Adam & Eats: Taipei Chinese Restaurant

Editor’s note: Adam Brandt is a graduate from the Cobra Kai School of Culinary Callousness, where he received their highest award, the Red Apron of Merciless Eating. Aside from eating and talking about eating, he makes pots, paintings, prints, books, photographs, and generally, a big mess. He has been the studio assistant at Mudpuppy Pottery for almost nine years and is attending a local university in a desperate attempt to earn a biology degree.

There is one place on my list of “To Eat At” places that I’ve been dying to talk about. It is a place that I, as well as many of you, have been loving for a very long time. That place is Taipei Chinese Restaurant.

Located across Rogers Avenue from Northside High School is the one and only Taipei. Granted there are probably other restaurants named Taipei out in the world, but we only have the one and that’s just fine by me. I’ve been eating at Taipei for at least 10 years and have never had a bad experience. I have not been there in a year or so, and given that a restaurant can fall apart very quickly, I thought it was time to go back. I was pleased to discover it was just how I left it.

Taipei is not much to look at. Simple tables and chairs, a few humble wall decorations, and a check out stand, that’s about it. Still, simple decor can be a very good thing, especially if the energy that could be spent decorating is spent, instead, on making delicious food. And the food is quite delicious. Dare I say scrumptious? I dare. Anyway, the food is solid, consistent, and incredibly cheap considering the amount you get. For under $15 you can feed two people and have leftovers for a midnight snack.

Taipei is one of the only places in the River Valley where you can get a steamed dumpling that contains something other than just pork. Their dumplings have pork, but they also contain shrimp and veggies. Oh, I forgot the part about them tasting magnificent. There’s also that.

One of my other favorites at Taipei is the Egg Drop Soup. I am going to go out on a big limb here and say that Taipei has the best Egg Drop Soup in the area. It is rich and creamy, egg-y and chicken-y, seasoned perfectly, and it only costs 90 cents for a small bowl. It will probably be the best-spent dollar of your whole life, if you like Egg Drop Soup that is.

The Cashew Chicken is also phenomenal. Hand breaded, fresh chicken, fried and covered with some wonderfully savory “gravy sauce” and served with steamed rice. If you want something equally yummy that is both terrifying to look at and difficult to eat go for the “Four Delight”, a combination of shrimp, beef, pork, chicken, and Chinese vegetables all served in a nest of crunchy noodles. It is brilliant.

If you can catch them on the days that they make the Rice Noodle Salad Bowl, you should try it. It consists of curried meat atop a pile of rice noodles with bean sprouts, cucumber, and mint. It is both spicy and refreshing. The reason that I say to catch them on the days that they make it, is because it is not on the regular menu. You can only get it on the days when they are having a fundraiser for a local Vietnamese Methodist church. I think it is the first Saturday of the month, but I could be mistaken. Check with them, they’ll know for sure, since they are the ones who have the fundraiser and all.

In looking at my notes, I realize that Taipei is all over the place. They are a Chinese Restaurant that serves “Hawaiian Chicken” and a variety of Vietnamese dishes, who is named after a city in Taiwan, and they have fundraisers for local Vietnamese Methodists. Whatever it is that they are doing, it works.

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Adam also has this thing called Sandwich Control.