Lets just start this post by saying that I have zero experience with Taiwanese cuisine, I’ve had my fair share of Chinese food but this is a new one for me.  I was really exited when my fellow foodie George texted me up and suggested that we go and get some beef noodle in Richmond and I was totally in for this meal!.  Of late I’ve had my fair share of soups~specifically ramen but I have heard good things about beef noodle from Follow Me Foodie so I had I had an idea of what I was going to be getting into.

The place we went to is located in Aberdeen Center in Richmond and is quite busy and known for line ups from what I have read.  We were seated really quickly because there were only 2 of us, the room was nicely decorated and there is a private room for group dining to get your beefy noodle on!.  I’m glad George was there because he was familiar with the menu and based on what my likes were he ordered up a few items so let the adventure begin:

Marinated chilled mixed tofu $3.5, I’m not sure what the marinade is for this but it was really good, the tofu used here is really firm so there is some texture to it, its accompanied with chopped Thai bird chillies I think~all I know is that they were small and really hot!.

I’m going to call this steamed greens with sauce (hoisin or oyster I think) with fried shallots or onions $3.5, I really liked these and am a fan of Asian greens with a meal, they were steamed nicely with some bite left in them and the sauce was a nice touch and not too salty.

Pan fried ground pork cake (2 pcs) for $3.5, by far this was my favorite savory item we had and could have had another order easily.  The server cut them in half for scissors  for us exposing the juicy pork filling, there are also scallions in this adding a nice light onion flavor.

the Championship Beef Noodle Soup with Beef Shank $10.95, with the soups here you get to choose the thickness and type of noodles you want, there also hand-made and pulled in the glass enclosed kitchen at the front of the restaurant, I found them to me too thick and even tho they were cooked properly they were still gummy for my taste.  The soup broth had a beefy flavor that kind of reminded me of Campbell’s Beef Vegetable soup, the meat was nice~the fat in the shank was marbled throughout the meat and was tender, the dish also came with 2 hand torched and seared pieces of beef that were melt in your mouth tender.  As for vegetables the soup only had some scallions and a piece of bok choy, I will add some more toppings sometime and get a thinner noodle.  At the end of the day I’d totally order beef noodle at another place but I don’t think its worth the 11 bucks per bowl.  George had the same as me but nuclear hot~it had a BP reminiscent red chile oil sheen all on the top of his soup that unfortunately didn’t get a picture of.

Now it’s time for a couple of deserts that I’ve never heard of before:

This is shaved ice milk from a popular place in the mall downstairs called Frappe Bliss, here it costs $3.50 a bowl plus $1 for each topping, they take a frozen block of ice milk and it shaves it paper-thin, it’s light at a feather and really doesn’t melt for some reason~I think it’s because of the shaving of the ice milk.  I had mine with fresh mango and sweetened condensed milk and it was freakin’ awesome!, my buddy had his with red bean and taro jelly with the same milk as mine.  I can’t wait to go to the shop down stairs and try the different flavors~I hear mango is great as well as the peanut flavor.

So my first out of the box food adventure was not too bad and I had a great time and can’t wait to try some other new places and share my experiences.