Beef Noodle Soup

Maybe with the exception of hot pot, noodle soups are the best things to eat when it’s cold. Beef noodle soups are especially good since… well… beef is delicious.

We went to this place in the Shi Da night market that had beef noodle soup with hand-cut noodles called “Niu Lao Da”.

Niu Lao Da

You just go in, order your noodles (or whatever else you want) and then find somewhere to sit. Get ready to get comfortable with the person next to you.

Beef Noodle Soup

I got a small bowl of the Hong Sao beef noodle soup. Hong sao or “red cooked” is where you cook the beef slowly with a bunch of strong sauces like dou ban jiang. Good stuff.

The noodles, hand-cut, were amazing. I’m a sucker for these kind of noodles. Texture was good and the noodles were just right in terms of firmness (which is apparently expressed in Taiwanese with a word that sounds like “QQ”).

The meat was pretty good, too. Very tender but not too soft that it falls apart in the soup. Apparently, the meat ideally is supposed to be tender but still firm enough to kind of allow your teeth to tear the beef. My dad also had beef tendon in his and he said it was pretty good.

Beef Noodle Soup: Beef Tendon

The broth, on the other hand was so-so. It was okay, but it was kind of weak. Unfortunately, most of the time when you go out to eat beef noodle soup you get fairly watered-down broth, so it’s kinda understandable but still unwelcome.

Overall, still a darn good bowl of beef noodle soup.

They also had these hand-made Jiao Zi there that were pretty good. The skin was fairly thick and firm.

Full meal, including Jiao Zi.

Overall, not bad for around 100NT ($3) a bowl.