Thai House Thai Cuisine

泰豪泰式料理

No. 199, Zhonghua 3rd Rd, Qianjin Dist
高雄市前金區中華三路199號
(07)261-4907

Monday-Sunday
11:00am-2:30pm
5:00pm-10:00pm

English friendly: yes
vegetarian friendly: yes
average cost: 200-300NTD

I'd like to say a little something about this restaurant here, but all I can think of is, "It's the Thai place right by my house." 

And if I keep saying that restaurants are right by my house, eventually someone is going to figure out where I live... Let's look at the menu!

It's English friendly, and even has some pictures, but loses points for being overwhelmingly massive. Each dish is about 100NTD or so, which makes this place seem like a pretty cheap lunch option, until you realize that the dishes are so small you have to get at least two per person.

They serve you rice in fancy beaten silver pots though. The whole atmosphere is pretty classy, actually, though when we were there (lunch on a Saturday) it was filled with people (some of them screaming children) and sort of lost that feel.

We got tamarind juice to drink, and it was really interesting! Nicely sweet with a unique, nutty aftertaste. I liked it!

Here we have some sort of garlicky chicken over cabbage. The skin was well-cooked, the meat was tender, and all of it was fairly bursting with flavor. Plus it came with a flower!

This here is 山蘇, a plant used often in some Taiwanese aboriginal cuisines. It was good, certainly, but just because it was so oily and garlicky; as to whether the plant itself is actually good or not, I'm guessing not, or else they wouldn't have had to go to so much trouble to dress it up.

Here we have green papaya salad, with peanuts and a weird purple green bean thing you can't see in this picture (and flower). After I ordered this I was informed by my lunch partner that green papaya is widely known to have breast enlarging effects, and that is one of the reasons Vietnamese and Thai women have such (comparatively) large breasts, because they eat lots of green papaya when they're growing up. ...I am skeptical about all of these statements.

The salad was great though! Crisp and tangy, very refreshing. And of course I love anything with peanuts sprinkled on top of it.

And finally we have a tofu vegetable soup. It was basically exactly as pictured here, with no strong flavor besides vegetables and soft tofu. Good, but not a knockout.

I think I sort of messed up the ordering this time (I mean, we didn't even get any greasy noodles or anything...), so I'm basing my judgement on the last time I ate here too. Ahem. In conclusion, this place has pretty delicious Thai food and is not too expensive, depending on what you order. It is a solid choice for lunch or even dinner, if you're not looking to really impress someone.

OVERALL RATING: 3/5

Master Flavor Ginger Duck

霸味薑母鴨

No. 172, Zhongxin Rd, Zuoying Dist
高雄市左營區忠信路172號
(07)557-7796

Monday-Sunday
4:00pm-2:00am

English friendly: no
vegetarian friendly: no
average cost: 300-400NTD

Winter is coming, or has already come, or will never come, or something, so it's a good time to get yourself some ginger duck hot pot.

This particular flavor of hot pot restaurant is ONLY available in the quote-unquote winter; in the summer they close up shop and do something else. Though you might see a lot of 薑母鴨 places around if you start looking for it, THIS particular place is the best. Or so I am told.

No matter how many people you have, you'll end up paying 280NTD for the ginger duck soup base, which comes with some ginger and some duck already in it, then however much extra for whatever else you want to put in.

I originally thought the 鴨佛 (duck Buddha) option second from the left was another, possibly vegetarian, soup option, but it turns out to mean duck testicles. Ummm. Some other things you can put in your hot pot include duck intenstines, duck heart, duck tendon, duck liver, duck blood, three varieties of mushroom, and two varieties of tofu.

We each got a plate of 麵線 as an appetizer, and boy am I glad I did! This kind of 麵線 you can ONLY get at this restaurant, or so my dinner partner informed me. To be fair, I have never had tasty 麵線 before now. They were soft and fine like extra-fine angel hair pasta, and didn't have that cheap powdery feeling that most 麵線 seem to have (though perhaps this was because they weren't in soup). The sauce was super garlicky and flavorful. Delicious.

Our soup base came to us with the tofu skin, needle mushrooms, and duck blood we'd ordered already stewing and steaming away.

The soup itself is an exquisite broth of meaty duck flavor and intensely warming ginger. It is the perfect thing for a cold quote-unquote winter evening, and I was slurping it up all night. Under the aegis of unlimited soup refills.

...Here is the congealed duck blood, since you can't see it in the first picture. I am not a great connoisseur of duck blood, so I cannot say if this incarnation was especially good or what, but there was nothing overtly objectionable about it. Even the best duck blood (or so I am told) has a weird, "congealed blood" mouthfeel, and this was no exception. The texture is sort of indescribable, though this blog calls it "unsettling yet provocative, both alien and comforting." I guess I'll go with that. Not bad!

Anyway. The key to your ginger duck dining experience is this special sauce right here. The waitress said it was made with 豆腐乳, which Wikipedia informs us can also be called "fermented bean curd, sufu, tofu cheese, or preserved tofu." Tofu cheese. It made everything delicious, especially the tofu skin from above because it soaked it up like a sponge.

Our more time sensitive ingredients came separately, so that we might cook them hot pot style, according to our own schedule. This here is the duck heart (top), liver (middle), tendon (bottom) special platter, which at three-for-the-price-of-two saves you a tidy 50NTD.

The tendon was really interesting, and quite tasty, and I was also a big fan of the heart. They both tasted basically like extra tough muscle, and the soup+sauce gave them a really nice flavor. The liver tasted pretty much like liver, which is fine. I don't think anyone really likes liver; at least none of my Taiwanese friends do. Every time I ask they give me a lecture about how Taiwan used to be really poor, so eating every part of the animal is a cultural thing as much as (or perhaps more than...) a culinary thing.

We also got cabbage. I don't know WHY I took a picture of the cabbage, or why I'm now posting it for all to see, or especially why I am going to end this restaurant review with it, but there you go.

I really, really enjoyed this meal, and I didn't even have beer. (They do have Taiwan beer available, if you're in the mood.) You may have noticed that as a general rule I sort of hate hot pot, and am not a huge fan of meat or other animal bodily parts either--all that being said, I thought this was great! Master Flavor Ginger Duck offers a special, delicious dining experience. I definitely recommend you try it while you still can. And bring some friends! The more people you have, the cheaper it is!

OVERALL RATING: 5/5

Black Dog Cafeteria

黑狗食堂

No. 115, Hexi Rd, Yancheng Dist
高雄市鹽埕區河西路115號
(09)20605876

Monday-Sunday
5:00pm-12:00am

facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/%E9%BB%91-%E7%8B%97%E9%A3%9F%E5%A0%82/193725557384619

English friendly: no
vegetarian friendly: yes
average cost: 100-200NTD

This is the only exclusively open-air restaurant I've been to so far in Kaohsiung.

Coincidentally, the two evenings I've eaten here have also been among the coldest I've experienced so far in Kaohsiung. Pro tip: if it's raining outside, go somewhere else.

From what I've seen, this place is always really crowded. We surrendered in the face of the crowds last Saturday, and this Tuesday still had to wait ten or so minutes for a table. On a Tuesday! A cold Tuesday!

The Black Dog Cafeteria sells Singaporean food, which it turns out is mostly soups with noodles, hot pot, crabs and shrimps, and assorted fried things. Their traditional Singapore fried 蘿蔔糕 (radish cake) looks DELICIOUS, and their fried 粿條 (flat noodles) is confirmedly delicious.

As you can see by all the red crayon above, though, they are often out of... lots of things... so cross your fingers!

We started with this traditional Singaporean treat, wheat bread sandwiching a thick slab of butter and some strangely green jelly. It was really yummy, as you might expect. I don't know what flavor the jelly was, but it tasted sugary and sort of fruity and I'm not complaining.

My friend ordered the 肉骨茶麵 or meatbone tea-noodles, and they came with little hunks of 油條, the sugar-free Asian churro.

After a period of great indecision, and several furtive glances at other people's tables, I decided on the Malaysian curry. Not exactly a traditional Singaporean dish, but I regret nothing! This thing was not merely delicious, it was extremely delicious. The sort of delicious that you have to continually remark upon even as you're eating it, and that stays with you all night afterwards. 

The noodles looked sort of like the crispy French onions you put on top of green bean casserole, and I do in fact think they may have been fried to a crisp at some point, but when they got to me they were soft and puffy and soggy with curry. Quite the unique--and delicious--noodle experience. The curry itself was wonderful, thin and flavorful with the perfect hint of warming spice. Just what one needs on a cold evening eating Singaporean food out in the open.

Each time I've been here (and actually gotten a seat), I've enjoyed it immensely. This is the perfect restaurant for taking a few friends on a fun evening out: delicious, exotic, not too expensive, and complete with selection of two or three actually good beers.

Also, the interior design is all vintage and cool, and there are two big furry black dogs that wander around and let you pet them!

OVERALL RATING: 4/5

Shangpin Vegetarian Noodle House

上品齋素麵坊

No. 128, Qingnian 2nd Rd, Qianjin Dist
高雄市前金區青年二路128號
(07)215-2582

Monday-Sunday
11:00am-2:00pm
5:00pm-8:00pm

English friendly: no
vegetarian friendly: yes
average cost: 50-100NTD

Most vegetarian restaurants in Kaohsiung are of the buffet variety, where you take what you want from a line up of watery vegetable and tofu dishes while strumming chanting music plays gently in the background, and the person at the counter estimates the cost of your plate using some unknown Buddhist wizardry.

That works great for a typical Tuesday lunchbox, but it doesn't really make for a good food blog, or an actual dining experience. Luckily for me I have the internet, and the internet showed me this: a vegetarian noodle house, not far from my house.

Their noodles are basically rice or flour noodles with sesame paste or ground "meat", with or without wontons, within or without soup. They also have some other soup soups, plus a selection of small dishes and organic/revitalizing/etc. drinks that will surely cure you of all those pesky free radicals.

PLUS they have vegetarian 滷味, or "stuff stewed in soy sauce"; you put what you want into a basket, then they help you stew it and it comes out looking like THIS:

At least it does if you order the thousand leaf tofu, mushrooms, and radish. This was really good, chock-full of 滷味 flavor (but really there is pretty much just the one flavor), especially while still warm.

I got miso soup, pictured above. I have to be honest, I was not a real fan of this. I suppose miso is usually made with fish paste, so this vegetarian version was lacking that fishy punch. That doesn't mean it had to be so bland, though. I mean, they could have at least added a bit more salt. (She mumbled, hopelessly.)

Instead of meatball soup this is happiness ball soup, apparently. I didn't taste it but I think we can all get a pretty good idea of it from the picture alone.

My friend got noodles with wontons, which looked like this. Almost identical to my...

 ...noodles without wontons! When they first came out I was like "huh", but that was because all the sauce was at the bottom. If you massage them with your chopsticks for a little bit they end up looking like this:

Ahhh, much better. I really liked these noodles. They weren't the best sesame paste noodles I've ever had (that honor, so far, goes to Yuanxiang Beef Noodles), but they were yummy. The sauce was subtly sesame-ish, and the noodles had a good consistency. The serving looked a bit small at first, but I actually found it to be quite filling.

I'm so glad to know about this restaurant. It gains billions of bonus points in my book for having a satisfying selection of tasty vegetarian options--and noodles, nonetheless!

OVERALL RATING: 4/5

Yayan Specialty BBQ

極野宴燒肉專門店

4th Floor, No. 789 Zhonghua 5th Rd, Qianzhen Dist
高雄市前鎮區中華五路789號4樓
(07)821-8080

Monday-Sunday
11:30am-3:00pm
5:00pm-10:00pm

English friendly: yes
vegetarian friendly: lol
average cost: 489/589NTD

Here we have another restaurant I ate at, left the city for two weeks, then came back and tried to write a review for. So this review is going to be heavy on the pictures and light on my distracted ramblings. That's probably better for all of us anyway.

It is also another high class mall chain restaurant! This time in the Dream Mall, and of the all-you-can-eat variety. That means you pay about $20USD and can stay there for HOURS (though actually I think they have a time limit of two hours...), gorging yourself on every item on their menu.

For some reason all-you-can-eat restaurants in Taiwan tend to be MUCH classier than those in the US, for a comparable price. I'm not a huge fan of stuffing myself with enormous quantities of food over the course of multiple hours, but once in a while it can make for a real nice treat. The number one thing that recommends this place over all other all-you-can-eat BBQ in Kaohsiung is this: all-you-can-drink beer.

I repeat: LIMITLESS BEER. 

All the ingredients required for a fun Thursday afternoon.

Their menu is pretty gigantic, with different sections for chicken, beef, seafood, etc, and full English (and Japanese) translations. And you can get anything you want off of it! Anything at all!

The waitress asked us if we wanted a pitcher of beer, coke, or roasted barley tea with our meal and we got ALL of them, because we could!

All menu items come raw, and you barbecue them yourself on the above charcoal stove thing. They put a grate on top of it, of course, and the waitress even came by after the first hour to switch out a new one not all covered in drippings. I tried to help her but I was pretty drunk by that point so.

All tables come with a free giant boat of raw seafood, which looks like this.

As well as some vegetables! We didn't dig into these until the end of the meal, when we started feeling guilty, but oh man! Those water chestnuts, the white things above, were totally awesome! Do not miss out on them.

Some sort of meat and stuff. By the way, each table comes with salt and pepper shakers (OMG, you can add SALT, the BESSSSST), as well as this soy sauce-looking sauce that does not taste like soy sauce, and goes quite well with meat of all kinds. Though not as well as salt does.

Thin strips of meat! Helpful tips for cooking these guys: lay them on the grill and watch a bit until you see their top sides start to "sweat", flip them over, and then take them off almost immediately. Devour them happily.

Scallops on ice! Someone who knows more than I intimated that these were fake scallops, because of the way they fell apart when you pulled at them or something. I'm no expert on scallops, but I thought they tasted pretty delicious all the same.

Fish in a dish! The aluminum pans you can put directly on the grill, and let the stuff inside slowly boil/bake. We also ordered their vegetables+cheese dish, which came in an aluminum pan too, but maybe we left it on the grill too long because when I finally tried it it was SERIOUSLY nasty. Like, sour milk kind of nasty. Not exactly sure what that was about.

Happy barbecuing. Everything here was really good. Those mushrooms on the right there were especially good. I love mushrooms.

Here is something funny. Their menu advertises a cheese-stuffed American beef dish, complete with sexy gratuitous pictures up there on the bottom right...

...And it turned out to look like this. False advertising! Except even with that little bit of cheese it was absolutely, absolutely delicious. Probably my favorite thing this entire meal. And we ate a LOT, can you tell? I don't think I even photographed half of it...

Cheesy beef rolls in action, and more shrimps. Yeahhhhh.

There are a few options for dessert, including this very charismatic Japanese mochi dish, meant to be barbecued for several minutes until crispy and chewy then drowned in condensed milk and peanut shavings, and eaten. DON'T MIND IF I DO. Each "order" comes with six pieces, so we got four orders because well.

I also got this VERY STRANGE pumpkin pie looking dish, with vanilla ice cream and random marshmellows. I forget exactly how it was advertised, but I know that when I bit into it I was definitely not expecting this:

Like, a sort of dry cake encasing a hunk of mochi and strawberry jam. What?

...What?

The ice cream was good though, and you can't go wrong with mochi I suppose.

Overall, I... I am mostly impressed that I ate so much. This was a really fun dining experience, not in the least because of the unlimited beer. So yeah, I definitely recommend it! It's not even that expensive, when you think about it. Several meals worth of food for the price of one.

OVERALL RATING: 4/5

Thai Town Cuisine

瓦城泰國料理

12th floor, No. 21, Sanduo 4th Rd, Lingya Dist
高雄市苓雅區三多四路21號12樓
(07)963-0262

Monday-Sunday
11:00am-10:30pm

website: http://www.thaitown.com.tw/index.php

English friendly: yes
vegetarian friendly: doable
average cost: 400-500NTD

I forgot to get a picture of the outside of this restaurant, but you've probably seen it before anyway! It's a common fixture in Taiwanese malls. This particular incarnation can be found in the FE21 mall, in the Sanduo shopping monstromegaopolis. Kaohsiung has a lot of malls, have you noticed?

Their menu is not TOO ridiculously huge but it has lots of words and lots of white space so it's sort of hard to capture in one picture... Instead, lets look at other pictures!

BTW, each meal comes with unlimited rice, either of the typical Japanese rice variety or the EXOTIC Thai rice variety. The latter is the same sort of rice you'd get in Indian restaurants: slighly longer, and sort of "shaggier" than the rice you're (assumedly) used to. It's nice to have something different once in a while, but I am personally of the opinion that Japanese rice is yummier.

I accidentally went on a two-week bicycle trip around Taiwan between eating at this restaurant and writing this review, so many of the details have faded from my mind. Ummm. Here we have a vegetable dish, with some hot peppers in it! It wasn't hot unless you ate a pepper.

This guy was great! Pad thai with bean sprouts and crushed peanuts. Can't go wrong with that.

Their classic (Taiwanese) Thai shrimp pancake comes in original, spicy, lemon grass, and whole wheat varieties. We got the whole wheat one, and it was incredible! I couldn't really taste the whole wheat--it was mostly just crispy shrimpy goodness--but one member of our party opined that this version is better than their original.

This, a beef curry thing. No complaints here. Not very spicy, but the curry was quite good.

I *think* this is pork, meant to be wrapped up in a lettuce leaf and eaten. The flavor was really odd: slightly oily, and quite sour. It was supposed to be spicy, I believe, but instead it was lemony and oily. I liked it, don't get me wrong, but I think I was the only one at our table that did.

This, some sort of chicken thing! It was good, but left me with no lasting impression.

I didn't have a chance to try this chicken rice wrapped in leaves thing, but for the record here is what it looked like. It got very high reviews!

I don't normally go for dessert but I'm glad I did. This here is warm coconut milk with all sorts of tapioca and sugary fruit things in it. Yummy yummy yummy!

So yeah. This is definitely a GOOD restaurant, and a nice choice for an evening out on the town. (Errr, does anyone have evenings out on the town in this city?) But for such high prices, I think their food should leave a more lasting impression. Typical high class mall chain restaurant, I guess.

OVERALL RATING: 3/5