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

Grandma Pasta House

達文郡義大利麵食店

No. 31, Minquan St, Xinxing Dist
高雄市新興區民權街31號
(07)226-9636

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

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

I'm a little reluctant to review this restaurant, because it means admitting that I was wrong... Good Italian food does exist in Kaohsiung. It does. It really, really does.

You'll have to work to get it though. Grandma Pasta House is open for very short periods of time each day, and you'll probably need a reservation to secure seats. We went at 7:00pm on a Monday without a reservation, and lucked out, but you're still advised to plan ahead.

It's quite a cozy little place. The inside is all decorated with actual art from actual Western countries, and that night's music playlist was in very good taste. Even though there were lots of other people eating that night, the ambience enveloped me like a happy Western cloud.

Rumor has it the owner of this restaurant is a Taiwanese person who spent time in Italy. I believe it, based on the menu alone. It's not one of those Taiwanese Italian monstrosities with a thousand nearly identical choices of topping and sauce for you to mix-and-match with the pasta of your choice. All the dishes have been carefully thought out, and are prepared from scratch. They even have specials that change with the day/season.

I only took a picture of part of the menu, but rest assured the rest of it is just as alluring. It's not too big, either--but you'll still have trouble deciding.

For an extra 80NTD you get bread/salad and a soup. (And for an extra 120NTD they'll throw in one of their appetizers as well!) The bread comes topped with "shrimp paste" and looks a little suspect but was actually really, really good. It was actual Western bread: crispy, airy, yeasty, and no slightly sweet aftertaste. 

The soup of the day was neither corn soup NOR pumpkin soup!!! An actual different kind of soup! Indeed it was cauliflower soup, and it was delicious. Creamy and satisfying, but not too rich.

The pitcher's worth of free drink, which you can see in the upper right corner there, was also delicious! I think it was some sort of iced tea with honey or something. Either way it was completely addictive and I had like four cups. If you do the same, you can get a second pitcher for the low low price of 10NTD!

Here we have fettuccini in tomato sauce, with sirloin steak and vegetables. Take a look at that sauce and you can tell it was prepared fresh, not poured out of a can. I thought the noodles in themselves were not super spectacular, but they had at least been cooked well. Meanwhile the sauce was amazing, and the beef possibly even more amazing.

After an arduous decision making process, I decided on the spaghetti in pesto sauce with shrimp and hot peppers. You can see the peppers in front there, but I couldn't taste them. Not one bit! I'm sort of used to that by now though.

It took me so long to decide in part because the waitress kept telling me that my selections "didn't have any sauce" and Was I Okay With That. I persisted in the end, and got this. I guess Taiwanese people don't consider the above to be sauce. Well whatever it was, it was GREAT. It absolutely made the dish: cheesy, salty, pesto-y... perfect. The noodles were ever so slightly undercooked, and the shrimp were not the most awesome shrimp I've ever had (though they came deshelled which was nice), but whatever I don't even care. This meal made me. So happy.

An extra 80NTD also gets you an after-dinner drink, so I chose lemon and pomelo tea. In retrospect it was a pretty odd choice on my part, since I don't usually like either of those fruits... But it was great! The pomelo came in sweet marmalade form at the bottom of the cup, balancing out the sour from the lemon. I finished it all, even though I'd already had like seven cups of free iced tea.

In conclusion, I am overjoyed to admit that this restaurant SHATTERED my expectations. I can't wait to take everyone I know here, and show them how real Italian food is supposed to taste.

OVERALL RATING: 5/5

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

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