Taipei Michelin hop: ho-hum beef noodles

A few days after eating my way around Singapore, I'm back home in Taipei for the first time in almost a year.  The Dining Austrian is making his very first trip to Taiwan, and of course I would be his chaperone for this short weekend detour.

We didn't have a booking for lunch today, as I was gonna wing it and perhaps take my friend to my favorite beef noodle soup joint.  When the Prince of Napa decided to join us for lunch, I sensed some resistance regarding paying for those expensive noodles.  So we came up with a compromise and decided to check out Shi Dahua Noodles (史大華精緻麵食) - a place I had heard about from friends.

We started by grabbing a few side dishes, which included marinated kelp (醃海帶), vegetarian goose (素鵝), pickled lotus root (醃蓮藕), and pickled cucumber (醃黃瓜). I thought the lotus root may have gone off a little, so I stopped eating it after the first bite.

Three different soup bases are offered, along with a combination of three different toppings.  I went for the middle-of-the-road braised stock.

Braised beef noodles with three treasures (紅燒三寶麵) - the three treasures are beef, beef tendon, and honeycomb beef tripe.  I thought the soup base was just OK - it was neither very rich nor very bland.  The noodles were very thin, and lacked any bite that I was looking for.

The beef was tender enough, though... with some tendon.

The others got their bowls with the mala (麻辣) soup base, and probably got a little more enjoyment out of them.  Oh well...