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Restaurant: Guangsheng Food Shop 廣生食品行

By Meredith Dodge
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Apr 22, 2005, Page 15

The bamboo shoots are crispy and light. PHOTO: MEREDITH DODGE, TAIPEI TIMES

There's a certain amazed feeling you get when you eat something delicious at a restaurant only to find out it's one of those foods that have made you grimace many times before. That's the feeling I got at Guangsheng Food Shop.

Don't be fooled by its humble name -- this place has class. It's hard to find but well worth a little searching. Coming out of Taipower Building Station's Exit 3, you turn right onto Shida Road. Walk toward Shida Night Market and turn right at the first stoplight -- Lane 39. This will turn onto Taishun Street, Lane 38, where you'll find Guangsheng on the left side.

The decor is very lounge and very Shanghai 1930s, especially in the basement area. Particularly charming are the antique posters with women in qipao advertising cigarettes and long-forgotten cure-alls. What does this have to do with the food, you ask? Well, Shanghai is right between Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, which are the source of most of the dishes on Guangsheng's menu.

Jiangzhe cuisine, as it's called, may not be as popular as Sichuan or Beijing cuisine, but Guangsheng definitely makes it taste as good. I was particularly impressed by the bamboo shoots in the braised chicken with bamboo shoots. This vegetable, which can make a lunchbox stink to high heaven, here has no offensive odor but rather a crispy lightness, like a savory version of the Asian pear. The chicken was savory too, and so tender I could pull the meat off the bone using only my chopsticks. I ate it skin and all, and I'm usually one to pick chicken skin off.

Savoriness, even saltiness, is a major theme in Guangsheng's menu, as can be tasted in the yellow fish with salted cabbage. I found this dish a little too salty, but as manager Peng Xiao-hui (彭曉慧) reminded me, "It's natural that the cuisine from coastal areas should be a little saltier."

If the flavor gets to be too much for you, balance it out with the vegetable rice. After eating a bowl of this white rice mixed with chopped bok choy, you'll wonder why other restaurants don't follow suit and put a little something extra in their rice too.

Guangsheng Food Shop is closed on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month.

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