Showing posts with label heping_e_road. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heping_e_road. Show all posts

Monday, November 10, 2008

Zhang Mama Beef Noodles

Cold. Wet. Breezy. Gray.

The weather in Taipei is unseasonable - it usually doesn't get like this until December. I wore a coat for the first time in months and braved the drizzly wind to walk up Heping Road, from Guting to Technology Building. Why? Thanks to an afternoon class I don't have time to go to the gym this month so I have to get my fitness where I can. (I only have one day off all month, so I'm not joking when I say I don't have time).

I was hungry and resolved to stop at the first Taiwanese joint serving either breakfast or standard noodle/rice dishes. That first stop happened to be Zhang Mama Beef Noodles, on the southern side of Heping E. Road, just before the car park and inlet to Guting Market.

The restaurant was sparse, with a few dark tables, stool chairs and counter. Their selection of Hakka-style xiaochi was unimpressive, but I was only hungry enough for noodles and didn't want any, regardless.

I ordered the tomato beef noodles after considering the hongshao beef and mountain chicken noodles. At 150-190 kuai a bowl, Zhang Mama is not cheap as far as beef noodles go.

But boy, are they good. The noodles aren't homemade, which is a shame, but the soup and meat are delectable. It comes in a heavy ceramic bowl with a ponderous matching spoon, making it all the more fun to slurp up. The broth was very tomato-ey and full of bursting, citrusy flavor (besides the tomato acids I think there was a hint of lemon juice thrown in), not too oily but with a slightly buttery finish. It was almost an Asian minestrone, but better. Much better.

The meat was delicious - tender to the point of falling apart, fatty in a good way without being too fatty. I did have to peel off a few chunks of lard - I just don't like lard - but they came off easily.

The flavors were intense, and for once I didn't feel the need to add chili pepper. They had already added a hint of spice; just enough to make itself known and frame the other flavors, but not enough to blunt your tastebuds.

Obviously, beef noodles in Taiwan are ubiquitous. It's hard to wax poetic about something that's on every streetcorner (ah, 7-11, how I love thee. Let me count the ways. I love thy Tai-ke doritos, I love thy CC Lemon...), but this place does good enough beef noodles that it's worth it's own blog post.

There's another amazing place in Jingmei that does good beef noodles; I'll get their address and post about them next.

What a perfect way to warm up your insides against a nasty, gray Taipei day.

Zhang Mama Beef Noodles - Heping E. Road Section 1 #18 / Tianmu West Road Inside Lane 41 / Minsheng E Road Section 5 Lane 138 #13

Monday, October 6, 2008

Yuanlin Rouyuan (員林肉圓)

Ever found yourself on Fuxing S. Road, wishing you could have a nice, hot, local meal that was flavorful, hearty and cheap? In an area dominated by Starbuxes and fake-o Mongolian joints with fancy lanterns, that seems impossible.

But it's not.

I had the pleasure of discovering a new restaurant out of the blue today - and on a very busy intersection to boot! Usually the best places are hidden in the lanes or tucked away in a maze of tiny vendors, but this one was right out in the open.

I'm talking about Yuanlin Rouyuan (員林肉圓) It's right off the intersection of Heping E. Road and Fuxing S. Road, next to Sheng Li - the discount store with the green sign and the giant scary baby cutout perched on its roof.

It's a small unassuming restaurant - well, not so much a restaurant as it is a "joint" - with blond wood tables, disposable chopsticks and old ladies in hairnets shouting orders in the delightful nasal plops and slips that make up the Taiwanese language.

Their specialty is, of course, mba wan (rou yuan) - Taiwanese rice gluten dumplings stuffed with pork and served with gravy. In the night market, these usually come with a pink sauce and are topped with coriander. The women of Yuanlin Rouyuan dispense with the pink sauce and greenery and give you a hearty helping of artery-clogging gravy, topped with cubes of delicious young bamboo and mushroom slices.

And they are absolutely delicious. The gluten isn't too sticky or weird, and the pork is savory and delicious. I miss the pink sauce, but the young bamboo more than makes up for it.

On a rainy, bleak, typically Taipei day, it's a hot meal reminiscent of something a hearty ol' farmer would eat after coming back from the fields. Not that I know if farmers ate mba wan, but they probably do/did.

I also had their lu rou fan, another Taiwanese treat. It was savory, soft and delicious as lu rou fan always is, but I had to add a little soy sauce to amp up the salt.

They serve far more than those staples - a small menu boasts several standard-issue rice and noodle dishes, all of which are served piping hot and ready to combat the city's relentless drizzle, and xiaochi in environmentally unfriendly plastic contraptions. I had the broccoli - cold and garlicky. Yum.

And all for 90 kuai.

Beats eating mediocre pasta at Dante anyday...and those ladies in hairnets are extremely friendly.

Yuanlin Rouyuan 員林肉圓 is next to Technology Building MRT Station on the brown line. Exit the station and turn left - it's past Starbucks and Cosmed, but before Sheng Li discount store and the Heping E. Road intersection.