中山牛肉麵

【Foodholic Naoko @ Taipei】

"Zhongshan Beef Noodle" is a small shop located inside the Zhongshan market on Chang'an West Road in Taipei, right next to an elevator. The Zhongshan market is not far from Zhongshan MRT station and Taipei Main Station; it’s about a 3-minute walk from the R2 exit of the Zhongshan underground mall.

There’s only the owner working there, and he is quite friendly. The menu is very simple, featuring just clear broth beef noodles and braised beef noodles; there is also a special for the day, which is mushroom chicken thigh noodles.

Since I didn't want to eat beef, I ordered the mushroom chicken thigh noodles for $150.

I took it home to eat. First off, a slightly disappointing point is that even though it’s a soup noodle, the soup portion is not very generous; otherwise, the soup is rich and flavorful, and I finished the whole bowl! Another drawback is the mushroom, as there was only a small piece (not even a whole mushroom, just one slice), which seems a bit misleading.

Ps. I also found a tiny hair in the dish, so I have to deduct half a star...

However, the chicken thigh part was quite impressive; it was a whole chicken thigh. I initially thought it would be small pieces of chicken, but the meat was very tender and lightly seasoned, although you could still taste a hint of chicken flavor.

The noodles were knife-cut noodles (not the wide ones), and the texture was quite good, very chewy, but they seemed a bit lacking in flavor.

Overall, while there were some things that could be criticized, the broth was really good, and the generous portion of chicken thigh shows sincerity, so I would be willing to visit again!