Shih Li An (十里安手麵)

Simply longing for home-cooked Chinese food or feeling indecisive where to eat around neighborhood of Dapinglin (大坪林)? Those are exactly the reasons how we ended up visiting this “quite new” restaurant; plus the promotion they were having by the time we passed by.

It was very appealing indeed, NTD 149 for a choice of 3 available set menus: fried rice, beef noodle, and xiao long bao. However, when we came for the second time, they have made some changes to it (though the price tag stays the same) – sadly some of the new food items in the sets are not our cup of tea. So, we decided to order just 1 of the set menu which we like (fried rice it is!) and some ala carte items that made our stomach growled instantaneously upon browsing the menu.

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Neat table arrangement

 

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Tea pot

Curious to see how mouthwatering food we ordered?  :mrgreen:

First came was the set menu: Cucumber salad (涼拌小黃瓜) as appetizer, Egg Yolk Paste Bun (流沙包) as dimsum-ish snack (點心 actually), and Vegetarian Fried Rice (香菇素炒飯) as the main.

Cucumber Salad (涼拌小黃瓜)

Cucumber Salad (涼拌小黃瓜)

Their cucumber salad is normal, but well, not bad.. qualified for a typical Chinese restaurant appetizer we can say. 

Egg Yolk Paste Bun (流沙包)

Egg Yolk Paste Bun (流沙包)

Their egg yolk paste bun is nicely made with appropriate sweet taste. A point they can improve is how to make the paste runs smoother and color more glowingly yellow 😎 

Vegetarian Fried Rice (香菇素炒飯)

Vegetarian Fried Rice (香菇素炒飯)

We like their fried rice since our first visit. It is seasoned well but a bit oily, well.. the oily part enhanced the flavor, agree? My partner didn’t think the same way; he commented the fried rice is a bit on the bland side. Maybe it is just me who is starting to turn like Taiwanese – most of Taiwanese local food is purposely made bland, people with stronger taste bud can easily add seasonings to their food anyway. Hehehe.. no lah, it is just that my partner’s preferred level of saltiness is a little above mine.

We were in the middle of shoving all the nice food to our mouth and taking photos to be shown to you guys when one of the nice waiters offered to enlarge our cramped dining table. Okay la, it is as simple as adding one more extra table, but we were quite touched of his kind consideration (my partner really considered this a big deal; he mentioned to me almost no other place offer this kind of service). The same waiter also came by our table frequently to clear our table from empty plates and bowls and asked us if we want our tea pot to be refilled. Not bad, huh?

restaurant ambience

Restaurant ambience

I almost forgot to mention that there is one more item included in the set, Spicy and Sour Soup (酸辣湯). 

Spicy and Sour Soup (酸辣湯)

Spicy and Sour Soup (酸辣湯)

I didn’t eat much of spicy-sour soup personally, so kindly excuse me on this. My partner finished the soup happily 😕 . It turned out there was some considerable amount of minced pork inside, thankfully considerable enough that he managed to empty the soup bowl.

Hurray! Not long afterwards, today’s highlight was served.

Steamed Shrimp Shao-mai (蝦仁燒賣)

Steamed Shrimp Shao-mai (蝦仁燒賣)

 

zOOmed Steamed Shrimp Shao-mai (蝦仁燒賣)

zOOmed Steamed Shrimp Shao-mai (蝦仁燒賣)

Let us present to you Steamed Shrimp Shao-Mai (蝦仁燒賣). We ordered this because we thought we had this during our first visit and we kinda recalled liking it. But after order was placed, I suddenly remembered we did try their Xiao Long Bao (which is okay) but not their shao-mai. Not sure why we were so into that, we just got the right feeling about it. Turned out our gut was true. It tasted even better than their Xiao Long Bao – maybe since there are shrimps put together with pork meat, nonetheless we enjoyed it (read: cleared the bamboo steamer in couple counts of minutes).

Last dish was Prawns and Veggies Tempura (鮮蝦野菜天婦羅). At first when my partner decided to order this I was contemplating whether it will be good; I mean this place is Chinese restaurant, why should we eat Japanese “tempura” here?

Prawns & Veggies Tempura (鮮蝦野菜天婦羅)

Prawns & Veggies Tempura (鮮蝦野菜天婦羅)

I was surprised, ..in a good way. I owed you one, partner 😛 . Having been too long not eating any tempura, this dish satisfied me completely – not forgetting to mention the shisho leaf! yummm~ okay now I cannot underestimate this restaurant. Food quality wise, service wise, ambience wise (including no queue), minus the relatively high price tag (their dish portion is considered small) Shih Li An will give you an enjoyable complete Chinese dining experience.

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