Xi'an Noodle House

西安麵食館

No. 115, Shengli Rd, Zuoying Dist
高雄市左營區勝利路115號
(07)588-1517

Monday-Sunday
10:30am-8:30pm

English friendly: no
vegetarian friendly: yes
average cost: 50-150NTD

You might think I have already eaten every type of noodle sold in this city. Well, you are wrong! Or at least, you were wrong until last Sunday.

The Xi'an Noodle House is hidden away beside the giant parking lot off of Lotus Pond. It is thus the perfect destination for those who would like to enjoy an exotic Chinese lunch followed by a nice stroll around the lake etc. etc. There were lots and lots of people here that afternoon, all of them probably having had that very same idea.

The menu is concise and enticing. They have two main choices for noodles: 麵疙瘩, the "goosebumps noodlestuff" I discovered (to my delight) last year, and 皮帶麵, the new form of noodlestuff you are about to discover in a second. You can get these noodles in a variety of ways, most of them mysterious to me. They also have fried rice and soup, but, like, why?

Neither of us ordered this, but they accidentally sent it to our table so I took a picture of it before we sent it back. I do believe this is 哨子麵 or "whistle noodles", so named for the chopped meat and vegetable salsa-stuff you see on top. They also accidentally gave us a plate of noodles covered (and I do mean covered!) in scrambled egg and tomato, which is why I'm saying this place is vegetarian friendly. I don't know what it was, but it looked delicious.

But of course the whole reason I came here was for this: 皮帶麵, or "belt" noodles, with beef in soup. The origin of the name should be pretty obvious...

 ...Just look at that! Magnificent. These noodles were exactly as wide as I hoped they would be--and really, I think this is the perfect width for noodles--but they were a little too thick for my tastes. As my friend remarked, it really didn't feel like eating noodles anymore. Though they were most definitely made in-house, the texture was a bit lacking. I think being flatter would have helped this. Or maybe I just wished they came fried, instead of in soup.

The soup itself was good! (It could have been saltier, but I've pretty much given up expressing this viewpoint by now...) And the beef was absolutely delicious. Really, remarkably so. Each chuck, except the random chunk of tendon that I couldn't bite through no matter how hard I tried, was completely melt-in-your-mouth bursting with soupy flavor. (The soup was a little bland, but still.)

In conclusion, this place was cool! It was nice to have a taste of that northern Chinese flavor--it is pretty exotic in these parts. I would like to go back soon and try their other dishes!

OVERALL RATING: 3/5

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

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

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

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

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

Escape 41

海洋天堂歐風餐館

No. 41-2, Chaishan Da Rd, Gushan Dist
高雄市鼓山區柴山大路41-2號
(07)525-0058

Monday-Sunday
12:00pm-11:00pm

facebook: https://www.facebook.com/escape41.tw

English friendly: yes
vegetarian friendly: yes
average cost: 300-400NTD

To get to this restaurant you have to take a long journey through NSYSU on terrifying twisty mountain roads, wild dogs (and monkeys?) popping up on either side, then turn off onto a series of terrifying steep little streets that drop you unceremoniously at the ocean's edge.

So actually, getting here was the best part of the evening. One could even say, it all went downhill from there... Ho ho.

I didn't take a picture of the incredible outside seating, but FYI it is incredible. The tables look RIGHT over the ocean; there were even a couple of times I was afraid the waves would splash up onto our table. Smarter people than I should come here in the early evening to watch the sunset.

I'm extra glad we were able to sit outside, even though it was way dark and a little cold, because the playlist they had going on inside the restaurant was terrible. Its terribleness was further emphasised by the fact that there were NO other customers there. At 7:00pm on a Sunday. So. If you want to come here, better make it sooner rather than later. I think Escape 41 is not long for this world.

For those of you who haven't heard, the owner of this restaurant is an Australian guy famous in many circles for owning a restaurant while being Australian. So it's a Western restaurant, and is obliged to serve pizza and pasta. I was also intruigued to see a selection of scones(!), smoothies, and lasagna, all of them pretty rare in this hemisphere.

Most important for you all, I think, is their wide selection of drinks (alcoholic and non-)! Indeed I would recommend coming here to drink over coming here to eat; you'll see why in a second.

The best part of this meal was probably the soup of the day: a tart tomato vegetable thing with chucks of delicious garlicy croutons (surely handmade, because they were good). The croutons, the sharp flavor, and the soup-like consistency were all spot on. A western soup they might actually serve in a western country.

If only it hadn't been so good, I wouldn't have gotten my hopes up for the rest of the meal...

Here we have seaweed flavor French fries (and the ocean, hello!). These were definitely not bad; if you like blocky thick-cut fries you should be perfectly satisfied. The seaweed coating was also totes addictive.

But this. Oh, this. I ordered the "owner's special", a vegetarian pizza with pesto, mushrooms, onions and all other sorts of things that are supposed to be delicious. This pizza was so bad I actively disliked eating it. The crust was completely tasteless/textureless, the onions were undercooked (as white as freshly fallen snow), the cubes of fried potato... were cubes of fried potato (whyyy), and there was something SERIOUSLY WRONG with the pesto. It probably had basil in it, somewhere, but the sour kind that goes with beef noodle soup. NOT the type you put on a pizza.

The ham and cheese lasagna my friend ordered was slightly better, but still pretty bad. Think "soggy microwave lasagna" quality. It was waaay too mushy to be served in any respectable Western restaurant--but of course this is Taiwan.

I want to give this place a 2/5, based soley on the horror that was that pizza, but I think the location and the drink menu can make up an extra point. Just don't get your hopes up about the food.

OVERALL RATING: 3/5

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