San Yuan Chinese Cuisine, Taipei, Taiwan
April 23rd, 2012
Finding ourselves one afternoon near the gigantic Tapei 101 building on our recent trip to Taiwan, we needed a satisfying lunch. I’d read about San Yuan online, and especially wanted to try their famed chocolate dumplings. So, off we went to the trendy and interesting ATT4FUN building across the street, where San Yuan is housed on an upper floor.
San Yuan has a modern look with lots of purple hues. It’s a comfortable an attractive place, and the view of the 101 building is quite nice. It looks more expensive than it is – it’s actually more of a casual restaurant and the food reasonably priced.
We tried a few items from the menu, which was written in both Chinese and English. The “house specialties” are marked with a gold stamp on the menu.
Bamboo shoots appetizer
Hot and Sour Soup
Thick, chewy handmade noodles
Steamed buns (made to look like little spiky critters)
Shrimp and pork dumplings
Xiao long bao – broth-filled pork dumplings
Chocolate dumplings
Overall, we enjoyed our meal at San Yuan very much. It’s comfortable and pleasant. The handmade noodles and chocolate dumplings were superb, and everything else well worth the prices asked. Even the tea had a wonderful and unique flavor… we ended up bringing a jar of tea bags home with us.
It was just about empty on the afternoon we went (an odd hour, around 3:00 if I recall correctly) and so service was very fast and friendly. When we find ourselves in Taiwan again, I think we are likely to return!
San Yuan Chinese Cuisine
at ATT4FUN
No. 12, Song Shou Rd, 5FL
台北市松壽路12號4F
(02) 7737-5088
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Not a fan of xiao long bao…but many people love it. Maybe the ones we have here aren’t so tasty. Eyewwwww…..chocolate in bao’s? No, thank you. Btw, bamboo shoots aren’t good for people with rheumatism, arthritis, gout.. Too “cold”.
Xiao long bao is my favorite dumpling personally. The chocolate ones were actually very good!