OJT EATS | Beef Noodles Chicken Soup
Another week in Taipei, another beef noodle. This time, we went to a place literally called Beef Noodles, Chicken Soup so were expecting good things. Another good sign was that there was a queue outside the door. We grabbed a ticket and started studying the menu (to see what else there was other than beef noodles and chicken soup) while we waited.
After about 20 minutes, we made it in. We already knew exactly what we wanted so the food started coming pretty quickly. This was the sesame sauce noodles. The sauce is fully buried underneath all the noodles so it obviously required a very good mix. The noodles were really nice and chewy and the sauce was super rich and just thin enough to coat all of the noodles. The bean sprouts provided a nice crunch to the bowl as well. This was really tasty.
Now onto the first of the dishes that this place is named after; the chicken soup. To be precise, this was the chicken and mushroom soup (they have a bunch of different ones; ginseng chicken, chicken and clams etc). This bowl of soup is good enough for the place to be half named after. It had an incredible depth of flavour and was just incredibly comforting. There was also a pretty big full chicken wing in there that had been cooked for long enough that the meat just fell off the bone. We aren't normally the biggest of soup people but this was super impressive.
We'd also ordered a plate of braised items. It's one where you choose what you want and they'll cut it up and put it all on a plate for you. We chose a bunch of things including seaweed, meatballs, tofu, an egg, radish and pigs head meat (it sounds weird but is in fact delicious). The quality of a restaurant's braised goods in Taipei can really make or break it's reputation and these were definitely better than average. The flavour was great; the only thing that we didn't love was that the seaweed was a little bit too soft for our liking but otherwise, the rest was all super tasty.
Now onto the the beef noodles. We got the half beef half tendon noodles and then added a little bit of chilli to it. Even before the chilli, the soup had a bit of a kick to it but the sauce on the table had a really nice fragrance to it. The beef was super tender and the broth incredibly full of flavour. We went for the thicker knife cut noodles that had a really nice bounce to it. We've had a lot of beef noodles in Taiwan and at least in our opinion, this is up there with the best of them.
This place definitely lives up to it's name (and more). It's open until super late so is great for an after drink bite but even just as a dinner, this makes a great casual meal. The soup really is excellent and there is no bad time for good beef noodles. We'd definitely recommend this place!
Beef Noodles Chicken Soup, No. 164, Section 1, Dunhua South Road, Taipei, Taiwan
Cheers, JL
