Xinglong House

興隆居

No. 186, Liuhe 2nd Rd, Qianjin Dist
高雄市前金區六合二路186號
(07)261-6787

Monday-Sunday
4:00am-10:00am

English friendly: no
vegetarian friendly: yes
average cost: 25-50NTD

Taiwanese breakfast doesn't get better than this.

All you have to do is get yourself up before 10:00am in the morning, and stand in that huge line there.

You'll also have to go through the process of ordering, which can be a little stressful if there are a lot of people (there will be) and you don't speak Chinese. Luckily most of the stuff is laid out on the counter and you can just point at what looks good--everything's really cheap, so the risk is minimal.

And everything's really good, too! They've got your traditional spread of breakfast foods: egg pancakes, potstickers, sweet buns, breakfast sandwiches, radish cake, etc., plus a nice wide selection of drinks.

However, this place is MOST famous for its unique breakfast soup dumplings, pictured above. They are more like soup buns than soup dumplings, which brings them nicely over into the breakfast category. 

They even provide a helpful illustrated guide on how to eat them (take a bite and spoon "hot" sauce--it's really not that hot, don't worry--into them), which I followed to the letter with very positive results.

And here, the money shot! The filling was deliciously meaty and cabbagey. What's more, on the first bite the soup juices BURST out and all over my hands, just like a proper soup dumpling.

In a fit of inspiration I ordered the "salty soymilk", which came out in a big bowl and looked like this. (The normal soymilk also came in a bowl, oddly enough.) It had an oddly sour taste, and whatever else they put in it also caused a disconcerting curdling effect on the surface. That being said, I kind of liked it! I mean, I hated it at first, but it grew on me very quickly. Still, I would only recommend this for the more adventurous sorts.

We also got this 燒餅 (fried pancake), which came with an omelette AND a 油條 (our friend the Taiwanese churro) inside--another inventive creation you will only find here. IT. WAS. DELICIOUS. The outer pancakeish wrapping (the actual 燒餅) was the best incarnation of 燒餅 I have EVER had. The outside was crispy, and the inside was steamy soft and super flaky, with layer upon layer upon layer of goodness like a Pillsbury biscuit. The egg was good, and the 油條 was a nice crispy touch. Again, delicious.

In conclusion, definitely come here! I don't even like Taiwanese breakfast--I think I've had it in Kaohsiung a total of two or three times--and I loved this. The perfect mix of local flavor and tasty ingenuity.

OVERALL RATING: 5/5

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

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

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

Great Rotary Granny Noodles

大圓環阿婆麵

No. 1, Zhongshan Heng Rd, Xinxing Dist
高雄市新興區中山橫路1號
(07)285-3165

Monday-Sunday
10:30am-7:00pm

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

I've been trying to figure out how to translate the name of this restaurant for a while now, and decided to give up. I doubt anybody uses its Chinese name anyway: to everyone I've talked to, it is "the duck noodle place", or (if one has to be specific) "the duck noodle place right outside exit 01 of the Formosa Boulevard KMRT station."

This is great for me, because I live right outside exit 01 of the Formosa Boulevard KMRT station. Yet somehow I hadn't eaten at this extremely famous (in business for 60 years and counting!) duck noodle stall until this afternoon, when a group of friends decided to go there for lunch. It was noonish on a Sunday, and as you can see the place was PACKED. Still, we lucked out and got a table in under five minutes.

Their menu is short but sweet: a limited variety of noodles to be topped with duck meat, shredded pork, wontons, or pig heart, in soup or in sauce. And yet the menu is still longer than it should be, because every single one of you is going to order duck noodles like we did.

We also got a plate of 滷味 ("stewed things") to start, which I believe consisted of extra-firm tofu and some random bits of duck. These included some really choice fatty pieces, as well as firmer dark meat, and the tofu was perfectly good! Nothing too special, but I was really hungry so I enjoyed it quite a bit.

For those who like noodles in soup, here are some duck noodles in soup! In a concerted effort to protect myself from Taiwanese creeping blandness disease, I'm trying to stay away from soups that were not initially conceived of as soups, so I went with the sauce option instead:

I think this may be one of the most beautiful pictures of noodles I've ever taken. The natural lighting probably helped, but so did the fact that they were absolutely delicious. The noodles themselves, though not handmade, were cooked to the perfect consistency. And once I mixed them up in the sauce...

...they attained noodle nirvana. The mouthfeel and all that junk were just spot on. My only complaint would be (can you see it coming?) that they were the tiniest bit bland, but a spoonful of hot pepper sauce went a good way towards alleviating this ailment. 

And the duck! Very rarely does a piece of meat strike me as "significantly better than any other piece of meat", but the chunks of duck pictured above tasted like the dark meat off a Thanksgiving turkey, or like the drumsticks off a supermarket rotisserie chicken... Good, is what I'm getting at. SINFULLY good. And served in very generous portions, as you can see.

There's a reason this place has been around for 60+ years! And at such crazy low prices, in such a crazy convenient location, there's no reason you shouldn't stop by to try it out.

OVERALL RATING: 4/5

Yang Bao Bao Steamed Dumplings

楊寶寶蒸餃

No. 106, Chaoming Rd, Nanzi Dist
高雄市楠梓區朝明路106號
(07)351-3322

Monday-Sunday
11:00am-2:00pm
4:00pm-1:00am

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

This place is waaay far away up in the north of Kaohsiung County, just outside Kaohsiung City, so you're on your own as far as getting there. Still, as long as it's in Kaohsiung it's fair game I think. Besides, this place is famous!

Real famous, even. We went at 1:45pm on a Friday, 15 minutes before closing (and they do stop serving food at 2:00pm as advertised), and still had to wait in line. What on earth could all these people be so excited about...?

Well! This place is pretty much all 麵食 ("oily wheaty carbs") like I like: dumplings, pot stickers, and scallion pancakes in a plethora of forms. Plus soup! Unfortunately both their chicken and beef soups had sold out by the time we got there. I was told that these soups are famous, but I was also told that most things on this (admittedly limited) menu are famous so I don't know what to believe. Lots of food around here is famous, have you noticed? One of these days I'd like to get to the bottom of this. Like, is there a magazine everyone reads or something? Entertainment Tonight, but for noodle shops, and stinky tofu stands? And soups?

Speaking of tofu, I got me a little dish of tofu for a starter. It photographed really nicely, didn't it? It tasted almost as nice: extra-firm tofu glazed with some sort of slightly-sweet BBQ sauce. Good and protein-y. But near the end I accidentally mistook the anise for an oddly-shaped bit of tofu and would DEFINITELY NOT RECOMMEND making the same mistake. Bleuuuuuuurgh. For those of you who don't know, anise tastes like licorice and makes you want to vomit on the spot.

This here is their "pork rolled pancake." I am of the opinion that stuff rolled up in pancakes is the consummate form of food, even above food stuffed in other food, so I was really excited when these appeared on our table. The spiralled cylindrical form is satisfying in itself, viscerally (that is a pun that is a pun, oh just look at that pun), and it tasted pretty good too! There was another BBQ-type sauce inside that complimented the whole thing quite well. I don't think the pork was especially flavorful or anything, but the pancake was delicious like all scallion pancakes, ever.

I've found that soup in Taiwan generally comes in one of two flavors: sweet-and-sour, and corn. This is corn soup. It was not as sickeningly rich as that stuff I made from souppowder that one time in my house (but let's not drag my cooking adventures into this), so that was nice. Again, I would classify this dish as "good."

This thing was somewhat curious! What we have here is 烙餅. Apparently the only thing that differentiates 烙餅 from your traditional 蔥油餅 or scallion pancake is that somebody's messed it up a bit, at the cost of an extra 10NTD. Its shredded nature makes it almost impossible to share with others, because every time you pick up a piece in your chopsticks the rest of the damn thing comes along with it.

In a most peculiar turn of events, this thing had no flavor whatsoever. My friend suggested it might be sweet, and I was sure from looking at it that it was going to be salty and oily and awesome, but instead... nothing. We gave it a hearty sprinkling of Taiwanese MSG peppersalt, and by the end I starting dipping it in the sauce for my dumplings, but to little avail. A mess of wheaty disappointment!

I chose their "flower vegetarian" steamed dumplings. They came in a unit of eight, each one stuffed super plump with a mash of yummy green veggies; the skin was thin, with a nice flavor of its own. I was told that this restaurant's (famous!) beef and pork dumplings leak soup when you bite into them. These didn't, undoubtedly because of their veggie character. Still, when dipped in soy+ginger+spicy sauce, they were quite delicious! On the higher end of vegetarian dumplings, definitely.

APPARENTLY this place is SO famous that people outside Kaohsiung know it too. I don't really get what all the fuss is about... It was good, certainly, as well as cheap (yay!), but I wouldn't make the trip again.

OVERALL RATING: 3/5

Lemongrass Restaurant

檸檬香茅火鍋專賣店

No. 283, Zhonghua 4th Rd, Qianjin Dist
高雄市前金區中華四路283號
(07)201-0152 ex.53

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

website: http://www.lemon-grass.com.tw/

English friendly: yes
vegetarian friendly: yes
average cost: 250-300NTD

I was originally attracted to this restaurant because it has the same name as this classy Asian fusion place in California that my grandparents like to frequent. Every time someone is shocked that I can use chopsticks, I tell them that my grandparents can too. I mean really. This is the 21st century! 

Spoiler alert: they are not the same restaurant.

It is easily recognized for being giant and orange. The inside is clean, and was practically empty at 1:00pm on a Sunday... Each of the many tables has four individual stoves and a little divider to spare you the horror of looking at the person across from you; once our food came things ended up a little bit cramped, as you'll see from the cramped quality of the following photos.

Ah yes! This place is a hot pot restaurant. Because it is winter now (roflmao), we should all be eating hot pot! How nice for us, that one of a million more hot pot restaurants such as this exists.

Coincidentally, I went to see Hunger Games right after eating here and learned from the subtitles that 麻吉 (májí) is slang for "match." (Because it sounds... the same...?) So up at the top left of this menu you will see that Lemongrass offers you a selection of soup bases to "match" all seasons, not just winter.

All the options with a little green star by the side are vegetarian. Interestingly, only the top five options under the "Vegetarian Main Dish" are vegetarian... I initially thought this was because only the top five fit the Taiwanese Buddhist definition of vegetarian--also excluding salt, spices, and other "strong" flavors--but my friends said it was probably because they were guaranteed "pure" while the others may have come in contact with meat somewhere along the line. I guess that's what the extra 30NTD gets you.

ANYWAY, I think the large variety of vegetarian hot pot options makes this a leading choice among the roiling millions of nigh identical Taiwanese hot pot restaurants, at least for some of us.

I chose the first option, because the waitress came by way before I was done deciphering the menu and seemed a little impatient... This is the "Perilla Greengage Vegetable Dish." I would have translated it instead as plum (梅子) and wild herbs hot pot, if they'd asked me, but alas no one ever does. As you can see, all the fake meat bits are still frozen like popsicles. This time I even got two giant lima beans frozen together...!

Here's another picture for perspective. The spread of ingredients for the vegetarian hot pot was MASSIVE, though later inspection revealed it to be mostly half a head of lettuce.

You have a choice of rice, rice noodles, or all sorts of other noodles (even instant noodles!) for your starch. For your sauce you can get this restaurant's signature lemongrass dip, 沙茶 (shāchá, so named for its resemblance to the word "satay" and not because it has little pieces of tealeaf in it like I used to think...), or a mixture of both. I chose to get both, because I'd already taken forever waffling over my main dish and when I answered, "What sauce would you like?" with a another prolonged "Uuuuhhhhhhhhhhhh," the waitress could take no more and decided for me.

The sauce was really good! Flavorful, without being too salty or oily, and definitely unique. We also got free lemongrass tea (hidden in the back of the photo above) which was nicely sweet and unique. 

If you choose the beef hot pot you don't get such a bountiful cornucopia of vegetables...

...but you do get a nice spread of suspiciously red meat. Like regular raw beef, with the saturation levels turned up to maximum.

Here's a picture of things all nice and bubbling. I actually really, really enjoyed this meal. It's rare to get as many fresh vegetables in one meal around these parts, so I think it's worth coming here for that alone.

If I went back though, I would definitely choose a different soup base. Up above I've taken a picture of the "plums" (梅子) for your viewing pleasure. These things are common in Taiwanese cuisine--plum soup is a popular drink, as is plum wine--but they have reputed health benefits so you know something must be up... I really can't get used to the taste: waaay too sour, with the slightest hint of sickly sweet. I once asked a Taiwanese friend why on earth anyone would drink plum soup of their own volition, and he responded, "It's very thirst-quenching," which as it so happens could be said about pretty much every drink ever. The plums didn't affect the soup too terribly here, unless I drank it straight, but all the same. Next time I want to try the "fruit miso" option...

OVERALL RATING: 3/5