More than one person has warned me away from eating at Feng Cheng, but nevertheless it's a popular hangout for lovers of Cantonese cuisine.
Across Xinsheng Road, from the side gate of NTU, Feng Cheng isn't big, but it's no hole in the wall, either, and the round family-sized tables filled up while I ate an early dinner there.
It's not hard to figure out why one might be wary of Feng Cheng: They do the dishes and cook the food in grungy-looking rooms in plain sight of the dining area, sausages hang on colored yarn against the plaster walls, and the green plastic dishes are kept in piles on the tables.
PHOTO: CHRIS PECHSTEDT, TAIPEI TIMES
As for the food, it tastes full of what to the palate are valuable oils, salts, and MSGs. One gets the feeling eating it that one's innermost organs are none too pleased.
And yet there is something worthwhile about this place. The food is appealing, in its own salty sort of way. There are Cantonese staples like shacha (沙茶) and he-fen (河粉) -- a tasty flat noodle you can get with most dishes -- and the barbequed pork (叉燒) and barbecued duck (燒鴨) are said to be famous.
The duck dish came with half an order of pork and at least one of the two meats was pretty good. The kitchen is definitely overzealous with the sauce, though.
One of the nice parts about Feng Cheng is that, even if the food is a bit much for some people, they aren't stingy with the vegetables or the fungi; the abundance of greens and mushrooms often successfully takes the edge off the salt.
Feng Cheng isn't good in the way of the fancy-schmancy NT$300-a-plate stuff we often review, but it does have a sort of guilty appeal similar to that of a greasy family-owned burger joint.
A warning to anyone squeamish around dead animals: The meat is stored in a glass booth that is visible from both the street and the dining area. It's not possible to avoid the sight of dozens of cooked but still very recognizable birds hanging by a single leg. If that sort of thing bothers you, steer clear.
It's certainly possible to find better food in Gongguan for the same price or less, so Feng Cheng is not necessarily the kind of place you'd want to do time on the MRT for, but if you're in the area and you're in the mood for something kind of salty and unhealthy you could do a lot worse -- assuming you aren't faint of stomach.
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