t know what to do.
The next day, we did some sightseeing including the Gate of Great Centrality and Perfect Uprightness.
This led to a large square and the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.
For lunch, we headed to the original Din Tai Fung on Xinyi Road in the Daan district. When we got there at around 2.30pm, there was a huge crowd waiting outside. I hear that the wait times can be 2hrs plus during peak lunch periods. We placed our names on the wait list and were told there was about a 40 minute wait for a table at that time.
The menu was displayed against the window so we had a look and made our picks. I noticed two more xiao long bao that I hadn’t seen in Australia – green squash and shrimp, and chicken XLBs.
During the wait, we wandered along Xinyi Road and I bought a pumpkin tart and egg tart from Sunmerry bakery. The pumpkin tart was okay, but nothing spectacular. The egg tart was very bland and disappointing. Nothing like the Hong Kong egg tarts.
When we were finally called in, we climbed the three floors of the restaurant to get to our table. We ordered the original pork xiao long bao (of course!). Happy to say Din Tai Fung across the world is very consistent in its XLBs.
We also tried the green squash and shrimp xiao long bao. The dumpling skin was perfect as usual and the mild tasting soft squash provided a nice sweetness to the dumpling. However, I couldn’t help but compare it to the pork XLB which is still the best.
We also ordered the prawn wontons in chilli oil because they’re also one of my favourite dishes.
I read that the main rival to Din Tai Fung is Kao Chi located right around the corner. As we weren’t too full, we headed there right after finishing up at Din Tai Fung to do a comparison of XLBs. Although the Kao Chi XLBs had a nice thin skin, a good portion of filling and soup, there was no contest with Din Tai Fung’s XLBs which are still number one in our humble opinions. In hindsight, we should have eaten at Kai Chi during the 40 minute wait for a table at Din Tai Fung.
We also decided to order the Shanghai pan fried pork buns which came out super hot on an iron pan. I liked that the buns were slightly charred on the bottom but we couldn’t finish them all as they were quite large and doughy.
I had read that there was a decent mochi shop, Ijysheng, along Xinyi Road, so we walked over to get some to take away. I was originally going to purchase just two or three mochi, but there were so many flavours to choose from. Another tourist that was in the store with her kids told us her family always visits Ijysheng and the black sesame mochi and peanut mochi were their favourites. The mochi were NT$18 (or AUD 80 cents) a piece or NT$126 for 7 pieces.
Apart from mochi, Ijysheng also sells all sorts of other pastries and buns such as pineapple buns, dulce de leche cheese tarts, matcha custard buns and black sesame buns.
I decided to go with the 7 piece mochi pack and chose walnut and maple syrup, purple rice and peanut, regular peanut, black sesame, matcha and red bean, sweet potato and pork floss flavours.
All the individually wrapped mochi were fresh, chewy and delicious. The pork floss mochi was a little odd and I can’t say that I’d order it again. Both the peanut and black sesame were my favourites.
The next day, we took the train to Beitou to visit the thermal hot springs. Mr FPJ found a public bath house and we were fortunate to book in a private bath for 2 with only an hour wait. By the time we arrived back at Xinmending around 2.30pm, we were both hungry and wanted to eat something close to our hotel. I decided to line up at the famous Ay-Chung Flour Rice Noodle for its Mee Sua – rice vermicelli stew with braised intestines. It doesn’t sound the most appealing but it’s a very popular joint and I was happy to give it a go. There are no seats available but most people simply congregate outside at the front of the shop which is undercover. It was drizzly that day so there were a lot of people across the alleyway on the other side undercover slurping their noodles too.
At that time of the day, I only had to wait for one person ahead of me to order and pay for the noodles. There was a huge steaming pot of the noodles at the counter and staff quickly ladle this into takeaway noodle bowls.
They only make the one mee sua and they do it well. The stew had a good balance of sweet and sour and was chock full of vermicelli noodles – as you can see the spoons stand up on their own. I did look around for chop sticks but a spoon is all you need. There were a few pieces of intestines which were easily identifiable. They were chewy with no offal-like taste, but I tended to leave these to the side and just concentrated on slurping up the noodles. I loved it and finished the entire bowl!
There was a trolley where you could help yourself to chilli, garlic and vinegar, but I didn’t think it was necessary.
Next up, I eat my way through the Ningxia Night Markets…
Eateries visited:
- ็ๅบ็่้ข Niu Dian – No. 91่, Kunming Street, Wanhua District, Taipei City
- Din Tai Fung – No. 194่, Section 2, Xinyi Road, Daโan District, Taipei City
- Sunmerry Bakery – No. 186, Section 2, Xinyi Road, Daโan District, Taipei City
- Kao Chi – No. 1่, Yongkang Street, Daโan District, Taipei City
- Ijysheng – No. 51, Sec. 3, Xinglong Rd, Wenshan Dist, Taipei City
- Ay-Chung Flour Rice Noodle – No. 8-1่, Emei Street, Wanhua District, Taipei City
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