芝生食堂 忠孝新生店

【Foodholic Nako @ Taipei】

"The Grass Dining Room - Zhongxiao Xinsheng Branch" is located near Zhongxiao Xinsheng Station, right across from a small park next to Exit 2. It's situated in a triangular window space, making it a decent location and quite easy to find.

This restaurant has seating not only on the first floor but also in the basement, and it seems to have a good number of seats. However, the business is very good; I arrived around 5:30 PM on a Sunday without a reservation and had to wait half an hour to be seated. If you plan to dine here, it's best to make a reservation~

Chestnut pumpkin chicken leg simmered set meal $318 (plus a 10% service charge, around $350 in total). The entire set meal includes a main dish, a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup, and five side dishes. I found it to be very generous, although each side dish was quite delicate in portion. I initially thought I wouldn't be full, but the main dish was large and packed with content, so I ended up super full and didn’t even finish the soup.

Starting with the soup, it’s miso soup, but I feel like it's more of a Taiwanese style (the lighter-colored kind). I'm not a big fan of it, so I only took a few sips and stopped.

The rice was cooked okay, and it would be better if it were a bit chewier, but at least it wasn't mushy.

The side dishes included stir-fried cabbage, sesame dragon whisker vegetable, purple sweet potato and mashed potato, black beans, and tofu. I think they paired well together, and each side dish suited my taste. When paired with the main dish, it was quite refreshing, and I finished every single one.

The main dish felt like a small pot of stewed vegetables with stewed chicken leg meat. The pumpkin was also melted into the stew, which contained plenty of greens, tofu, shiitake mushrooms, konjac noodles, and so on, all stewed to a nice softness, which I really enjoyed! The chicken leg was quite tender, with no odd chicken smell, and it was delicious~