Taipei City - 小六食堂 Little Six Restaurant

Like sushi? Well, Taiwan is a pretty good place for it, with a plethora of different places offering sashimi, rolls or nigiri. This place is tucked behind a few back streets not too far from XingTian Temple Station 捷運行天宮站. The outside is not too dissimilar to many other sushi places, but the line at the door is a sure way to say that this place is held in high regards. Best bit? It's not expensive, especially compared to western sushi restaurants! 

The menu is quite small, so don't get too worried. Tick a few boxes, and see what arrives. Or, if you'd like to have educated guesses on what you may be eating, then this is what we ordered:

1.小六生魚丼 (xiao3liu4sheng1yu2jing3) House special sashimi rice bowl

2. 特製海鮮丼 (te4zhi4hai3xian1jing3) Specially selected seafood bowl

3. 寒天山葵章魚 (han2tian1shan1kui2zhang1yu2) Wasabi octopus

One good thing to note about this restaurant, is that if you put a tick on the right column of your order, then you will pay an extra $100 but have the set meal of tea (bottom right, and delicious), tofu with okra (top right corner, not that great), steamed egg with mushroom (middle top, pretty good), miso soup (biggest bowl, not bad) and finally: sesame dessert (really nice, and not at all sweet). In my opinion, if you are wanting just a meal, and not really looking to taste a wide variety of the different pieces on the menu, then 定食 (ding4shi2) the fixed meal option, is probably the best way to go. 

1.小六生魚丼 (xiao3liu4sheng1yu2jing3) House special sashimi rice bowl

This dish is the house special, and we have salmon, tuna, two helpings of a white fish (don't know the specific fish, sorry), egg roll, ginger, shrimp roe and all sat on top a generous helping of steaming hot rice, accompanied by a monstrous piece of wasabi. The tuna is great quality, and if you see on the picture below, it is taken from a huge chunk of meat. The salmon is also very good, and it melts in your mouth. The white fish towards the front of the picture has some sort of curing done to it, which means it has a slightly harder exterior to protect the delicate fish inside. The taste is good, but I prefer the white fish towards the back right of the bowl. The ginger is fresh and not too hot, and the shrimp roe is nice and fresh too. Usually when we go to a Japanese sushi place, we like to get a plate of the egg roll you can see towards the back, right side of the bowl. However, it's not on the menu. The egg roll was good, with a little bit of sweetness. 

2. 特製海鮮丼 (te4zhi4hai3xian1jing3)  Specially selected seafood bowl

The dish looks a lot like the house special, but there two differences: scallop and shrimp. Scallop is one of my favourite things to eat, ever, so I relished the opportunity to eat this delicacy. It was great, it has such a smooth consistency and it doesn't have an over-powering taste like some other types of seafood can tend to have. The shrimp was presented nicely, with the head still on, and also the very end piece of the tail still on, too. However, it didn't need to be peeled, as the body section was ready to be popped straight in. It was possibly the softest shrimp I have ever had and, actually, it is the most unique texture, too. Once I removed the head, I put the shrimp in my mouth and it just melted in an instant. I've never had the luxury of eating quality seafood, and I have yet to visit Japan. But if this is the norm, then I'm certainly booking to go very soon! Was it worth the extra $40NT to get the scallop and shrimp? Totally.

3. 寒天山葵章魚 (han2tian1shan1kui2zhang1yu2) Wasabi octopus

This was disappointing, as you can see. I actually laughed a little when this arrived, because the sheer portion size was a joke, costing $60NT. The taste? It was alright, nothing to go crazy about. The cuts of the octopus were tiny, and the wasabi was abundant. So it was a little spicy, but not really worthy of ordering. 

Best dish: Number 2. The addition of my favourite scallop and also the melt-in-the-mouth shrimp was enough to give it my top spot.

Dish I won't order again: Number 3. The portion size was measly, and the actual taste was just ok. 

台北市中山區松江路259巷8號

Number 8, alley 259, SongJiang Road, ZhongShan District, Taipei City.

Happy Eating!