円山駅

Foodholic Niko @ Taipei

Have you ever eaten oden inside a century-old historic building?

"Maruyama Station" is a new Japanese oden restaurant that opened in July this year, located near Maruyama Station (Isn't it a nice match with the restaurant's name!). When you exit from Exit 2, it's right across the street, and the exterior has a very Japanese style, making it easy to recognize.

You are required to remove your shoes before entering, and the interior is very Japanese, reminiscent of tatami. There are seating areas where you sit on the floor, as well as tables. As soon as you step inside, you feel a refreshing atmosphere that makes you feel like you've arrived in Japan in an instant.

The oden is sweet and tasty, with each item being quite flavorful. Honestly, everything is delicious! If I had to choose, my favorites are: daikon $40, cabbage roll $65, fish roe pouch $40, egg fry (similar to thick egg omelet) $35, and baby bok choy $40.

I added yuzu sauce $10. It was quite good, and alternating it with the free oden sauce was not bad, but honestly, if you don't want to pay extra, the original oden sauce is already amazing.
P.S. There's also Dongquan sauce.

For fried items, we ordered New Taiwan Fried (similar to sweet potato tempura) $35 and Golden Sand Squid Tempura $45. Personally, I feel the cost-performance ratio isn't very high. The taste is okay, but the portion is really small (I was a bit shocked when it arrived), so relatively speaking, it's a bit expensive. I'd rather use the same amount of money to order more oden.

Noodle soup $40 consists of noodles and a few slices of vegetables. It tastes standard, but the fact that the noodles don’t have a strange oily taste is commendable, and the soup is very delicious. If you don’t want to order noodle soup, there's also free broth available for self-service.

The "Sake Machine" is really novel! It's a machine I haven't seen elsewhere; for $100, you can exchange it for 3 tokens. Each token can be exchanged for a type of alcohol, which is 20ml. We tried matcha plum wine and passion fruit wine, both were very delicious, along with another sake, which was a bit too strong for my taste. It seems I’m still better off with sweeter drinks 😂.

Overall, with such an environment and atmosphere, the food is also above average, and it’s filling. Splitting the cost for two people came to less than $200 each. Highly recommended!