Taipei Eats: Comfort food at Xian Tian Xia, Shida Road
Winter days...all I wanna do is eating. Oh my goodness. Howwwww???
Since there's no other way to fight my appetite, all I can do is..eat right? (If you can't fight your enemy, join him? *twisted reason I know*) Okay, today's post is not definitely not going to help you on your diet in Taipei (anyway the food in Taipei is awesome, going on a diet here is definitely a sin! =P).
If you are studying in Shida and you walk to school from Taipower Building MRT Station, you will go via Shida Road i.e. a road full of good food. If you happen to be in an emergency situation of starvation and you feel like having comfort food, you can try out the restaurant selling dumpling/ potstickers. If you see the sign plastered on my soya milk's cup, you'll know which restaurant I'm referring to. (fyi, soya milk is called 豆漿 (Dòujiāng) in Mandarin).
Ahh, you know the place right? Haha. Or maybe you spot the same restaurant somewhere else? You are not wrong. 鮮天下 (Xiān tiānxià) is a franchise of dumpling restaurant in Taipei.
Whenever you have the chance to eat here, make sure to order their specialities. The first one is the steamed dumpling (水餃/ Shuǐjiǎo). 水餃 is a character that you can find on every corner of Taipei's street. I guess it makes it easier for us to memorize the character. If you are not careful with the tones, you may say it wrong as 睡覺 (Shuìjiào) instead and it means to sleep. Totally different meaning. LOL.
The 2nd speciality is potstickers (鍋貼/ Guōtiē). It looks kinda burned because like what the name says, it sticks to the pan (or pot?) when it's cooked. The price for the 10 pieces of potstickers/ dumplings is less than 100 NTD. It's 65 NTD if I remember correctly. Crazy cheap. And yummy too. My Canadian classmate can eat these everyday. She's addicted I guess. Haha.
You can make it a set of 80 NTD if you ordered a soup. I ordered sweetcorn soup (玉米湯/ Yùmǐ tāng). Other than this, they also sell sweet and sour soup (酸甜湯/ Suān tián tāng). Both taste quite comforting especially on a cold day.
Xian Tian Xia is located at Shida Road right opposite the Shida Road Rou Bao. So if you happen to be around Shida road, you can eat both of them in one visit. If you want to stay near Shida Road, you can check out Li Yuan Hotel's rates and offer at Tripadvisor or Expedia.