In Taiwan, dishes like thick pork soup (
No one knows where exactly Taiwanese pork soup came from, but Lungfeng is quite certainly one of the oldest establishments to feature this dish in Taipei, starting out 70 years ago as a street stall at the roundabout on Nanking West Road. Preferring quality to novelty, the establishment's owners have never changed the menu. The seven dishes you see listed on the wall are the same seven that they've always served.
PHOTO: YU SEN-LUN, TAIPEI TIMES
Owner Liu Mu-yuan (
The pork soup here remains faithful to an old and now rarely seen recipe which calls for adding pork tendon to the stew. "It's a painstaking procedure. You first take the tendons from pigs feet and deep fry them, then soak them in the water, and finally stew them in the soup." As this procedure adds NT$40 to the price of a bowl of soup, it is rarely used in restaurants today. But Lungfeng House insists on doing things the old-fashioned way. The result is a rich, thick soup with a large portion of tender pork leg, bamboo shoots, mushroom and chewy pork tendon. The restaurant suggests adding black vinegar to enhance the soup's flavor.
Another attraction at Lungfeng is the house's trademark, crispy and meaty pork rolls (
After these two appetizers, you need a bowl of rice with meat sauce to complete your meal. Noting that his restaurant's meat sauce is stewed with high quality soy sauce for long hours, Liu said: "I guarantee you'll want a second bowl."
Among the other traditional specialties served at Lungfeng are two that are known for their healthful qualities -- mushroom soup with pig intestine (
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