Taipei City - 金春發牛肉店 Jin Chun Fa Beef Restaurant

We actually stumbled across this restaurant around Chinese New Year as we were walking towards DiHua street (迪化街). This place is really close to YuanShan MRT station, maybe less than 5mins walk. The smell from this place is enough to lure any unsuspecting passer-by inside, salivating as they do. Yet, from the outside the shop looks fairly typical of any Beef Noodle Shop in Taipei. 

I'll be honest, the menu is quite daunting. But that's part of the fun of not speaking or reading Chinese, right? You can choose a few things and see what you get. It's exciting. However, speaking Chinese does have its advantages; we ordered the beef offal soup (niu2za2tang1牛雜湯) and the slices of beef in soup (sheng1tang4niu2rou4tang1生燙牛肉湯). If you're not a fan of offal then that's ok because, as you can see, the menu is vast. If this is the case, then it's best to avoid 肚，肝，or 腦.

The beef offal soup was fantastic. Slices of intestine and stomach interspersed with some fresh ginger made for a beautifully delicate broth. I am a big advocate of the clear soup, they tend to taste a little more fresh and light. This soup was packed with offal, all nicely cooked but still retaining a healthy bite. 

This beef soup is made famous in TaiNan (Southern Taiwan). With a lot of Taiwanese Beef Noodle soups, oftentimes the beef is frozen into a roll and then when the order comes in the chefs will cut a slice off the roll and cook it like that. However, this is done slightly differently: the meat is kept fresh, and slices are cut off and added into the hot soup at the last moment whilst in the bowl (not on the heat). So the thin slices of beef cook in the soup, itself. This makes for a deliciously tender meat. Again, the added ginger gives the soup a slight spice, but remains light and fresh. 

We weren't particularly hungry at the time we stumbled across this place. However, I will be returning, as the taste of the two dishes we had was enough to 'star' it onto my 'google maps'. Having since spoken to friends, they have recommended me the curry (chao3ga1li3niu2rou4fan4 炒咖哩牛肉飯) and I think I would also be extremely intrigued about the bull testicles (niu2rou4dan4牛肉蛋) . This place comes with high recommendations from me: its easily accessible, inexpensive, big enough that you shouldn't need to line up and the taste is really quite special. 

台北市大同區天水路20號

No. 20, Tianshui Rd., Datong District, Taipei City

Happy Eating!