[台北市] - 寧夏夜市 牛媽媽 - Ningxia Road Night Market: Beef Mama Taipei

Finally a place where I think Anthony Bourdain might like if he were to visit Taipei! Yes, a place that also dishes up the nasty bits! And it isn't in one of the more super touristy places either, but a night market that has a lot of history, in addition to preserving the cultures and traditions of what the locals like to eat in terms of classical no nonsense street food.

All you hard core Asians will love this place too.

Especially Koreans and Singaporeans!

Located about halfway through the Ningxia Road Night Market 寧夏夜市, somewhere on the left side of the enclosure is a vendor that specializes primarily in beef and beef parts, and dirt cheap and might tasty too, called Beef Mama 牛媽媽. They've been around quite some time and are now at the 2nd generation of family ownership. My dining partner in crime told me this place is a fine example of old school (1950s era) Taipei street cuisine, where it all started.

It would be nice if we could transplant a beef specialist street food stall like this...

Beef Mama also uses A LOT of Sa Cha (or sacha) sauce  沙茶醬 to kick up the flavors multiple notches. WIKI has a small entry on this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa_cha_sauce

If this is not your bag, stay away. Sa Cha is sometimes confused with satay, which has similar flavors but are in fact very different.

Gasp.... pig? Well apparently they also specialize in Kung Rou Fan. It's not on the beef themed wall menu though.

Sa Cha sauce can be purchased at any Bay Area Chinese supermarket. Make sure when you buy one to try at home for cooking or hot pot, get the brand that has a cow or red bull on it, and made in Taiwan. That's the best quality you can get. Similar to the WIKI picture.

Honeycomb tripe (stomach) soup - NT$80

Beef "hip" soup - NT$50 (if I remember correctly, "hip" is a nice way of saying the testes, the Mandarin naming is "Yau Gwor" or fruit of the hips, how ELEGANT, more so than calling chicken feet Phoenix Claws in dim sum... screw the feet, go for da BALLSAC!)

Beef liver soup - NT$50
Beef heart soup - NT$50
Lamb meat soup (no nasty bits) - NT$50
Beef tripe soup (see other picture) - NT$50
Stir fried heart valves - NT$110
Sacha sauce stir fried bone marrow - NT$150
Sacha sauce stir fried beef brains - NT$110
Sacha sauce stir fried honeycomb tripe (stomach) - NT$110
Sacha sauce stir fried (beef) testes - NT$110
Sacha sauce stir fried beef heart - NT$110
Sacha sauce stir fried beef liver - NT$110
Sacha sauce stir fried beef (non nasty bits) - NT$90
Sacha sauce stir fried lamb - NT$90
Sacha sauce stir fried beef with noodles - NT$80

The beef tripe soup was insanely homey good.

A light but flavorful clear broth, obviously cooked for a long time with a lot of material, including the tripe. The julienne slices of ginger added a very nice and fine touch to the flavors. Included on the side was some soy sauce paste dipping sauce seasoned with vinegar and garlic, to dip the sexcellent tripe pieces in which added to the enjoyment a beefillion fold. Interestingly the tripe wasn't really the stomach lining or anything. It actually tasted like high quality beef with a lot of tendons and ligaments in it. You would have thought this was a cut near the rib eye or something!

The hollow stem veg (kung shin tsai) stir fried with lamb slices in sa cha sauce was incredibly good also.
Crispy stems, bursting with juice, flavor. A non gamey lamb with all the energy from the wok, made this a great body warmer from the cold and super wet winter during my visit.

Sa Cha stir fried noodles, other people's orders.....

Didn't try the balls(ac), the hearts and the brains.

I'll let Dorothy eat those on her way to find the Whizzer of Oz.

台北市大同區寧夏路50號前﹝牛媽媽攤位﹞Taipei City Datong District, Ningxia Road #50 (Beef Mama stall)

0935-545005

[ 台北市] - 寧夏夜市 李家香無刺虱目魚 Li Jia Hsiang boneless milkfish cuisine (Ningxia Road Night Market)

Right next door to Formosa Chang in Taipei City at Ningxia Road Night Market 寧夏夜市
is a proper sit down restaurant called Li Jia Hsiang 李家香, or loosely, "Lee's Home is Fragrant".

But what is Li cookin' that got the locals jonesin'?

One Fish
Two Fish
Boney Fish
Milk Fish (OK let's not go there)

They specialize in the cuisine of "Shir Mo Yue" (in Mandarin) 虱目魚. Also known as Milk Fish in English, Chanos Chanos (Latin), Milchfisch (Germany), Bangus (Phillipines), Badeng (Indonesia), Sabahii (Japan), Bandang (Malaysia), Cá Máng (Vietnam), and last but not least Awa-Awa (Hawaii).

It's one of those "you haven't eaten like a local until you've had this" kind of dish.

Milk Fish / Shir Mo Yue is plentiful around the south western island of Taiwan, and it is said that the Dutch (who were the early occupiers of Formosa, now Taiwan) brought with them the milk fish farming methods
to Taiwan. When Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong or Tei Seiko according to Japanese) kicked the Dutch out of Taiwan circa 1662, he apparently was one of the first Chinese nationals (although his mum was Japanese) to have the milk fish and his reaction was: "daaaaaayum bitch, this shit is gooooooooooood! What's the name of this fizzle shizzle?" And the locals eventually came up with a name, "it's Shir Mo Yue, my man!"

So anyway, Shir Mo Yue or Milk Fish, is also a Tainan staple. The locals there would have congee made with this fish as a breakfast item. Milk Fish has a ton of bones, so it is not very pleasant to eat otherwise. Fortunately the Taiwanese over time have developed a technique to debone the fish, well at least get rid of the major ones. I dare not say their knife technique is anywhere near as good as the Japanese are with deboning the super boney hamo eel, but now there are many restaurants that specialize in "boneless" milkfish cuisine 無刺虱目魚, like Li Jia Hsiang, that can be enjoyed as far north into Taipei.

The best part of the milk fish? It's da BELLY. Rich in all sorts of goodness (omega 3, etc etc). The fish is virtually never eaten raw locally.

The grilled filet looks like a butterfly, served with a wedge of lemon. It's the local version of shioyaki, where the center part is the belly PHAT goodness. This one you want to eat as your very first bite, as it is quite filling.

Milk fish soup of any sort is not cooked for very long, and this is a local style. The idea is to preserve the natural flavors of the fish, with the only ingredients to enhance are ginger slices and pinches of salt. To some the fish may be a bit fishy, but rest assured it is how it tastes, and not fishy in a bad way.

Li Jiang Hsiang  also serves it Shanghainese style, with vinegar and sugar, as well as a stewed version with soy sauce (the Japanese parallel to this would be nitsuke).


Other uses of the fish:

Fish skin
Fish ball (made with paste of the ground meat)
Fish belly noodles

Want some non fish items to go with it? They do the plain ol' minced pork rice, and it is of a very decent standard.

李家香無刺虱目魚 (Li Jia Hsiang)
北市大同區寧夏路60號 (Taipei City, Datong District, Ningxia Rd #60)

02-2559-6604

[台北] - Tu Hsiao Yueh Authentic Original Tainan Peddler Noodle 1895 - Yong Kang Street location (台南度小月擔仔麵永康街 台北)

If you make one visit to Taiwan, to either Taipei or Tainan City, make this place at the top of your list. Forget Din Tai Fung and Xiao Long Bao! This historical bowl of noodle$ is something you will remember for a lifetime and come back again to.

While Manhattan's legendary Katz's Deli started circa 1888, around the same time, a Mr Hung Yutao (originally from Fujian province in China), learn and lived the trade of a fisherman off the coast of Tainan in Taiwan. Strangely, Yutao in Mandarin means "taro" (the purple vegetable root). But what he did was no fluke.The life of a fisherman was never glamorous. Typhoon season during JUL - SEP prevented going out to sea safely. That meant finding alternate sources of income, or starve. Mr Hung did not give up and remembered a receipe for a bowl of noodles he learned in Fujian, and quickly came up with his own version after much trial and error. He then created a makeshift street stall, and made it all portable, carrying the bulk of the equipment/goods hung from a long pole across his shoulder. And thus the "peddler" noodle (daan jai mien, or daa ah mi in Taiwanese Fujianese) was born. From then on, he would operate in different locations during the day, but by night would usually settle aroundthe local temple 2 am onwards, and would get visits from hungry pilgrims till dawn. The stall allowed him to socialize with locals, and endure the rough typhoon season. It was such a good career that he gave up his nets and boats. Thus the eventual business/store name that came to fruition in 1895 (first in Tainan) became Tu Hsiao Yueh, or "gently slacking for month" to make it eloquent (yet called Slack Season Noodles on the website).

114 years later, ownership has passed down to the 4th generation of the Hung family. This particular location is one of two Taipei city branches of Tainan's original Tu Hsiao Yueh, and interestingly right around the corner from the headquarters of Din Tai Fung Taipei. While Japanese and Hong Kong FOB tourists wait in line for XLB at DTF, savvy eaters head to THY around the corner instead.

So the Daan Jai Mien or Peddler noodle, what's the receipe for success?

It's really simple- fresh perfect noodles (or your choice of thin rice noodles or flatter kind)- broth or no broth (say YES to broth, it is not made with pork bones but grounded shrimp without the heads, naturally sweet and wonderous)- rou zou (finely minced and simmered pork). The pot is never cleaned and almost always cooking. The founder used his rou zou pot for 50+ years, passed it to his son, and eventually the pot cracked. Now it is on display somewhere. The crusty edges of the pots in the restaurants look unappetizing, but it is very safe and clean to eat. The pork is stewed with soy sauce, shallots and attains almost a puffy light texture, yet deep in flavors.- condiments including bean sprouts, some black vinegar, wee bitta garlic.From street stall to restaurant to innovative and modernized digs restaurant (upwards of 4 to 5 locations, not franchised), THY is not only a historical culinary treasure of Taiwan but a modern marvel. The Yong Kang Street location interior looks like a kaiseki restaurant. Presentation down to the finest detail is marvelous. As the 4th generation owner tries to re-invent the classic bowl, his philsophy is "eat with all your senses". Included on the menu are additional varieties like soups, appetizers, small plates that represent a taste of Tainan, with elegance and eloquence. Do not miss the salt and pepper grilled milkfish belly (with a green lemon wedge squeeze for sextra pleasure), or the perfect chawanmushi accented with konbu dashi that will blow away all SF Bay Area Japanese restaurant versions (including Kaygetsu or Wakuriya). (Update Jan 2010, they no longer serve the chanwanmushi :-(  ) The peddler noodle bowls are small, but cheap NT$50 or $1.75. It won't fill you up, but the idea is to savor with all your senses. On my first visit I ended up eating 2 bowls, but there was one memorable customer according to the current owner who ate upwards of 18 bowls.

Youtube video of the restaurant's noodle kitchen setup (like a mock street vendor)



Website: http://www.iddi.com.tw/ with Japanese and English versions of the site. Japanese TV station NHK even came over and Japanese tourists are in the know of this place.

The menu

Lots of pretty pictures, also in English and Japanese to accomodate tourists (especially those overflowing from the crazy wait at Din Tai Fung!)

The kitchen (at stool level) by the entrance, simulating how the founder set up shop (carrying the contents on his shoulder)

Choose your starch: yellow noodles = yoh mien(油麵 ), the noodles in the bowl are ban tiao (板條), and of course the important mifen (米粉 ) thin rice noodles in the front.

The chef cooks the noodles first.

Strains and adds broth

Don't forget that simmered egg!

And bean sprouts!

Cannot forget the rou zou (minced stewed pork), a very important item. Note that this pot has been used for a long long time, they just add on top. The overcooked/burnt crud makes it look disgusting but it does not dampen the eating experience at all, and part of the charm!

Their base broth/stock made with shrimp.

Supposed to get only one piece of shrimp. My lovely better half gave me hers!

Someone's appetizer that looked so good I snapped a shot.

All locations of Tu Hsiao Yeh sell cans of the minced stewed pork to go, for the homesick and those who want a keepsake to take with them Kudo$ to you if you get this past US customs! Not cheap by Taiwan, averaging US$5 a can, and the jar is outsourced to a vendor (not made by THY).

台南度小月擔仔麵 (Tainan Tu Hsiao Yeh Peddler Noodle)

台北市大安區福住里永康街9-1‎
02-3393-1325‎
Yong Kang Street #9-1,Taipei City, Taiwan (Yong Kang Street branch)