I am staying in Taipei for 2-3 nights. I would like to eat Taiwanese food and visit local tea houses. I will travel solo and most likely stay near Taipei Train Station. I would appreciate your review of the following and your suggestions for additional places. I took three years of Japanese and therefore can read a good number of kanji.
Places I have marked:
Beef noodles
Liu Shandong Beef Noodles
Pin Chuan Lan
Chef Hung Beef Noodles (Jianguo North Road)
Bandao Beef Noodle Restaurant
Taiwan Beef Noodles · Chicken Soup
Master Jim Beef Noodle
Soymilk
Lao Jiang’s House – 24 hours open
Chiayi traditional curd
Qin Lao Shi Soybean Milk
Miss Qin’s Soy Milk
Yong He Soymilk
Taiwanese Pork Chops
*Liang She Han – unbreaded pork chops
*Emperor Foods
King Pork
??? Any more suggestions ???
*These seem to be popular local chains, but I don’t understand why their Google Maps ratings aren’t higher.
Taiwanese tapas
I like Taiwanese tapas. Where should I go to eat these?
Non-beef noodles
Suggestions???
Are there any other Taiwanese dishes that I should try?
Non-food related question: do restaurants mostly have restrooms? What about convenience stores? In Japan, most 7-11s offer restrooms to customers, and I wonder if it’s like this in Taiwan.
*These seem to be popular local chains, but I don’t understand why their Google Maps ratings aren’t higher.
The local restaurants game google map ratings a lot - many places will have signs saying free appetizer if you leave a 5-star rating. So the ratings can get a bit unreliable.
Taiwanese tapas
Since you’re near the Taipei station, I thought the Breeze Center food court (2nd floor in the station itself) was pretty amazing. If you can read Chinese here’s the website: https://www.breezecenter.com/branches/003
Non-food related question: do restaurants mostly have restrooms?
It depends, most sit down places do, or at least can point you to the shared one in the building.
What about convenience stores?
The ones that have restroom will have a restroom symbol under its logo - something like this:
2 Likes
Presunto
(--> Back in Athens - Goat's/Sheep's Yoghurt every day ... [Fleeced Taxpayer :@)) :@)) ])
5
Yes.
Clams stir-fried with basil Goose with young ginger. Stinky tofu? It’s so good in Taiwan.
These vegetables, if in season:
Chayote shoots (they have delicate curly tendrils)
Can’t remember the name of this green vegetable, it has no leaves.
And ferns.
My top 2 favourites are the goose and basil clams (I had both, usually together, many times). Most tourists hit the night markets first (understandably), though, and have no idea about the goose and basil clams. You won’t find these exact same 2 dishes in other goose and clam eating countries.
I did visit a few tea houses in the capital but I’m partial to Oriental Beauty and none had it (I drank some other tea but already tasted Oriental Beauty in another town).
You have such a short time there, might want to narrow down your absolute top things to try (and where) to minimise time travelling across town.
On our only visit to Taipei, our hosts took us to whichever night market is closest to the original Xinyi location of Din Tai Fung well before it became “Din Tai Fung”, capping the tour.
I will second any positive reports about Liu Shandong Beef Noodle Soup. I arrived as they were closing and they let me in and were very nice about getting me a delicious, rich bowl of beef noodle soup! Loved that soup. And it is very close to the central Taipei train station.
