(1) The Steamy Ryuno Seafood Restaurant
Steamed and boiled seafood at the opposite side of the old market in Nanfangao. It has been featured in a number of TV food programmes. The restaurant mainly serves fresh seafood stir-fries, but the ingredients are all specialised, such as mackerel, monkfish, prawns, puffer fish, etc. The puffer fish is also known as chicken puffer fish in Hong Kong. Fugu (puffer fish), also known as "chicken puffer fish" in Hong Kong, is also available in Taiwan. We had our main meal at the restaurant, and this time, we were just introduced to one of their specialities, Tai Po Fish Maw, which is actually puffer fish. The fish jelly is actually puffer fish jelly, made from puffer fish skin boiled for more than ten hours, and then added Chinese herbs such as wolfberry and red dates, and then frozen into a fish jelly dessert, try a bite, with a QQ and melt-in-your-mouth texture, the taste has a light lemon fragrance and sweetness, not a hint of fishy flavour! It is also rich in collagen and protein, which makes it a good health product for women's skin care and maintenance of knees and joints. Each small bowl is priced at NT$$150. It may seem expensive, but it's super delicious.
(2) Liao Wing Chuan Rice Cake
Liao Rongchuan Rice Cake has been recommended by Taiwan's famous food and travel variety show "EatSmart Player". (The location is a bit inconspicuous, you have to look for it in the alley next to the Nan Tian Gong. During the daytime, most of the shops in the alley sell fish, but local people know that there are quite a lot of snacks for sale in the alley. Liao Rongchuan Rice Cake's rice cake is really good to eat, come to Su'ao Nan'ao must come to eat once, anyway, the portion is not a lot, eat one more is not too much. To me, as a Hong Konger, the steaming hot old morning rice cake is actually similar to fried rice, the QQ glutinous rice is drizzled with braised pork sauce, sprinkled with colourful and flavourful fish floss, and filled with pickled cucumber, which is already rich to look at, and the whole texture of the taste is a perfect match, and the whole bowl of rice cake gives me a strong sense of human feelings with every mouthful. The fish ball soup at Liao Rongchuan Rice Cake is also good, cheap and tasty!
(3) Yau Kee Fish Balls
Flying Tiger Fish, also known as Ghost Head Fish, is a speciality of Nanfangao, with white flesh and a mild flavour. The whole fish can be eaten in different ways, be it pan-fried, deep-fried, boiled or barbecued, each with its own flavour. The head and belly of the fish are the finest ingredients, the roe of the tiger fish is full of flavour, and the bones of the fish can be used to make a rich fish soup, while the Qiu Kee Fish Balls are of course made from tiger fish and sold in crisp and chewy form. The fishballs are handmade without preservatives and can be eaten in the shop, but they can also be frozen for tourists to buy at home. The fishballs cost NT$100 per catty and can be used as a hotpot ingredient, fried in oil, boiled in soups, barbecued or steamed, and the vacuum-packed fishballs can be preserved for a whole year, and they are still very tasty. The shop is located at the corner of Neipi Fishing Harbour.
(4) TheNanfangao Tourist Fishing Market》
Located at the intersection of Nanning Road and Neipi Road in Su'ao Township, Yilan County, between the first and second fishing harbours, the peak time for boats to return to the fishing harbours is at 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. every day, when the fish are at their peak, and there are the largest amount of fish, and they are also the freshest. As the boats unload one by one, buyers from the neighbouring restaurants and fishmongers rush to buy fresh fish, and even if tourists don't buy, it's still fun to come and join in the fun and feel the atmosphere! Most of the seafood on the ground is counted as a whole tray, and if there are other more expensive fish, they will be counted by the pound, just like in Sai Kung in Hong Kong, so tourists such as us can buy small quantities, and then find a nearby restaurant to cook them for us.
The catch of the day varies with the weather and the season. For example, in the summer, the largest catch is of horned prawns, sweet prawns, and skipjack tuna, which are also the most tasty. From April to June, we often find bluefin tuna from the North Pacific Ocean, which is the largest of the tuna species, so we may find a shop that offers sashimi of bluefin tuna for sampling. The shop said that the usual bluefin tuna sashimi is only $1,000/kg, but if you want to eat bluefin tuna, it is $10,000/kg, which is very expensive.
(5) "Handmade Cuisine of Song Man Yuan
Originally specialising in stir-fries, Songmanyuan has been renovated in recent years to become a Japanese-style creative cuisine restaurant that focuses on cooking with local Yilan ingredients. The two-storey restaurant is comfortable and spacious, decorated in elegant gold and burgundy colours in a Japanese style, with an open dining area, a bar and a separate VIP room. The restaurant uses freshly caught seasonal Yilan seafood and vegetables from its own organic farm, which are highly appreciated by locals. The menu is also very popular for its affordable menu.
With a simple serving of sashimi, the chef's insistence on using fresh and quality ingredients can be felt through the taste buds. With his excellent cooking skills, the chef has created a number of surprisingly exquisite dishes. For example, the "Salt Baked Tilapia" dish uses a large amount of salt to seal the fish before baking, preserving the original flavour of the fish and making the meat very tender. The paper hotpot beef sukiyaki, which is a mix of sweet and salty, is also good. The paper hot pot absorbs the excess fat and impurities and makes the beef tender but not greasy. When you come here, you must try the fragrant lotus tea grown at Song Man Yuan's own farm, which not only looks beautiful, but also tastes sweet and thirst-quenching.
(6) Ali Soya Bean Paste
Ali's Soya Bean Milk is a 30 year old breakfast restaurant next to the Suhua Highway Post Office in Nanao. The business has been very good, usually local people may have to queue up for the food, and if it is a holiday, the queue is inevitable. Ali's Soya Bean Milk is a Taiwanese-style breakfast with a traditional handmade batter and egg cake that is superb, and I've heard that the handmade buns are better than the well-known shops in Yilan. The omelette is thick-crusted, QQ, and very chewy. There is also a mysterious cabbage dumpling, which you won't be able to get if you don't go there before 6-7am.
(7) Good Food Cafe Good Eats Cafe
Nan'ao District in Yilan County is located in the middle of Taiwan's good water and good soil, and the Good Eats Cafe, located near the Nan'ao Railway Station, is a small shop that everyone in the area knows, and if you ask on the street, the warm and hospitable local Taiwanese will love to help show you the way. Good Food Restaurant uses the freshest and most authentic natural ingredients, and strictly selects pesticide-free ingredients, seasoning them in a healthy and simple way, and cooking them with care. The menu varies slightly from day to day, and some of the dishes are altered slightly according to the day's ingredients, making it seem like a no-menu restaurant in South Australia. Good Food Canteen. Another interesting thing is that they have a work-for-home arrangement, as long as you work in the fields during the week and help out in the canteen on Saturdays and Sundays, you can change your accommodation, but only for more than a week at a time, which is a good experience for Hong Kong people.
(8) Normal Dumpling with Fresh Meat
There is one gourmet snack you can't miss when you come to Yilan, and that is the Yilan dumplings with lots of sweet soup and fresh green onions. Normal Dumpling Buns with Fresh Meat has a history of nearly 20 years in Yilan. Originally, Normal Meat Xiao Long Bao had two shops in Yilan, but the elder brother's shop on Taishan Road has been renamed "Just Right Fresh Meat Xiao Long Bao" in recent years, and now there is only one shop opened by the younger brother on Yixing Road. There are not many seats in this small shop, but there is always a long queue of people waiting to see the owner and his staff wrapping the finest black pork and Yilan three-star spring onions in the pastry skins. The thin, springy crusts of the cakes are green with green onions, and the fillings are rich in soup, giving off a light green onion flavour, making them delicious enough to eat without dipping them in soy sauce. It is so popular that if you come too late, it will be sold out.
(9) Lai Ying Seafood
Nanfangao is one of the three famous fishing harbours in Taiwan, where you can see fishing boats returning from their fishing trips. There are many seafood shops along the fishing harbour to attract customers, but with so many tourists, the prices of some shops are not reasonable. If you go in by yourself, you might get ”chopped to pieces”. Luckily, a local recommended us to go to a cheap and tasty Lai Ying Seafood Restaurant in the Nanning Market.
There is a term used in Taiwan's fish market, "現撈仔" which means the freshest seafood caught on the day, Liying Seafood. Li-Ying Seafood is a restaurant that offers fresh seafood cooked in "現撈仔" (現撈仔). This is an old, plain, no-frills restaurant with not much seafood to choose from, but customers can buy live seafood from the stalls next to the restaurant and ask them to cook it for them. Seasonal fish is available in large quantities and the prices are more affordable. The first thing to do is to come to the stall to choose your seafood and how to prepare it, and there is a menu on top of the stall for customers' reference. There is a wide selection of seafood, such as puffer fish, cinnamon crabs, guacamole seeds, and a variety of seasonal fish, but sliced fish is a must-order, as the colour is crystal clear and the meat is firm and fresh, and the price is not too expensive. A plate of sashimi, four small dishes and a plate of fried rice, the total cost is only about $1000, not too expensive for Hong Kong people, right? Commonly recommended dishes such as sashimi, grilled prawns, steamed fish, fish soup and fried clams are also available here. The cooking method here is based on the principle of savouring the original freshness of the seafood. In addition to seafood, we also ordered a few small dishes and fried rice, just a few simple rice dishes, which already shows that Lai Ying Seafood's cooking skills are not bad.
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