芙蓉食堂 - Furong Eatery near Anping Old Street @ Tainan in Taiwan

To gather insights on where to have our meals for our 11-day trip to Taiwan earlier this year, I narrowed my search to Taiwan-based YouTube channels that focused on local food recommendations. 

For Taiwan's ancient capital of Tainan, also known as the country's food capital, it was an arduous task to decide but 芙蓉食堂 (translated as Furong Eatery) appeared a couple of times across a few channels! Hence, it shall be our destination for brunch, and our first meal upon arrival in Tainan.

Located next to a sprawling cemetery and near Anping Old Street, Furong Eatery was a your local nondescript dining establishment selling pretty standard Taiwanese meals that don't usually catch my attention.

With the recommendations from the YouTube channels, I am well prepared on what to order, even though with just picky and small-eater Alex as my only companion, I had to reduce the number of dishes I could order. 

Bottled Oolong Tea - a simple bottle of tea from the fridge would not have generated much interest but this was well a mention for two reasons; it cost us NT$120 (about S$5) which was darn expensive given my humble earnings. 

Second reason: it was literally cold brew and tasted surprisingly smooth without the bitter, intense tartness when tea leaves were submerged for too long! As can be seen from the photograph, the tea leaves were IN the bottle and there's a filter for ease of drinking! Being a stingy individual, I reused the tea leaves a few more times.  

Braised Pork Rice - now, while Tainan is known as Taiwan's food capital, it was well known among locals that the food often had an added sweetness that even some Taiwanese couldn't accept. Therefore, I am already prepared for a different kind of luroufan.

Layers of glistening pork fats were already winners in my opinion and taste wise, more savoury than sweet, and I was more worried about the sinfulness and the cholesterol load I gained! Loving it; the taste that is! 

Signature Fried Fish - in normal circumstances, this would not be something I would order. Fish meat had a tendency to be fishy, and it's just a safer bet to go with chicken or pork. However, this was a must order in all the YouTube videos I watched and I ordered, with bated breath, as my chopsticks picked out a piece to pop into my mouth! 

It was unforgettably good and fresh; look at the thickness of moist fish meat! None of the fishiness and would definitely appeal to fish lovers like my mom! Batter was similar to those from the crunchy salt and pepper Taiwanese pork cutlet and there was a light sprinkling of sour plum powder for increased palatability!

Dipping it into the Thai sweet chilli sauce; heavenly! To be fair, I am obsessed with Thai sweet chilli sauce, especially the Kimball brand; to the extent I would usually stock up whenever I am in Malaysia! p.s. Kimball Thai Chilli had been out of stock in Singapore for like forever.

  

Pickled Watermelon Fish Soup - another signature for Furong Eatery and it's something that made me scratched my head; how amazing can fish soup be although I bet it would still be nice for the tummy when the weather was cold. 

No doubt the eatery was generous with the fish meat; they were chunky with a solid, satisfying bite! Taste wise, it was more like freshwater fish which was renowned for the unwelcome "muddy" taste. Something had to offset the muddiness and that's when the soup played an important role! 

Cooked with this ingredient called watermelon sponge, I would say it would be easier to call it pickled watermelon skin that made the soup sour! Similar to 酸菜汤 (pickled vegetable soup) yet mild and not too overpowering! 

Alex, the picky eater, was impressed! 

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Would I be back? A 101% yes! There were so many things I wanted to try but didn't manage to! If not for the fact that we needed to rush off to Chiayi the next day, we actually had the intention to return and check out other dishes like furong beancurd, boiled squids! There will be a next time! 

Address

No 51, 運河路, Anping District,

Tainan City, Taiwan

Map

As above.

Menu (in Chinese)

As above.

Pricing

Bottled Oolong Tea - NT$120

Braised Pork Rice - NT$25

Signature Fried Fish - NT$170

Pickled Watermelon Fish Soup - NT$340

(NETT)

Click HERE for 11 Days, 10 Nights Taiwan Trip: Summarised Itinerary for Chiayi Alishan (嘉义阿里山) - Kaohsiung (高雄) - Tainan (台南) - Taichung (臺中)