Located near historic Anping Harbor (安平港), Chingping (慶平海產店) is one of Tainan City’s best-known seafood restaurants. Tanks and coolers display a colorful selection of fish, cephalopods, other mollusks, crabs and lobsters. The no-frills dining space takes up two large rooms. All seafood is sold by weight and Chingping’s prices are reasonable: Five large dishes, including a fat steamed lobster, that left our four-person party pleasantly full, rang up at less than NT$3,000.
Chingping’s oysters are available steamed, stir-fried or raw. We chose the latter, assuming they would arrive on the half-shell. Instead, the oysters came lumped together in a bowl, topped with grated radish mixed with tart vinegar and a heap of chopped scallion. The serving method made the delicate shellfish hard to maneuver with our chopsticks, but once we got them into our mouths, they were a treat: The oysters were delicately briny, with a smooth, creamy texture set off by the sharpness of the vinegar.
One of the restaurant’s signature dishes is rice noodle soup made with large chunks of grouper fish (鮢過米粉). The thin, translucent noodles look fragile but had an unexpectedly firm, al dente texture. The meat picked up the aromas of the rich broth, which was flavored with scallion stalks cooked until tender and bits of garlic that had been browned to a crisp before being added to the soup. Many of Chingping’s entrees feature similarly strong, pungent flavors. Our waiter suggested steamed clams with loofah (蛤蜊絲瓜), which was prepared with very little seasoning, for our third course. The big loofah slices were as succulent and sweet as the clams. Their mellow taste prepared our palates for the silky meat of our spiny lobster, which was topped with heaps of diced garlic.
Photo: Catherine Shu, Taipei Times
By that point we were getting full, but we had accepted our waiter’s suggestion of fresh fish cooked in onion oil (蔥油鮮魚) for a final course. We were glad we did. It was composed of steamed fish steaks in a peppery sauce, covered in slivers of green onion and served with lots of sebesten fruit (破布子), or small, green berries that taste like sharp, salty green olives. The many contrasting flavors managed to complement each other without any one predominating.
Chingping’s main dining rooms are bare with uncovered tables and fluorescent lighting, but the restaurant offers a back room for wedding banquets and other celebrations. Diners can wash down their meal with cold bottles of Heineken, Taiwan Beer or that Taiwanese seafood restaurant staple, whisky. (Chingping serves Famous Grouse.) Feeling stuffed after your meal? Then consider a quick waddle around the sprawling Lin Mo-niang Park (林默娘公園), which is across the parking lot from Chingping.
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