August 2024 Shoal Menu
Despite the upcoming start of autumn, it's likely still the sweltering heat of the late summer. Good food must first be appetizing to eat. The August menu still aims to stimulate the appetite. We hope Shoal is your first craving when you lack appetite.
August operating hours: Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday for lunch and dinner; Tuesday and Friday for dinner only; no afternoon tea on weekends; closed on Mondays. To visit Shoal 2.0, please make a reservation and be aware of the operating hours. Notice will be given for any occasional closures to avoid disappointment.
For reservations, you can message our Facebook page and we will reply when possible. If you prefer not to use digital tools, you can make a phone reservation between 14:30 and 16:30. Please avoid calling during meal service times for non-immediate reservations, as it is difficult to handle during busy periods.
| August 2024 Menu |
| This translation is provided by ChatGPT and does not guarantee complete accuracy. Please refer to the original Chinese menu for precise information. |
Hand-Shredded Feng Chicken
NT$210
Shoal's classic feng chicken mixed with onions and green onions, offering a refreshing and lively taste. "Feng," originally a method to preserve food before modern refrigeration, involved curing and hanging food outdoors to capture the rich flavors through wind during the cold winters. The sweet taste of chicken, the saltiness of sea salt, and the aromatic numbing sensation of Sichuan peppers layer intricately. The intense fragrance of the pepper salt, prepared meticulously, elevates the flavors without overpowering them. Cooked with precise heat to sublime the spices, and salt rubbed by hand to determine the marinating flavors, steaming retains the tender texture and original form using a bamboo steamer passed down through three generations, maintained over the years by craftsman Huang Fu-xing from Jiayi Lucao.
Braised Pork Stomach
NT$170
Familiar and approachable spices create a delightful taste, with no single flavor taken for granted. Bai zhi is particularly unique, dominating the sweet musky aroma. A rich broth made from various spices and brewed from Changhua Huatan mixed beans sourced from Yuan Xing soy sauce forms the base. The pork stomach is soaked in this aromatic and richly seasoned broth, achieving deliciousness through time. The challenge lies in the duration of the braising, aiming for a texture that is both tender and chewy. The preliminary processing is labor-intensive, involving odor removal and multiple rinsings with flour to achieve a clean, slick surface, followed by blanching to remove the thin outer membrane and trim the fat.
Yunnan-Style Aspic
NT$175
A refreshing and spicy Yunnan-style aspic that whets the appetite. This dish is considered "edible art" by those who favor it. To ensure a crystal-clear appearance, it requires a gentle simmer for an extended period. A blend of spices, soy sauce, and rice wine is slowly stewed with pig's feet over low heat for three hours. The broth should simmer just enough to resemble a gently blooming chrysanthemum. The goal is to achieve a melt-in-your-mouth texture, allowing the collagen to be fully released before dicing the meat and setting it in molds with refined broth, waiting for time to perform its magic. A sprinkling of cilantro, sesame seeds, and crushed peanuts, topped with a boldly contrasting spicy sauce and chili oil, adds to the final presentation.
Silverfish Tofu
NT$150
Without traditional smoked fish, there would be no Silverfish Tofu. Fried silverfish are laid atop chilled tofu, drizzled with a sweet and enticing smoked fish sauce, garnished with fresh green onions. One bite, and before thanking the gods, you will find yourself thanking the tradition of smoked fish.
Black Bean Sauce Half-Life Melon
NT$210
As the bitter melon ripens to a yellow hue, its flesh, resembling the color of apricots or oranges, softens and splits, ready to be gently picked. The red sac encasing the seeds turns a deep red, marking the most deliciously sweet and fantastical moment for this variety of white jade bitter melon. Ming Dynasty's Zhu Mu in "Jiu Huang Ben Cao": "It has a red flesh, sweet in taste, pick the ripened yellow ones to eat the flesh." Selected Tainan Yongxing premium soy sauce, a century-old tradition of pure brewing, enhances the ingredients alongside Yongxing fermented black beans and Miaoli Xiu Shan Tea Garden's aged salty vegetables. The heat is gently applied, merging the bitter and sweet flavors, and after refrigerating overnight, it transforms into a divine fruit, a self-contained universe. Bitter melon, also known as "half-life melon," resembles the myriad flavors of life, aging gracefully into sweetness.
Chilled Bok Choy Hearts
NT$160
A recreation of a family banquet by Ye Xin-qing, founder of Yongfu Lou, a dish that never goes out of style on the dining table. The crisp freshness of bok choy combined with the crunch of peanuts requires experienced hands to achieve a refreshing and sweet vegetable taste with a hint of sauce but no raw flavor. Yongfu Lou, established by Ye Xin-qing in 1978 in Taipei's East District, once spanned a thousand pings and was renowned as the leading Ningbo cuisine restaurant of its time. It employed renowned chefs from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisines, making it the pinnacle of culinary service. In 1986, it changed hands, integrating Cantonese cuisine and reducing its size, no longer the temple of Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisines it once was. Unable to sustain the rent, it closed in 2019, a focus of media attention on its final night. Standing for forty-one years, it served as a culinary consultant for the inauguration banquets of the tenth and twelfth presidents, a gathering place for the most influential figures, and was a cultural landmark in the political drama "International Bridge Society."
Fresh Golden Bamboo Shoots
NT$110
Using golden bamboo shoots from Taichung's Dajia, covered with soil and cloth for precise cultivation, these top-quality shoots are kept dark and harvested immediately into 2°C chilled water for freshness. The long and robust organic Ma bamboo shoots are sweet and crisp, akin to ice pears. Bamboo shoots are prized for their sweet freshness, and their natural flavor is considered the best. Tainan Yongxing white exposed soy sauce is used as a dipping sauce, subtly enhancing the exquisite taste. Li Yu in "Idle Thoughts Miscellany" Volume 5, Vegetables Section on Bamboo Shoots: "Boil until cooked, add a little soy sauce, from ancient times the most beautiful things have always been best enjoyed in solitude."
Fried Bamboo Shoots
NT$120
A recreation of a family banquet by Ye Xin-qing, founder of Yongfu Lou. Using the white braising technique with seasonal fresh bamboo shoots, accompanied by tofu skin knots, peas, carrots, and green onions, and enhanced with broth and cornstarch for a thickening effect, this dish is colorful and refreshing with a savory and fresh taste. "Any smaller and it would be hard to see," reflects the generosity of the Ye family, embodied in ordinary ingredients. The bamboo shoots are not thinly sliced but cut into thick pieces with a rolling knife, a different measure in a different time and space, even the intensity of flavors has its own standards. Amidst the homely taste, there lies a unique culinary perspective.
Clams with Silver Sprouts
NT$215
Silver sprouts are meticulously prepared, topped with the savory flavor of Jinhua ham and the fresh sweetness of tender clams, creating a broth rich in layers. The common ingredients require a meditative pre-preparation, making Clams with Silver Sprouts a time-consuming endeavor, a true expression of a chef's sincerity.
Wild Ginger Flower Pork Fillet
NT$210
Seasonal and timely flavor. The aroma of wild ginger flowers is palpable, filling the room with a pleasant fragrance and the dish with a delightful taste. Simple yet profound, the fatty pork is cut into fillets, seasoned, and stir-fried in a hot pan with cold oil. The white flowers, resembling butterflies, combine with the fresh ginger scent and the fat to create a romantic presence on the dining table.
Concubine Beef
NT$330
From the recipe book of Fu Pei-mei, a banquet-style Hunan dish requiring careful attention to cooking. The sweet and sour of tomatoes, the rooty sweetness of carrots, and the enticingly bright red hue of the sauce embody the seductive allure of a concubine. Using Taiwanese beef for a reliable and sweet base. Beef ribs are cut into chunks and sautéed with a large amount of onions, ginger, and star anise, combined with GanShan Mingde soy sauce, spicy bean paste, and sweet bean paste concealed within. The key to red-braised dishes starts with soy sauce, originating from the Japanese Taisho era, Changhua She Tou Xin Chun Spring soy sauce undergoes a second fermentation in a dry tank, suited for thick ingredients. The aged aroma is stable and the aftertaste beautifully lingering, paired with Xi Luo Rui Chun original flavor soy sauce, collaborating in the great endeavor of red braising. Fresh beef tomatoes generously contribute, cooked until soft but not mushy, rich and aromatic.
Ningbo Fried Yellow Croaker
NT$240
A recreation of a family banquet by Ye Xin-qing, founder of Yongfu Lou. True to flavor, strong, and freshly aromatic with wine. The fish is prepared with yellow wine batter to remove any fishy smell and enhance the aroma, creating a cloud-like intoxicating dough. The yellow croaker is filleted, boned, and cut diagonally with the skin on, then coated in batter and slowly fried until golden. Although it appears simple, achieving perfection is a fine line. Due to the high cost of ingredients and the loss of material during preparation, this dish was a festive dish for the Ye family and also personally prepared by Lady Ye Lin Yueying. It was only available during special occasions when "the black-headed car" arrived.
Egg Dumpling Duck Soup
NT$180
Made with Shoal's traditional osmanthus salted duck, using native ducks from Fangyuan Township, Changhua County, which are naturally juicy and tender. The duck heads, necks, wings, and feet are used to prepare a rich broth, characterized by a distinct duck aroma and a sweet, rich flavor from the blending of duck meat and spices. Pure duck fat adds a clear moisture to the soup, while the broth's collagen fills it out. Handmade egg dumplings soak up the essence and are boiled along with mushrooms and vegetables. A spoonful of egg liquid and a ball of meat filling are slowly pan-fried over low heat, requiring patience as an energy source until the egg and meat aromas are perfectly balanced, folded into dumplings and marked with tiger stripes. The time-consuming process in the frying pan results in a fluid yet cohesive display of skill and intention.
Champion Rice
NT$20
Grown by rice champion Tian Shou-xi in Zhubei, a pioneer in cultivating Taoyuan No. 3 rice, which has won the title of top ten classic rice in the nation for two consecutive years, crowned as the best rice-producing area in 2014. The sweetness of the rice is memorable, immediately recognizable by the taste buds without the need for chewing. The rice grains are distinct, with a texture that is neither too soft nor too hard. Freshly milled and delivered, cultivated with sustainable agricultural practices, using no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides. Orange ladybugs are commonly seen among the strong morning glory vines in the fields. The soil is nurtured year after-year with green manure, tilled and exposed to the sun, with a limited rice yield.
| Shoal's Chicken Rice |
A nostalgic recollection of childhood and homeland by the founder, Su Wen-wen. Originally meant for personal consumption, it is only made during anniversary celebrations, yet it has amassed countless fans who praise it as "the world's most delicious chicken rice!" Ma Shi-fang acclaimed it as "peerless," and Feng Xiao-fei commented: "Such food like Shoal's chicken rice should exist to increase the rice consumption rate." A mother's sentiment is most touching: "This is the kind of chicken rice a mother wants her child to eat!"
Private Chicken Rice
Straw Raincoat Cucumber
Wheat-Colored Pipa Shrimp
NT$340
In a white porcelain bowl, the rice is soft and fragrant, topped with sweet, tender chicken and drizzled with a thick, pure chicken juice mixed with a fragrant traditional black bean soy sauce. A pour of rich, fragrant chicken oil makes the first bite utterly joyful! The fragrant and oily chicken rice, accompanied by various exquisite side dishes, is homely yet refined, a trick to devour it all.
Straw raincoat cucumber is artistically arranged in a coiled dragon shape, with a serpent-belly cut by the artisan's knife. The cutting does not speak; it refines character and nurtures the soul. The fresh, crisp, and richly appetizing cucumber, mixed with soy sauce, Sichuan pepper oil, and rice vinegar, plays a role in cutting through the richness.
Fresh shrimp are peeled, leaving the last segment and tail intact. The shrimp meat is flattened into a pipa shape, marinated, then coated in egg white and sweet potato flour before being fried to a wheat color. This dish, reminiscent of the founder Su Wen-wen's childhood, is recorded in old cookbooks from the 1960s culinary trends.
Mini Chicken Rice
Chrysanthemum Radish
Shrimp Roll
NT$190
The rice portion is halved, fitting the greatest common divisor for those cutting down on starch. The white radish is cut into a cross shape, blooming like a chrysanthemum. The chrysanthemum radish, pickled in sugar and vinegar, is tinted with gardenia yellow and perilla red.
Ground meat, fish paste, and finely chopped vegetables are mixed with sweet shrimp flesh and rich shrimp paste, extended with pork caul fat to wrap smoothly as the fingertips glide over it. Fried in warm oil until golden and crispy, the burst of fat aroma instantly unlocks the shrimp's flavor. The shrimp roll is tied to Taiwan's snack culture, wrapping in both mountain delicacies and the extraordinary charm of everyday food.
| Cooling the Heat |
Dual Wen Grass Tea
NT$80
Across generations of herbal medicine, when encountering a miraculous herb indescribable in words, one might exclaim: "Truly a heavenly grass." These dual-use plants accumulate over life and become everyday staples across the seasons. Each plant of resurrection grass is simmered in a clay pot to make a tea that disperses seasonal qi and cools the body. The founder, Su Wen-wen, has a pharmacy in her kitchen, studying herbal texts as if they were cookbooks, practicing qi for twenty years, and taking classes in Chinese medicine. Amidst the bustling heat of the kitchen, Shoal's daily cooling tasks are her responsibility, as she prepares the herbal prescriptions. "There is nothing useless in the world, only those who cannot use things properly." This quote from "Shennong Bencao Jing," widely circulated and edited by Sun Xingyan and Sun Fengyi, speaks to the wisdom of utilizing all parts of a plant.
Five Flower Tea
NT$85
With a refreshing aroma and sweet flavor that cools and relieves summer heat, this is a basic type of Hong Kong-style herbal tea. It uses jasmine flowers from PinDong DaWu Mountain's Hua Man Xi Farm, cultivated with natural farming techniques, and Shoal's own sun-dried frangipani, along with other flowers like inula, coltsfoot, and kudzu flowers, simmered in a clay pot. The five-flower recipe can flexibly incorporate various blooms to cool and reduce internal heat, a functionality beverage rooted in Lingnan's traditional dietary culture, a folk wisdom for health.
Bidens Alba Tea
NT$75
The flowers are fried with sugar until the sugar expands and crystallizes into a frost, sealing the Bidens alba flowers with sugar. This concoction is made into a cold drink to cool and remove summer heat. Bidens alba, a common ingredient in Taiwanese herbal teas, showcases the local adaptation of herbal medicine.
Osmanthus Cornsilk Tea
NT$85
The delicate scent of osmanthus blends with the sweetness of cornsilk tea, dotted with chia seeds for an elegant, light texture. Drawing on ancient recipes designed by Gu Bi-ling for the "Country Roads" magazine article "Rural Beverage Bar," this tea is refreshingly pleasant. Osmanthus brewing at Shoal relies solely on handwork, as workers painstakingly pick the blossoms, diving into a time cave with embroidery-like precision, slowly selecting and discarding the withered flowers and coarse stems, meticulously cleaning each delicate white blossom. After killing the green, the flowers are buried in rock sugar to preserve their fragrance. Shoal's sun-dried corn silks from Tian Tian Farm are grown with friendly farming practices, soaking up abundant sunlight and packed with energy. Ancient herbals commend cornsilk for its cooling and diuretic properties.
| The Tipsy Quadrant |
Pomelo Brew
NT$160
"My brewing represents freedom!" states Kou Yan-ding, author of "You've Committed the Crime of Subverting Taiwan's Fruit Brewing." A single bottle can create a universe, once deeply immersed in Yilan's secluded self-brewed pomelo, before leaving Taiwan, he entrusted his precious brew to Shoal as a living testament to his existence. The brewing process is highly experimental, dissecting the pomelo's peel, vesicles, and seeds to explore the detailed flavors of brewing, a unique and astonishing experience.
| Heartwarming Hot Drinks |
Sour Mandarin Tea + Mandarin Cake
NT$80
A unique tea drink from Hakka culture, tea leaves are packed into tiger-head mandarins and repeatedly steamed and dried, following the Tang and Song dynasties' method of "steaming into rounds," making it one of the few compressed teas in Taiwan. Used for dispelling wind and cold as part of health maintenance, it has the mild effect of dried tangerine peel.
Shoal continues the craft of Zheng Xing-ze's mother, Zheng Wang Qin-zi, following ancient tea-making methods of steaming and drying. Blending the calm, quiet aroma of twenty-year-old tea freshly roasted, it adds various herbs. Zhang Qing-kuan's "Fruit Tea Processing Methods," a field study of Chinese herbs added to tea across Taiwan, shows that the inclusion of these herbs often depends on life's needs and local conditions. Tea making reviews ancient herbals, also reflecting on the serene moods of the past.
Miaoli Yuanli's naturally farmed tiger-head mandarins, thick-skinned and juicy, with a sour and sweet flavor. A hole is made at the stem end, the fruit is removed, and the cavity is filled with tea leaves and herbs. The aroma is gentle and full, completely refilled into the mandarin to make it round and full, tightly sealed with rush rope, steamed to blend the flavors, compressed to prevent decay, sun-dried to ferment, and baked dry, producing a dense, dark, and shiny result, laboriously created through nine cycles of steaming and drying.
The tiger-head mandarins offered on the altar during the New Year, used for tea-making after the festivities, carry the blessings of safety and protection, hence also known as Peace Tea. From the start of spring to the beginning of autumn, a single sour mandarin is tamed into a sour mandarin tea, taking half a year to mature into a sweetly aged flavor, bringing us back to the dietary wisdom of our ancestors. The richly steeped tea is vibrant with mandarin aroma, clarifying the mind and spirit.
Mandarin Cake, made by immersing the whole fruit in syrup, is sweet and spicy, pleasing to the palate. Documented in the Qing dynasty in China, it is now part of Taiwan's Hakka traditional dietary culture, a home remedy for health, rich in flavor that nourishes the teeth.
| Supreme Desserts |
Honeyed Fruit Ice
NT$190
Shoal preserves fruits in sugar, capturing the essence of Taiwan's four seasons. The fragrant and sweet honey-preserved plums, bright and sweet honeyed pineapples, vividly tangy and sweet honey-preserved passion fruits, and traditional nostalgic papaya strips... a variety of honeyed fruits, naturally pure without additives, piled high on shaved ice, drizzled with Lin winter melon fried sugar, first satisfying the eyes. Taiwan's sugar cane culture, a precious and reviving traditional fried sugar technique, requires laborious effort and long maturation, refining the sweet amber, layering the sugar aroma. Ancient herbals praise winter melon for its cooling, diuretic, thirst-quenching, and annoyance-removing properties, boiled and fried with rock sugar to enhance its sweetness. The icy sugar and fruit flavors deeply satisfy, a survival tactic for hot summers.
Lychee Granita
NT$165
From Chiayi Puzi Jiangxia's Xingyuan Farm, the wild-grown Heiye lychees are soft and fragrantly lush, rich and sweetly voluptuous, fully ripe with a bursting fruit flavor. Peeled and seeded to make granita, leaving a lingering floral and fruity aroma in the mouth for a long time. After tasting the lychee granita during her seventh visit to Shoal, Ms. Da Nei Kang Ji commented, "I truly felt like my soul was cleansed." This established the character and value of this dessert.
Honey Plum Aiyu Jelly
NT$105
Shoal takes pride in its honey-preserved plums, gathered from wild old trees within Yushan National Park, guarded by the Bunun people of the Meishan tribe, free from chemical fertilizers and herbicides. The plums, radiant and alluringly beautiful, leave a taste even the mountain boars would envy. Shoal insists on manually de-seeding to keep the fruit whole, preserving the naturally sweet and mature fruit, pure and additive-free. The plum fragrance is as sweet and rich as cherries, paired with hand-washed Alishan aiyu jelly, creating an exquisite dessert.
Passion Fruit Aiyu Jelly
NT$100
Shoal preserves the most representative variety of Formosa, the Tainong No. 1 passion fruit, honeying the orange-yellow juicy pulp. Originating from Nantou Puli, the largest passion fruit-producing area, the Shuigukut Farm practices friendly cultivation with organic fertilizers, no pesticides, and net protection. The fruit matures on the vine, ripening and detaching naturally, with plump, round fruits and thick, juicy pulp and seeds, richly fragrant and ripe as if panning for gold, nurtured by the climate of central Taiwan. Paired with hand-washed Alishan aiyu jelly.
We change the menu seasonally according to the time of year. In a bid to accommodate those dining alone, dishes are priced per person. Customers can choose the number of servings they need based on their party size and appetite, served in a style that allows sharing. We only accommodate ten customers every thirty minutes, with each reservation slot being half an hour.
