After almost 18 months in Taipei we’ve finally found the real McCoy. It’s called 天府家常菜, and the address is 臺北縣永和市仁愛路五號 (#5 Ren’ai Road in Yonghe) （MRT station: Dingxi/頂溪站）.
The chef is from Yibin in southeastern Sichuan. He arrived in Taiwan just two years ago via marriage to a Taiwanese. The food here is superb. Make sure you tell them you want it spicy-they will comply. This and the 1010 Pop Hunan are my two favorite restaurants in town at the moment. You will not find more authentic Sichuan food in Taiwan. But don’t just take my word for it. My wife is a native of Chengdu and as far as she’s concerned, it’s the best place in town.
The only drawback is his wife, the woman who runs the front. She is the Taiwanese Basil Fawlty. To see what I mean, read my reviews here and here.
I’m told she speaks pretty good English, but I can’t verify that. The menu is all Chinese, and it is very extensive. I highly recommend the Eggplant in Garlic Sauce (魚香茄子), Mouth-watering Chicken (口水雞) and Poached Sliced Beef in Hot Chili Oil (水煮牛肉). The Kungpao Chicken is good, too. I’ve got some pictures of the dishes here.
to set a benchmark i got kungpao chicken, twice-cooked pork and eggplant in garlic sauce, and some greens. i can’t say what is authentic szechuan cuisine not having experienced it but i have no problem believing this fills the bill. i felt like i was eating an exotic southeast asian cuisine more than “normal” taiwan chinese. the dishes were infused with chili oil and those numbing peppercorns, which were bigger, lighter in color and much fresher tasting than what you get here–very nice–not to mention very liberally used. i enjoyed the eggplant very much, the other two were ok, though my feelings are being colored by the fact that somewhat unwittingly everything i ordered was heavy on the red chili oil. the old mainlanders at the next table did a much better job of mixing “light” and “heavy” dishes, something i will be sure to do next time. still there is something to be said for a well-executed taiwan/szechuan kungpao chicken with a thick, red, spicy, slightly sweet, not insanely oily sauce. but i will definitely be back, planning out my order already. the string beans and mouth-watering chicken the old guys had looked pretty good.
by the way the boss lady seemed nice enough, the place was not crowded at all though.
to top off the day i had dinner at an excellent szechuan noodle joint. nanhai road lane 2 no. 2, right next to the nanmen market. best dan-dan mian i’ve had here, also infused with the numbing peppers, very tasty. the feng-zheng paigu was outstanding, for those not in the know a layer of yam topped by a pork rib and rice mixture, steamed in little bamboo steamers. also tried the hongyou dumplings which were very good too. i will definitely be back there, also had a taste of what i guess is authenticity as well. actually i enjoyed it more than lunch. by the way the beef noodles looked pretty good and different too. quite red
Why not? Because it’s too spicy? Come on - some of us have been eating Mexican, Indian and Thai dishes for years. I have never met a vindaloo I didn’t like.
I was in Chengdu last spring and couldn’t believe how mediocre the Sichuan food tasted there. Gong bao ji ding with cucumbers? Blech! It’s just cause the locals are too poor to afford lots of chicken like here.
And too spicy for the average foreigner? Give me a break.
Nonsense. They added those cukes for your foreign ass. And most people in Chengdu eat way better than any Taiwanese I know, and what’s more they enjoy their lives a hell of a lot more. Chengdu folk are renowned all over China for knowing how to enjoy the finer things in life, especially leisure and food.
Nonsense. They added those cukes for your foreign ass. And most people in Chengdu eat way better than any Taiwanese I know, and what’s more they enjoy their lives a hell of a lot more. Chengdu folk are renowned all over China for knowing how to enjoy the finer things in life, especially leisure and food.[/quote]
Right. Been there recently. Dusty dirty little expanding Chinese city like all the rest. A few nice old preserved neighborhoods but overall a pretty depressing place.
And they did not add the cukes for me. Maybe higher end places were serving it properly but the average restaurant was not. Here in Taiwan I can get decent gong bao ji ding anywhere.
I doubt very much people in Chengdu eat better than we do here. Food quality is poor all over China because of problems with pollutions, water, and shipping. Saw a report when I was there which suggested that 30% of food was spoiling during shipment as it was not being packaged properly or kept chilled.
Had lots of Sichuan fruit. Nowhere near as good as what you get here.
Anyway, this is going off topic. I am happy there is a good Sichuan restaurant in Taipei.
I went to this place yesterday.
We didn’t really experience any of the uncommon rudeness you were talking about, but they made us sit and eat at a table with other people, which was a bit weird.
My gf who loves spicy food didn’t like the peppercorns that were everywhere, and didn’t end up eating much.
I ended up picking most of them out.
I’d never had them before, and they were definitely mouth-numbing as described before.
If I go there again, I’ll get them to take it easy on the peppercorns.
Nonsense. They added those cukes for your foreign ass. And most people in Chengdu eat way better than any Taiwanese I know, and what’s more they enjoy their lives a hell of a lot more. Chengdu folk are renowned all over China for knowing how to enjoy the finer things in life, especially leisure and food.[/quote]
Right. Been there recently. Dusty dirty little expanding Chinese city like all the rest. A few nice old preserved neighborhoods but overall a pretty depressing place.
And they did not add the cukes for me. Maybe higher end places were serving it properly but the average restaurant was not. Here in Taiwan I can get decent gong bao ji ding anywhere.
I doubt very much people in Chengdu eat better than we do here. Food quality is poor all over China because of problems with pollutions, water, and shipping. Saw a report when I was there which suggested that 30% of food was spoiling during shipment as it was not being packaged properly or kept chilled.
Had lots of Sichuan fruit. Nowhere near as good as what you get here.[/quote]
People in the Mainland cities I most frequent (Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and even Shenyang) do in fact eat far better than people in Taiwan, with a great deal more variety, especially international cuisine. In fact, the usual observation I hear is how skinny and emaciated Taiwanese look by comparison. But who knows, maybe some like the anorexic look.
I’ve eaten gongbaoji all the time in Chengdu, but never with cucumbers. Sorry, but to suggest that a Sichuan dish like gongbaoji is better in Taiwan than the source, is frankly, absurd. The place I review here is really the only decent spot we’ve found after living in Taipei 18 months, and that is only because the chef is a recent immigrant from the Mainland.
The one point where I agree with you is that fruit in Taiwan is way better than Sichuan.
Well, I’m either lying or had bad luck. Which is it in your opinion and why?
Why? Food quality is much higher in Taiwan because of stricter regulations, a higher standard of living, and the short distances between farm and retail outlet. Fresher, better ingredients translate as a better dish.
In any case, taste is subjective and there is nothing inherently absurd abotu a dish being is improved or altered for the better in a second country. Even many Indians will tell you their food is better in England. Again, this probably has a lot to do with better quality ingredients to work with.
I’ll be back in Chengdu in the early summer. Can you recommend some places to try gbjd without cucumber in it?
Well, having taken colleagues to lunch at a Sichuan joint here in Shanghai today, I have to agree with MM. Taiwan gongbao jiding is far superior than anything I’ve ever had on the mainland. Sichuan food is my favourite, and as very much a regular tripper to China, the only positive I see is more gall when it comes to using Sichuan peppers.
I think there’s probably some very logical explanation for how China and Taiwan gongbao differs, most likley a snapshot in time. Here in China the idea seems to be to merely fry up some chicken, peanuts and chilli in a shitload of oil. In Taiwan that dried chilli is usually crispy and full of flavour, and the sauce far more concentrated and full of taste. I’d call that better cooked with undoubtedly better ingredients.
When I lived in Hubei I ate basically Sichuan food nearly every damn day. Whatever wonderful culinary variety might exist there now, it didn’t when I was there – and that’s just the “Chinese” food I’m talking about, which fell within a very narrow range. Even Cantonese food was hard to find. And at the time there were no Western restaurants there. None. And there wasn’t anything available for making much Western food, either. Buying cheese, for example, involved a train ride of more than twenty hours to Beijing or Guangzhou.
So I have a lot of experience eating gongbao jiding. Yup, I had it in Sichuan, too. For the record, I have been served this with cucumbers (yech) – infrequently to be sure, but more than once. This wasn’t because I was a foreigner; that’s just how it happened to be made in those particular restaurants. I’ve also had it with various sorts of dou instead of peanuts.
And though I did tire of eating gongbao jiding back then, I’ve come to miss it. The stuff I’ve had in Taiwan just doesn’t compare. Ordering gongbao jiding here is just an exercise in frustration for me. I can’t stand the Taiwanified version, which seems to be a bland dish made with sugar and ketchup. I’d welcome some chicken, peanuts, and chili, even in a shitload of oil, as long as it came with a heaping dose of huajiao and didn’t taste like it was designed to fit the tastes of Taiwanese teenagers. YMMV.
I’ll be sure to check out the restaurant this thread is about.
unless i’m mistaken “lazi jiding” is a szechuan dish and is generally made with cucumbers. perhaps some kind of morphing or cha-bu-duo-ism occurring there.
judging from your complaints about taiwan szechuan, i would say run don’t walk to this place. it is what you are hoping for. went back today, had the eggplant again, interestingly and thankfully less oily, and just as flavorful. great dish. had the string bean dish “ganbian changdou,” best i ever had. i love string beans but usually shy away from ordering this dish because too often you get an overcooked, oily, stringy mess. this was perfect, lightly cooked, the beans all wrinkly but still fresh and crunchy, very flavorful, 10 out of 10. also had the mouth-watering chicken, this i didn’t care for so much, i’m not a chicken skin lover, and as the dish is served cool it was a bit too much of a skin/fat experience for me. also didn’t think the flavor of it was anything too special. all in all looking forward to next visit already.
Why not? Because it’s too spicy? Come on - some of us have been eating Mexican, Indian and Thai dishes for years. I have never met a vindaloo I didn’t like.[/quote]
I like Mexican and Indian food too, as well as Korean - they’re all spicy and I can stand them. I could not eat the food in Sichuan when I first got there. A typical dish (for 2!) would have a handful of dried chilies, a whole head of garlic, a ‘hand’ of ginger, and a large number of the ‘numbing’ peppercorns designed to numb your mouth so you can actually eat the food. Yeah, other regions have hot, spicy food, but they don’t have to numb your mouth before you can eat it. The dish would be completed with a bit of meat and a lot of vegetables, all stir-fried in a half-cup or more of oil. Sometimes the vegetable would be hot chili peppers - and only these - so you can imagine how hot the resulting dish was. The average non-Sichuanese is not going to be happy eating this, not without some practice at least. Once you get used to the heat, the food is delicious, I have to say.
I also found the food to be better in Sichuan than in Taipei, but this is probably because I lived in the countryside and we bought vegetables and meat daily from the farmers, so everything was really fresh. The chickens, rabbits and fish were sold still alive - you can’t get much fresher than that.
last hurrah from me for this place, third time was a charm as well. notable was the sichuan pao cai, very nice and different, dougan rousi nice, and the kungpao chicken was a lot more enjoyed as part of a more balanced meal. and only a ten minute wait on a saturday night! easy to get to. cheap. personally i have found all the staff friendly. much thanks to the op for posting this.