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

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

Katsu Victory

Katsu勝

No. 6, Senlin 1st Rd, Xinxing Dist
高雄市新興區林森一路6號
(07)261-7999

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

English friendly: no
vegetarian friendly: no
average cost: 150-200NTD

Apparently the servers at this Japanese lunch place are forced to shout words in Japanese whenever anyone opens the door. It's so sweet. The poor things don't even get tips.

This place serves Japanese rice bowls (丼), curry, and ramen, except they are no longer serving ramen. But no worries: you are only here for the side dishes. Specifically, the tofu side dish. It will make its appearance in a second...

...But first, the bowl of complimentary kimchi! Nothing much to say here, except: it was GOOD. Slightly sweet, which surprised me, with a respectable spicy kick at the end, which really surprised me.

I guess their fried tofu side dish is somewhat famous, among some people. As it should be! It was absolutely absolutely absolutely delicious; I wish I'd ordered like four more of them. The tofu was super soft and slippery, with that slightly salty eggish flavor, and the breading had been fried to a perfect level of crispy flaky deliciousness. Yum! 

If you can get a piece from the bowl to your mouth without extra-soft tofu bursting out all over the place, you have achieved maximum level chopstick mastery.

I would normally not mention the obligatory cup of miso soup, but I think there was something slightly off about this one... A weird, unpleasant sort of taste. It might have had green pepper in it? Or something? I spent a long time trying to figure it out but have come to no conclusions. Be warned.

This is probably the trademark dish of this restaurant: the "Victory Rice Bowl", or 勝丼. I really like the character 丼 because it looks like a 井 ("well") with some stuff in it, and your typical 丼 is really just a fancified bucket of food. In this case, the rice at the bottom of the bucket has been topped with generous amounts of breaded chicken, onions, cooked egg, and raw egg. Apparently you're not supposed to wait for the egg to cook or anything; you just sort of mix all that junk into the rice with your spoon and have a go at it.

The chicken was good, as any chicken would be with that much batter fried onto it.

I personally ordered the BIG SHRIMP FOODBUCKET, which came with two big shrimp all breaded up and lookin' at me. Apparently you're supposed to eat them shell, legs, little pleading eyes and all, though I personally drew the line at their heads. Ahem. The rest of them was certainly nice and crispy though. It would be crispy, wouldn't it? Tempura shrimp shell?

My 丼 gets extra points for having lots of really well-cooked onions. The egg and whatever else might have been in it (I couldn't really tell) was also good, or at least not offensive. And yet the rice itself was only so-so. Pretty unfortunate, because the whole meal sort of depended on it. It meant that nothing about this 丼 really screamed "awesome" to me, not like those tofu bits did.

In conclusion I would say that, while I enjoyed this lunch experience, it was nothing TOO special. Still, it could have been much worse! Tofu connoisseurs are encouraged to stop by and check it out.

OVERALL RATING: 3/5