★★★ 梅子餐廰 (Mei-Zhi Restaurant) - Taipei

Mei-Zhi Restaurant is located in the older part of Taipei of LingSen North Road, established in the 1960's, it is famous for its traditional Taiwanese cuisine. The store is popular among the entertainment industry in Taiwan with lots of celebrity photos decorating the walls, I even saw a few Japanese celebrities as well. Unfortunately I didn't get to try their variety of Taiwanese dishes, but I did try their 台南担仔麺 (Tainan Dan-Zai Noodles).

The Soup - is an unseasoned soup, actually it tastes so thin that I wonder if it is even a soup. The soy sauce and flavoring of the 肉燥 (ground pork sauce) blends with the soup to give it a brownish color.

The Noodles - are thicker straight noodles that are cooked on the soft side.

The Toppings - are distinctly Taiwanese. 肉燥 (rou-zao) is ground pork stir fried with chopped shiitake mushrooms, fried shallots, onions, and seasoned with rice wine, black pepper and Chinese five spice. The ground pork sauce is a great match with 香菜 (Chinese coriander) which is used in a lot of Taiwanese cuisine. The sauce is on the salty side but meant to be mixed in with the soup and noodles.

Overall - a really authentic and delicious Taiwanese ramen, the noodles are simply a great match with the ground pork sauce and coriander. Come here for the ramen as well as the large variety of Taiwanese cuisine and seafood it offers. Mei-zhi is open until 1am from Monday to Saturday and is perfect for a late night snack. The portions for dan-zai are small and perfect keeping enough room for trying out many different Taiwanese dishes. Although this is a really nice restaurant it is located in an older, dirtier part of Taiwan, try taking a taxi directly there rather than the subway and walking.

No 1 Alley 107 LinSen North Road Taipei, 台北市林森北路107巷1號
Japanese site - http://www.tabitabi-taipei.com/html/data/10022.html
Chinese site - http://www.umeko.com.tw/p2-3.htm