Mountain Daughter Sapporo Ramen

樂山娘札幌拉麵

No. 92, Zhonghua 3rd Rd, Qianjin Dist
高雄市前金區中華三路92號
(07)272-8499

Monday-Sunday
11:30am-2:00pm
5:30pm-9:30pm

English friendly: no
vegetarian friendly: yes
average cost: 150-250NTD

If you like ramen, and you live right where I live, you are in luck! This "approved by real Japanese people!" ramen restaurant has a branch right next to my (your) house. 

The sign doesn't light up though, and it's sort of tucked away between two giant banks, so you might have to search a little bit before you find it.

The dirty, dark outside is matched by a dirty, bland inside. Also there was a SERIOUS funk in the air when I walked in. I refuse to accept this from any institution not in the business of selling stinky tofu!

Their menu is not English friendly (though it's got some pictures), and actually more Japanese friendly than Chinese friendy. All that hiragana and katakana kind of made me 眼花... 

It's a little expensive for noodles in these parts, but not too bad. At the bottom of this side of the menu they have a 170NTD vegetarian ramen option. They also offer Japanese curry on rice, and a nice selection of interesting appetizers.

I ordered the 強棒 ramen, on the assumption that I would receive "strong awesome" ramen. Well! This ramen was fine, but nothing spectacular. The egg was sort of overcooked and the pork was SERIOUSLY overcooked (or just... tough and chewy). The noodles were alright, though probs not handmade, and the soup was pretty okay. It wasn't REAL Japanese ramen though.

I... I think I've been having too much (too many???) noodles lately. The virtue of noodles being noodles is no longer enough. 

My friend got some sort of pork ramen thing that looked incredible, but was probably about the same.

We got their fried oysters appetizer, which was awesome. They were about 70% fried, 15% air, and 15% oysters, and the tartar sauce or whatever it was was more like a salsa in that it did not permit dipping whatsoever, but I managed to enjoy them in spite of these difficulties. They tasted like fried. Alright.

Their potstickers, or gyoza for the more culturally enlightened among us, were pretty much exactly like your standard supermarket freezer section potstickers, or those sold at your standard culturally unenlighted American Chinese restaurant. The skin was too thin for me, and the filling uninspiring.

I was initially inclined to give this place a 3, but as I write about it now I'm hard-pressed to remember anything I really liked. Their other menu options could very well be much better (it is supposedly famous, after all), but I don't want to go back to test my luck. Maybe if I get really, really hungry one of these days...

OVERALL RATING: 2/5

Not Old Sushi

不老壽司

No. 66, Fumin Rd, Zuoying Dist
高雄市左營區富民路66號
(07)348-4722

Monday-Sunday
11:00am-2:00pm
5:00pm-9:00pm

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

I don't know why I keep going to nearly identical restaurants within days of each other, but it certainly does help me make comparisons. I think this place is *slightly* better than the last sushi place, though it is not as creative.

The name actually does translate to "Not Old Sushi". It must be Japanese, for... something. I don't know, and I forgot to ask.

When I googled "Kaohsiung's best sushi" in Chinese, this place came up three times in the first five or so results. As you might expect, it is wise to make a reservation.

One of the first things I really liked about this place was how limited their menu is. I just hate going through page after page of stuff that can't possibly all be good.

This place sells only sushi, sushi rolls, and hand rolls, plus some assorted appetizers and soups and sake and things. The menu doesn't have any English but with so many pictures who even needs language, right?

We got the same complimentary appetizer as the last place, except this one was actually edible. I don't know why, but the raw onions didn't taste nearly as toxic; maybe it was because there was more sauce.

The wriggly smoked fish stuff (turns out it's made of fish) on top was still stinky and weird, but that's my own issue I think.

This is the "sea urchin roe muffin" hand roll, which I had not the pleasure of eating. (Supposedly it was really good.) Did you know that the word "muffin" in Chinese, translated phonetically as 馬糞, also means "horse shit"? This must be the major reason muffins have not caught on here.

The menu divides their sushi offerings into "raw", "vegetarian", and "cooked"; here is our raw sushi combo platter. I had the scallop, the squid (in front), one of the salmon, and the red tuna in the back. They were all... incredible. The scallop was super thick and smooshy, while the squid was chewy and hard in some places. It was enlivened by a distinct citrus flavor, some of which came from the adorable tiny slice of tiny lime on top of it. 

(For some extra dinner entertainment, try asking your Taiwanese friends the difference between a lime and a lemon. Most people I've met consider them the same thing.)

The raw fish sushi was also fantastic. The cuts of fish were extremely generous and oh-so-good... Sushi is so good you guys. So damn good. They also gave us lots of (real) wasabi and soy sauce for the table, which made it even better.

When we sat down the waiter was like, "Dish somethingsomethingsomething is today's special and we only have ten of them left!" So we seized the limited-time-only opportunity and it turned out to be this. It looks like those hunks of beef there should be tough and stringy, but they were actually incredibly... What's the opposite of tough? Tender? The piece I had really melted away in my mouth, it was so neat. The radish was also very well-cooked. No complaints here.

Here is our cooked sushi! Pretty sexy, yes? I had another scallop, charred on the outside and equally smooshy on the inside, and then some MAGICAL fish thing hiding behind that leaf (so delicious omg it was so delicious), plus some really good eel over there to the right.

And from the back row, I enjoyed a totally cute piece of mushroom sushi. You don't see mushrooms on top of sushi too often, but this place sells two different varieties! Mushroom lovers rejoice! This sushi really worked for me: nice and heavy and full of mushroom flavor. That white stuff on top of it was not cheese, but I don't remember what it was. It didn't have a huge impact on the overall taste.

Their miso soup was pretty standard. Nothing much to say here...

This one of their "famous" trademark sushi rolls. The pork in the middle was well cooked (a little stringy), but balanced out some by a mysterious squishy something a lot like raw fish... If you look closely you can see it glistening in the photo above. I have no idea what it was. There might also have been peanut shavings in there, or something... The whole thing tasted very much like one of those unorthodox Taiwanese breakfast sandwiches I used to buy on my way home from The Club. I liked it a lot! But it didn't really feel like sushi.

Our complimentary dessert was another bowl of slightly sweet bean soup, though this one was cut with purple rice and what I think were grapes. The latter gave it a fruity and refreshing twist, a little strange, but I think I liked it.

Even having eaten at them within a day of each other, it's hard to compare this place with Yilang Creative Sushi. They're both good! Sushi is good! Sushi is DAMN good! Treat yourself!

OVERALL RATING: 4/5

Yilang Creative Sushi

義郎創意壽司

No. 66, Fumin Rd, Zuoying Dist
高雄市左營區富民路66號
(07)558-2208

Monday-Sunday
11:30am-2:00pm
5:30pm-9:00pm

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

In Taiwan, you need only prefix a food group with the word "creative" and you can charge hundreds more for it. Sushi in particular. I only found out that this restaurant was creative after I got the bill... In retrospect, I dunno. I guess the plates had cool shapes.

Please forgive this horrible photograph taken in haste. It is actually a very beautiful restaurant, inside and out(side). Super Japanese, super elegant, all that stuff. 

The atmosphere was only less-than-perfect because there were so many PEOPLE eating there. Having fancy sushi for lunch on a Monday. I don't get it, but it happened. So pay attention to that phone number up there; you really should call ahead and reserve a table.

Their menu has like a billion pages, so I just photographed a part of it. Their selections vary based on the day/season though, which means you'll probably run into a lot of things on the menu that you can't actually order (and vice-versa). On this page, at least, the "in-season" sushi has been marked with a red check.

For vegetarians, they have a 445NTD set meal that I would have been ALL OVER if I were ordering just for myself. Instead we ordered pretty much everything else. So. Let us commence!

Here we have tempura giant shrimp and sweet potato. They were really well tempura'd: crispy, and not too oily. PLUS, the sweet potato was by far the best sweet potato I've eaten in Taiwan so far. (Where oh where did they get it?!?) The powders on the side are some sort of spicy thing (red) and some sort of salty thing (green). I thought the waiter said the green stuff was powdered wasabi but I must have misunderstood... They were both good though, and pretty... creative?!?

This sushi roll was so neat! That in the middle there is tempura soft-shelled crab, soft enough for you to eat it whole. 

--In the middle of writing that I realized soft-shelled crab is not the magical rare thing I thought it was... It sounded so incredible when my friend told me about it in Chinese. Ummm. The sushi was good though. I sort of wished it came with wasabi and soy sauce, instead of whatever that was at the bottom (no real flavor), but that's okay. The table had vinegar available.

OMGGG just LOOK at this masterpiece! As soon as I saw it in the menu I knew we had to order it. It's basically a bunch of raw fish piled onto some rice. That in the middle there is egg, and there's also scallions and ginger piled on the side as well. If you choose you can mix it all up to get...

...this! I really liked this dish, because it basically allowed me to stuff my face with spoonful after spoonful of sushimash. The fish was perhaps not as high-quality as the fish one would get atop of piece of actual sushi, and the flavor was a bit bland without wasabi or soy sauce, but I still really liked it. Raw fish nom nom nom.

Hand-rolls! These were so cute. They had lots of neon orange roe, a little bit of rice, and some mysterious thick white substance at the bottom that I was not expecting whatsoever and dripped all over my lap.

That soup below is the vegetarian miso, and it was awesome! There were tons and tons of vegetables and mushrooms in it, and it had a heavy vegetably, carroty-sweet flavor. Like.

Today's only incidence of real sushi! I don't remember what fish it was, but it was good! The wasabi was real, too--REALLL painful. Amazing.

Hidden in the back of this picture is our complimentary starter: a bowl of sliced onions in a vinegary sauce with seasame seeds on top. Not cooked onions, mind you. It was very refreshing &etc, but tasted like eating raw onions.

We tried to order yellowfish but they were out, so we got whitefish instead. It looked like this, with a little pile of MSG peppersalt off to the side. When it first appeared at our table I was like "aight" but when I took a bite I almost died. OMG, it was INCREDIBLE! Juicy, salty, MSGy, excellent. I think it was the most delicious thing in this entire meal.

Our final dish was tamagoyaki sushi, which tasted like a perfectly smooth, juicy and chewy, slightly sweet omlette with layers that fell apart in my mouth. I'm not sure how I feel about slightly sweet egg, but the preparation was exquisite. And just look at that leaf. Creative.

We also got a complimentary dessert, a cute little cup of sweet bean soup. It was slightly sweet and quite tasty. I was absolutely stuffed by this point (funny that never happens at sushi restaurants...) but I still finished it in like a minute.

Some final notes: the service was great. They even have a service bell, as well as this educational and entertaining guide on how to properly eat sushi. The waiters came by frequently to refill our 麥茶 tea, which was delicious.

Yilang Creative Sushi is of couse super expensive, so I won't be going here every day for lunch or anything. Even so, it was a really nice treat!

OVERALL REVIEW: 4/5

Fragrant Seafood Congee

香味海產粥

No. 9, Qixian 1st Rd, Xinxing Dist
高雄市新興區七賢一路9號
(07)225-5302

Monday-Sunday
4:00pm-12:00am

English friendly: no
vegetarian friendly: yes
average cost: 100-150NTD

The full name of this place is 香味海產粥脆皮臭豆腐, not so much a name as it is a general description of what they sell: fragrant (well, it's alright) seafood congee and crispy-skinned stinky tofu.

I've been here twice now, and it was packed both times. It's not a super elegant setting or anything, as you can see in the picture. Still, when the food tastes good, who cares that you're perched on a little pink plastic stool? I've been to a few restaurants in my day and the ones with the best interior design are almost always the worst.

Their menu is short and sweet, all the better for me! Their famous stinky tofu is at the top left, and below it you'll selection of seafoods that you can pair with congee, noodles (麵線), or soup. "Congee", for those who don't know, is-- gruel. It's gruel. I got their famous fragrant seafood congee last time, so it doesn't feature in this report. Still, so you know, everyone who's told me about its fame almost immediately backtracked with: "Well, it's famous because the portions of seafood are very generous." I guess I'll say pretty much the same thing. It was good, for gruel, especially because the oysters, squid, shrimp, etc. floating in it were particularily... profuse. 

This time around I got the Neritic Squid (小卷, why there are like a thousand different names for squid in Taiwan I don't know) in soup with noodles (麵線). It came to the table looking SUSPICIOUSLY PINK. This may be the least appetizing color possibly ever.

Aha, that's a little better. So 麵線 are noodles in the technical sense, but probably the cheapest variety of noodles there is. They tasted like watery flour. Watery flour with a good texture, but watery flour nonetheless. The soup... tasted like watery saltwater. The squid was good (and generous! as you can see), but weirdly hard in a few places. I have no idea why. I do not think I want to know.

That's a pile of criticisms but I actually thought this dish was pretty alright. Still, if you're coming here for the first time you might as well get the gruel. Because it's famous. Right?

And here, the other resident culinary superstar! Their stinky tofu did NOT stink, not at all from what I can tell (though maybe I've become immune to it), but it was still really good. The skin was super crispy, the inside super spongy and full of delicious tofu juices. The pickled cabbage was a-OK, and just look at all those scallions! Their menu said it also came with basil, and while I believe I spot one solitary leaf up there by the carrots, it didn't feature in the flavor whatsoever. A shame! Still, this stinky tofu is Good Stuff.

I like this place, I do. I mean, I've been here twice, and I never go anywhere twice. I think it's mostly because I like stinky tofu so much, and they do a good job of making it. Other places do too. But if you're in the neighborhood, I don't see why you shouldn't stop by.

OVERALL RATING: 3/5

East Meet West Kitchen

原鄉新味小館

No. 27, Lane 28, Xinguang Rd, Lingya Dist
高雄市苓雅區新光路28巷27號
(07)334-7637

Tuesday-Sunday
11:30am-1:30pm
5:30pm-8:30pm

English friendly: yes
vegetarian friendly: so very not
average cost: 300-400NTD

Oh my gosh you guys, are you in for a treat!

Alone in a dark and twisty alleyway (conveniently located right outside the Sanduo KMRT stop) stands what must be one of the best kept secrets of Kaohsiung: East Meet West Kitchen, a small foreigner-owned restaurant operating in Austrian and German cuisine. What even is Austrian cuisine?!?

...I guess it's basically German cuisine. Their menu is seriously hideous, and a little difficult to decipher, but that can add some interest to your pre-dinner wait. Good thing, too: when we went around 6:00pm on a Wednesday, there was just us and one random group of German people but it still took a pretty long time to get our food. Probably because the owner (one assumedly Austrian dude named Alex) makes all the food himself.

All the main courses are MEAT with some other stuff, and the sides are mostly variations of sausage.

They also have a nice selection of beers and wines, and some good teas, all of them quite exotic in this part of the world. The mint tea I ordered came with real crushed mint leaves in it. How cute! That in the back there is actually iced (read: lukewarm) ceylon tea in a beer glass. You can get it with sugar or without; I'd probably recommend with.

I got the "meat cake" student meal, which comes with drink + small dessert for the low low price of 200NTD. When it first appeared at our table I was like oh no this will not be nearly enough for me! But things turned out okay. You'll see why in a second.

There's a lot to go over here; let's just say all of it was pretty good. The vegetables were well-cooked (still trying to figure out what sort of radish thing that was up there next to the mashed potatoes), the lotus root was a nice touch, the pickles were pickly and the saurkraut was saurkrauty. The meat cake was basically a hamburger made of meatloaf; paired with the mashed potatoes, it was really satisfying. Definitely a nice break from the ordinary.

That pig blood cake-looking thing in the upper right was actually a dense German bread-like thing with a faint flavor of prunes to it... The huge slab of butter on top was pretty much tasteless, but maybe that's a cultural thing. It was interesting, to say the least, and underneath was a bowl of equally interesting vinegary coleslaw stuff.

One member of our party ordered the peppermint lamb, and what a great decision it was! I stole a rib and enjoyed it HEARTILY. I haven't had ribs in a looong time, and could tell these had been lovingly prepared.

The other member of our party got the soup of the day and a cheese sausage appetizer, which came with saurkraut and a soft pretzel! We were all thinking that together this would be enough food, based on the prices, but it was Not Quite. Take note.

You can't see it here but the soup had a generous serving of vegetables and meat hiding at the bottom, and was pretty tasty.

A good way into our meal, the waitress surprised us with potato wedges! They came with either ketchup, mustard, or more tasteless butter (on potato wedges???), so we got them all. The mustard was good sharp mustard, none of that plasticky yellow Kraft business.

Then, later still, the owner stopped by our table and was like, "Do you want pretzels?" And I was like, FUCK YES I WANT PRETZELS. They were just your standard supermarket pretzels but I suppose they're pretty exotic here.

And then the waitress came back, with this! What we have here is basically gas station shoelace jerky cut up into little slices, and I loved it. The hint of BBQ sweetness made it a good lead in to...

...dessert! My student meal came with a little scoop of ice cream in an adorable dish. I only wish it could have been bigger! I think it was rum vanilla flavor, or something equally alcoholic, and could just as well have been made by hand. It was dreamily smooth, sweet, and had a happy touch of alcoholic aftertaste... ABSOLUTELY delicious, 100%.

For an extra 180NTD my peppermint lamb friend got a set meal with a bowl of soup, choice of drink, and (way better) dessert: either handmade cake or "pancake ice cream." That latter option is Germanglish for the above, a honey almond crêpe with whipped cream, chocolate sauce, powdered sugar, and more incredible ice cream on the side. I stole a bite of crêpe and JUST LOVED IT.

AND THEN, AFTER ALL THAT, the owner came by with complimentary gingerbread cookies. I almost cried. I don't know if it was because he could tell I was going to write a food blog, or liked the fact that I am white, or is actually Saint Nicolas is disguise, or what, but I don't care. It was the best present I've gotten in a long time: the taste of Christmas.

If you're at all homesick for your Western homeland, I especially recommend this restaurant during the holiday season. But you should go anytime! I'm sure you'll be glad you did.

OVERALL REVIEW: 5/5

Heavenly Chef Rice Noodles

天廚河粉

No. 391, Xingzhong 1st Rd, Lingya Dist
高雄市苓雅區興中一路391號
(07)338-9965

Tuesday-Saturday
11:00am-8:30pm

English friendly: no
vegetarian friendly: no
average cost: 100-150NTD

Right after I wrote that post about ALIEN Vietnamese Restaurant, somebody informed me that this Vietnamese place is better. Is it just me or does this happen all the damn time? I ask a friend to recommend somewhere for lunch, and as we're eating they'll be like, "--but NEXT TIME I'll take you to this EVEN BETTER place." Why would you... recommend the second best... in the first place?

Well, it is really better? We shall see! This restaurant is also run by real Vietnamese people, there is that.

Their menu is not English friendly, but it is Vietnamese friendly! And they also have another menu crammed with little pictures if you need help. As you can see, there are lots and lots of selections: noodles (both flat 河粉 and round 米麵), fried rice, soup, Vietnamese sandwiches(!), and a huge selection of other sides large and small. Plus some drinks and desserts!

Their spring rolls came with a thin vinegary peanut sauce not featured in this picture; it barely featured in the taste either, sooo I don't feel too bad about omitting it... These guys were pretty standard as spring rolls go, but when I got to the end the rice wrap was all chewy and yummy! If only I hadn't had to go through all that lettuce to get there.

Here is a plate of beef rice noodles! I didn't order them but they looked like this.

And here a chicken curry thing! Also not mine. I do appreciate how Vietnamese people sprinkle practically everything with peanuts though.

Beef of some sort on rice... Look how beautiful those colors are! I didn't try any of the above dishes, but they all got middling reviews from my friends.

Here is my dinner: fried 河粉 (spicy)! It was not actually spicy unless I ate one of those red peppers, and even then not very. Along with these "peppers" my fried noodles came with a colorful assortment of toppings, including carrots, bean sprouts, peanuts (yeahhh), and the most seriously, seriously unspectacular pork I've had in a long while.

The noodles got my approval: soft but chewy, and very well-oiled. (I wouldn't say they were "fried" though...) If you look closely at this picture, you can see a pool of melted butter-like substance at the bottom of the plate. So yeah. This dish was realll oily, and not in the totally awesome way like usual. In the "oh no what am I doooiiing to myself" way.

As a side we ordered the "sesame coconut pancake", which came out looking suspiciously like a giant prawn cracker. It tasted kind of like one too, minus the shrimpy part: simultaneously light and airy, and hard and crispy. Perhaps not exactly what I'd hoped it would be, but totes addicting all the same.

This was a pretty good meal, but in a very average way. There was nothing that I hated, and nothing that I loved... But if you're craving cheap(ish) Vietnamese food, it will probably hit the spot.

OVERALL REVIEW: 3/5