"Dinner @ Lao Dong Beef Noodles, Banciao Taipei
Walking around Taiwan you get the sense that a lot of the food places, be they restaurants or mum and dad joints are centuries old.
Short of asking people though (which is difficult to do if I’m on my own) you never really get a sense of just how old some places are.
When I cycled past Lao Dong Beef Noodles in Banciao the other week, it was the ‘since 1950′ tagline that drew me in.
Sure the cafe style decor itself didn’t look like it was 61 years old but I figured if they’d been in business for that long, what with Taiwan’s common ‘here one day and completely vanished the next’ small business business culture, I figured they must have been doing something right.
Being a big fan of beef noodles, the fact that it was Lao Dong’s speciality was just a bonus.
To start my meal I ordered what looked deliciously appetizing in the front window, but surprisingly like a big pile of dog crap when brought out to you on a plate;
Don’t let it’s misleading presentation fool you though, inside the pastry (it’s supposed to be a fried dim sum but tasted strongly like it was baked), you had this wonderful spring onion filling which really set the mood for your main course.
I like my beef noodles on the spicy side with a strong onion flavour so this was perfect to start me off.
Being my first time at Lao Dong, I decided to go with the beef noodles in the plain variety (they had a tomato flavour offering too which looked interesting, if not sounding a bit bland).
My girlfriend decided to be a bit adventurous and ordered the beef noodles with tofu.
She wasn’t all that hungry but despite us asking if we could just pay for a bowl of broth Lao Dong refused to alter their menu for us. This was kind of annoying as I had to help her finish and my large bowl of beef noodles was very filling.
Taste wise the beef noodles were excellent. Lao Dong claim to boil the beef they use for twenty four hours and this is clearly evident in how succulent and soft the beef is.
Full of glorious fatness (which is what you can see in the photo, not oil), the beef engulfs the broth and the end result is a delicious beef and oniony soup with a ton of noodles to keep you busy.
Awesome.
Price wise Lao Dong was a little on the upper side coming in at $150 TWD (~$5.20 USD) for my beef noodles (various beef and other meat noodles came in at $150-$250 TWD from memory).
Due to the price range Lao Dong probably won’t become a staple of mine anytime soon but as a nice treat for what you get it does make a nice meal.
Having been around since 1950, Lao Dong also seem to have won a few awards which they proudly display on their chopstick packets.
Nice and subtle and not too in your face which I thought was a nice touch. No idea what the awards are though, although I can make out 2006/2007 along with ‘Taipei’ and ‘beef noodles’.
Unfortunately their drink selection is rather crap though as they only had black tea, which you had to pay for. I know it’s not really custom, but I do like to usually wash my beef noodles down with some fizzy soda.
Lao Dong Beef noodles are a chain store with several franchises serving Taipei. Unfortunately it’s all in Chinese though so you’ll have to translate.
I went the Banciao store which is conveniently located right next to Xinpu station on the blue MRT line (green arrow in the map below).
June 24th, 2011 at 8:33 am lemmiwinks(Quote)
Soft drink with, well anything really, but nice Asian food? Sacrilege!
I like to wash it down with some Oolong tea. Looks like a bunch of little sticks, but tastes the business.
June 24th, 2011 at 12:42 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
@lemmiwinks
I’ve got this bad habit of needing a drink when I eat and unfortunately the all too common black tea (or Oolong tea for that matter!) served here does nothing for me
. Most of the places I eat out are too low class to offer wine or anything but tea so usually it’s softdrink by default.
July 1st, 2011 at 1:44 pm yi(Quote)
what about oolong tea with carbonated soda? like softdrink/tea
July 3rd, 2011 at 12:13 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
@yi
It’s not so much the carbonated aspect as just not really liking the tea taste. Compared to the wonders of the chemically flavoured concotions available, tea is just a bit ‘meh’ for me.
August 10th, 2011 at 4:45 am lunchboxthermos(Quote)
if i recall, they won the taipei beef-noodle-soup competition a few years ago, so that may be what’s on the chopstick wrapper?
August 12th, 2011 at 1:07 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Most likely I’d image. Cheers for the clarification!