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Land of Plenty – 天府家常èœ
Posted in Chinese on January 28th, 2008 by mei| | 1 Comments.
“Good spicy food shouldn’t leave the arsehole burning the day after,” so some say.
In that case I must’ve hit the jackpot at the Land of Plenty*.
Yours truly has been hearing quite a bit about this Shichuan restaurant out by the Dingxi MRT station through the grapevine and naturally, I just had to go and try it out for myself. In Mei style, let me give you my final judgement first – the place served solid, authentic Shichuan cuisine that would probably hard to beat in Taipei. Well worth visiting again.
However, and this is not necessarily a bad thing, I would probably go with the other dishes than the ones me and my masticating posse ordered.
Here’s what we had:
-husband and wife lung strips （夫婦肺片）
-steamed spareribs （排骨粉蒸）
-eggplant in garlic and peppercorn sauce（éšé¦™èŒ„å）
-steamed whole fish （I didn’t catch the Chinese name for this, but I believed that we had the seabass)
-seasonal greens (時蔡 – which happened to be è èœ, or spinach)
-pickled vegetable soup with mung bean vermicelli (é…¸èœç²‰çµ²æ¹¯ï¼‰
The first dish, the appetizer (pictured above), ended up being my favorite of the night. The thinly sliced lung pieces was drizzled with a spicy dressing (soy sauce, sesame oil and chili oil, methinks) and tossed with coriander and roasted peanuts. The heat packed a punch and was just perfect for getting my mouth juices (that’s saliva, you) running. I’m normally not the biggest fan of offal but I could have licked this plate clean.
The royal Mr. Tanenbaum wanted the second dish, steamed ribs with sweet potatoes and erm, mush. While it was good, I can’t say that I was altogether too impressed. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I could order this dish at dozens of restaurants in town, all comparably good, and maybe it has something to do with the fact I found the ribs too lacking in meat and too oozing in gristly fat.
I love eggplant. Especially, when it’s cooked fork-tender (chopstick-tender in our case, m’dears :>). I really can’t complain about this dish but I was done when I popped a Shichuan peppercorn in my mouth. It left the strangest numbing sensation ever. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The spicy steamed seabass was the favorite among my friends. Why didn’t I chose it? Well, it was good. Noting at all wrong with it. It was just that my parents were in the seafood biz and I’ve been super-spoiled. I was like, “Nice! Filled my omega-3 fatty acid needs… Now, moving on…”
The spinach and the soup, while both irreproachable in quality, were buh-buh-boooorrring. Why venture out to Taipei county (cue, gasp) to have spinach and pickled veggie soup when I can order these run-of-the-mill dishes just about anywhere downtown? Okay, so we needed some greens. And a soup. But I wanted something uniquely Shichuanese and with more oomph.
I’m ordering the mouth watering chicken (å£æ°´é›žï¼‰and the poached beef slices in chili oil (水煮牛肉) the next time I go. I might even have room for the kungpao chicken. (While also a staple in most Chinese restaurants, I am interested to see how much pizzazz the restaurant would be able to inject into this classic.)
Fellow Taipei bloggers Prince Roy and Spicy Girl have written excellent blog posts about the place. You can read them here and here respectively.
*On a slightly non-sequitur note, Land of Plenty is not the restaurant’s real name. å¤©åºœå®¶å¸¸èœ does not translate very nicely into English but the closest I can think of is probably along the lines of “Food from the Celestial Land of Plenty.” Prince Roy wrote a bit about the name of the restaurant in his other blog post.
I’m having dinner tomorrow at 1010 Hunan Pop which is a favorite of mine (I am slightly surprised I haven’t blogged about the place yet). Hunan cuisine, like its Shichuan counterpart, tends to pack in the heat but if the adage proves to be true once again, my fanny will still be free from flames.
Land of Plenty 天府家常èœ
No. 5, Renai Road, Yonghe City, Taipei County (Dingxi MRT – accessible within walking distance from either of the two exits)
å°åŒ—縣永和市ä»æ„›è·¯äº”號 （æ·é‹é ‚溪站）
02 8660 0190
Open 11:30am-2pm for lunch and 5:30pm-8:30pm for dinner, closed on Monday. Caveat – technically 8:30pm is the closing time but I’ve been warned that the restaurant runs out of food fast. Go early.
One Response to ' Land of Plenty – å¤©åºœå®¶å¸¸èœ '
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on January 29th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Great stomachs think alike. This place and 1010 are easily my two current favorites in the city.