September 2024 Shoal Menu
"Sometimes, to slay demons, one must be a demon." — Huang Liqun, "Half Sugar, Half Ice".
As the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, the lingering charm of "End of Heat," when "the heat retreats and hides away," is still appreciable. Our September menu combines refreshing dishes to dispel heat and warming foods to ward off cold, coexisting to accommodate the ambiguous weather between hot and cold. Satisfying various complex needs allows you to eat well and sleep peacefully. It's hard to avoid traditions during the Mid-Autumn Festival; we also offer daily fruit-flavored barbecue available for random addition.
September operating hours: Lunch and dinner are served on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays; on Tuesdays and Fridays, only dinner is served. Weekend afternoon tea is temporarily unavailable. Closed on Mondays. When visiting Shoal 2.0, please make a reservation and pay attention to our operating hours. We may close irregularly, so please do not come in vain.
You can make reservations by sending a private message to our page; we will reply during our free time. If you prefer not to use digital tools, please call between 14:30 and 16:30 in the afternoon to make a reservation by phone. For reservations not for the current meal period, please avoid calling during serving hours; it's difficult to handle everything properly when we're in a rush.
| September 2024 Menu |
| This translation is provided by ChatGPT and cannot guarantee complete accuracy. Please refer to the original Chinese menu for detailed information. |
Drunken Chicken
NT$ 2/g
A recreation of the family banquet dish by Ye Xin-qing, founder of Yongfu Lou, embodying the gourmet tastes of the 1970s aristocracy. Amber-colored yellow wine carries the fragrant aroma of fermented rice wine. Without diluting with broth, fresh chicken thighs are soaked in pure wine sauce for seven days, seasoned with sea salt and yellow wine, creating a robust and unparalleled flavor. The wine's rich and mellow aroma, combined with the tender and juicy chicken, creates a deeply satisfying dish.
Lemon Century Egg
NT$185
Using award-winning, lead-free herbal century eggs produced by exemplary farmer Su Qing-fa from Tainan. The duck eggs come from ducks raised in low-density conditions, with a 90% egg-laying rate, fed on cornmeal, soybean meal, and probiotics. Coated in a mixture of red soil, acacia, plantain, banyan aerial roots, wild grapes, and lemongrass, and aged for a month, these century eggs are clean and free of off-flavors. The egg white is a deep black, and the yolk is as molten as lava. Diced tomatoes and onions, mixed with celery, cilantro, and minced garlic, are tossed in a light and translucent Yongxing soy sauce, and grated lemon zest is added for a refreshing and appetizing flavor.
Duck Gizzards Confit
NT$180
Shoal’s classic osmanthus salted duck, rich and savory, provides an abundance of luxurious duck oil. The pure, fragrant fat is used for confit. The gizzards are cured in coarse salt with shallots, galangal, star anise, black pepper, and nutmeg, drawing out the spices’ full flavor. Slow-roasted at low temperatures in osmanthus duck fat for five hours, the gizzards become tender and flavorful, surpassing traditional braising. After three days of salt curing and slow roasting, the confit is packed with a complex, savory aroma—a classic of Southwest French cuisine.
Chilled Mushrooms with Niu Gan Ba
NT$180
Seasoned with Yunnan Hui minority’s unique dried beef jerky, "Niu Gan Ba," a well-preserved and portable staple. Featuring various mushrooms, such as tea tree mushrooms, shiitake, and black fungus, along with red peppers, this dish is tossed in fresh lemon juice instead of vinegar, creating a clean, bright, and refreshing acidity that awakens the taste buds.
Kinpira Gobo
NT$125
A classic vegetarian dish from "Zheng Xingze’s Shoal Bento." Thinly sliced burdock root is stir-fried in sesame oil with chili strips, perfectly balancing soy sauce, sake, mirin, and sugar for the traditional Japanese Kinpira flavor. The dish is soft, flavorful, and can be served hot or cold, with a sweet and savory appeal. Burdock, known as "Kinpira," symbolizes the courage and resilience of the legendary warrior Sakata Kintoki. Shoal played a role in supporting Zheng Xingze's wrongful conviction case, offering visitation, psychological support, and meal deliveries for three years until his acquittal on November 21, 2017.
Yunnan-Style Pork Trotter Aspic
NT$175
Yunnan-style Pork Trotter Aspic, intensely spiced and refreshingly appetizing, is a unique dish often described by enthusiasts as an "edible work of art." To achieve a crystal-clear aspic, it requires slow, labor-intensive simmering. Various spices, soy sauce, and rice wine are gently simmered with pork trotters for three hours. In a deep pot, the slow bubbling resembles a blooming chrysanthemum. The trotters must be cooked until tender, releasing all the collagen, then diced and set in molds with refined broth. Time works its magic, turning the broth into a perfectly set aspic. The dish is finished with cilantro, sesame, crushed peanuts, and a sharp contrast of spicy sauce and chili oil.
Shrimp Lettuce Wraps
NT$235
Fresh lettuce cups are chilled and dehydrated, filled with minced shrimp, edamame, water chestnuts, and carrots, stir-fried to perfection. The crisp lettuce contrasts with the flavorful filling, creating a refreshing, crunchy bite. The dish is said to originate from the Qing imperial kitchen or be a variation of pigeon lettuce wraps by the famed chef Tan Cui Zu'an.
Ningbo Fried Yellow Croaker
NT$240
A recreation of Ye Xin-qing's family banquet dish, this Ningbo Fried Yellow Croaker is powerful in flavor, with fresh fish and a strong aroma of wine. The yellow wine batter eliminates any fishiness and enhances the taste, creating a cloud-like, fragrant coating around the fish. The yellow croaker is filleted, deboned, and cut diagonally with the skin on, then coated in the wine batter and slowly fried to perfection. It’s served with pepper salt. Though it appears simple, the precision required makes all the difference. Due to the high cost of ingredients and the potential for material loss, this dish was a festive delicacy in the Ye family, personally prepared by Lady Ye Lin Yueying, served only on special occasions when "the black car arrived."
Stir-Fried Shredded Pork with Dried Tofu
NT$180
A common homestyle dish in Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisine, though simple, it requires skill in knife work, heat control, and seasoning. Each piece of dried tofu is sliced into six thin strips, and each strip is further divided into hundreds of fine shreds. The delicate tofu is not stirred but flipped to avoid breaking, making it a challenge to cook it into a flavorful dish. The tofu used is from the renowned Mingfeng brand, made from non-GMO soybeans imported from the U.S., filtered with ten stages of pure water, and processed into tofu without any additives, retaining its natural flavor and texture.
Bali Beef
NT$360
A traditional Balinese beef dish rich in spices and sauce, balanced with the smooth sweetness of coconut milk and palm sugar. Prepared by Chef Amie from Crystal Palace, her expert craftsmanship brings the authentic flavors of her Indonesian homeland. This dish has been certified by the taste buds of Taiwan’s pro-democracy veterans, Lin Shi-yu and Hu Hui-ling, who personally taught Shoal the essential techniques. Thick-cut chunks of beef shank are generously spiced with candlenuts, shallots, garlic, chili, and ginger, pounded into a paste and stir-fried with tomatoes. Seasoned with Indonesian sweet soy sauce and palm sugar, the beef is cooked until tender and infused with the fragrance of shredded lemon leaves and coconut milk, creating an intensely flavorful and aromatic dish bursting with Southeast Asian flair.
Creamy Mushroom Frittata
NT$140
This was the late writer Huang Xiao-dai’s favorite egg dish at Shoal. Made with organic free-range eggs from Green Life Farm in Changhua’s Yongjing, this frittata is enhanced with Mingde's homemade spicy broad bean paste from Kaohsiung and mixed with French Elle & Vire cream to create a rich mushroom sauce. Xiao-dai once remarked, as she took a bite of the frittata, “So homely, yet so refined, like joining a neighbor’s banquet and finding a seat at the table.”
Chicken Liver Pâté with King Oyster Mushrooms
NT$155
Fresh chicken livers are meticulously cleaned and finely chopped shallots are prepared to ensure a delicate texture. Sautéed in a blend of pure chicken fat and French Elle & Vire fermented unsalted butter, the chicken livers are cooked gently to preserve their tender pink color. Seasoned with black pepper and sea salt, a splash of red wine vinegar removes any gamey flavor, and the mixture is cooked down into a rich, smooth pâté. Paired with premium organic king oyster mushrooms from Dafa Farm in Taichung, which are seared to golden perfection with a touch of pepper and salt, the mushrooms' nutty aroma complements the pâté, offering a refined, elegant dish with a crunchy, tender texture reminiscent of abalone.
Stir-Fried Double Bamboo Shoots
NT$175
This dish features golden bamboo shoots from Taichung’s Dakeng area, grown in the dark to preserve their delicate, crisp texture. Immediately after harvesting, they are chilled to maintain their freshness. The organic Ma bamboo shoots are sweet and crisp, with a texture as fine as ice pears. The bamboo shoots are cut into rolling knife slices, then stir-fried with green onions in pure chicken oil. Paired with water bamboo shoots, black fungus, and carrots, the dish is simmered in chicken broth until perfectly flavorful.
Persimmon Chicken Soup
NT$175
Made with traditional persimmon cakes from HuanKeng, where generations have perfected the art of drying persimmons using longan wood charcoal. The cow heart persimmons from Jiayi’s Fanlu are carefully smoked, following a process passed down for five generations. According to the "Compendium of Materia Medica," persimmons are highly beneficial, and their frost has the ability to "quench thirst." This unique smoked flavor is reminiscent of dried longan, and the rare frosted persimmons are used to make chicken soup, following a recipe from the ancient text "Jisheng Fang." The result is a sweet, clear, and soothing broth.
Champion Rice
NT$20
Grown by rice champion Tian Shou-xi in Zhubei, this Taoyuan No. 3 rice has won top ten classic rice awards for two consecutive years and was named the champion rice of 2014. Its sweetness is instantly recognizable and doesn’t require much chewing for its flavor to shine. The rice grains are perfectly distinct, with an ideal balance of softness and firmness. Freshly milled and delivered, this rice is grown sustainably without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides, with orange ladybugs often seen among the strong morning glory vines. The soil is enriched with green manure year after year, ensuring a limited but high-quality harvest.
| Shoal’s Chicken Rice |
Founder Su Wen-wen’s nostalgic tribute to her childhood and hometown. Originally made for family, it became a fan favorite during Shoal’s anniversary celebrations, with many praising it as "the best chicken rice in the world!" Ma Shi-fang calls it "unparalleled," and Feng Xiao-fei remarked, "Shoal’s chicken rice is the kind of food that could boost rice consumption." A mother's heartfelt comment sums it up best: "This is exactly the kind of chicken rice a mother wants her child to eat!"
Private Chicken Rice
Straw Raincoat Cucumber
Golden Pipa Shrimp
NT$340
Soft, fragrant rice is topped with tender, sweet chicken, drizzled with rich chicken juice and traditional black bean soy sauce, and finished with aromatic chicken oil. The first bite brings pure joy! This fragrant and smooth chicken rice, paired with a variety of exquisite side dishes, offers a homely yet refined meal that will leave nothing but empty plates.
The straw raincoat cucumber is artfully arranged in a coiled dragon shape, with precise knife cuts that enhance its crisp, refreshing flavor. A blend of soy sauce, Sichuan pepper oil, and rice vinegar offers a tangy, spicy balance to cut through the richness.
The fresh shrimp, with the last segment of the shell and tail left on, is flattened into a pipa shape, marinated, coated in egg white and sweet potato flour, and fried to a golden hue. This dish, a favorite from Su Wen-wen’s childhood, is documented in old cookbooks from the 1970s.
Mini Chicken Rice
Chrysanthemum Radish
Pig Liver Rolls
NT$190
A smaller portion of chicken rice, ideal for those cutting back on starch.
Chrysanthemum radish is delicately cut into flower-like shapes, pickled in a sweet and sour blend with hints of gardenia yellow and perilla red.
Pig liver rolls, a refined dish from the old Taiwanese aristocratic cuisine, were once a symbol of luxury due to the high price of pork liver. The liver is made into a rich, dark pâté, then wrapped in caul fat to form a roll, packed with a flavorful filling of scallions and water chestnuts to balance the richness. Fried until golden and crispy, the first bite releases a burst of fat and liver flavors, offering a satisfying and elegant two-bite portion.
| Cooling Delights |
Dual Wen Grass Tea
NT$80
Throughout history, when encountering miraculous herbs, ancient texts would often exclaim, "This is true heavenly grass." These medicinal and edible plants have become a staple of everyday life across the seasons. Each plant of resurrection grass is simmered in a clay pot, brewed into a cooling tea that dispels seasonal heat. Founder Su Wen-wen, with twenty years of study in Chinese herbal medicine, has perfected these cooling remedies, carefully crafting the formulas herself. As the saying from the Shennong Bencao Jing goes, "There is nothing useless in the world, only people who cannot make use of things."
Hemsleya Flower Tea
NT$75
The Hemsleya flowers are fried with sugar until the sugar expands into a frosty coating, preserving the flowers through traditional roasting methods. This iced tea offers a refreshing, heat-relieving experience, made from a plant commonly found in Taiwanese herbal tea recipes.
| Warming Comfort |
Longan Flower Tea
NT$70
Longan flowers are stir-fried with sugar until the sugar crystallizes into a frosty coating, preserving the flowers' unique floral and honeyed aroma. The flowers are carefully selected, with each one picked with precision, like delicate embroidery work. Through traditional roasting techniques, this tea captures the essence of the land, offering the fragrant story of the April sun shining on treetops.
Preserved Plum Fruit Tea
NT$75
Shoal’s signature preserved plums come from wild old trees in Yushan National Park, protected by the Bunun people of the Meishan tribe. These plums, ripened fully on the tree without chemical fertilizers or pesticides, are handpicked after the mountain boars have had their fill, ensuring only the ripest red-fleshed fruit. The vibrant, glossy plums are carefully deseeded by hand and preserved whole, maintaining their natural sweetness and rich, cherry-like fragrance. This naturally sweet, unadulterated ruby-red fruit shines in a hot tea, creating a drink of exquisite flavor and warmth.
| 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.
| Wind-Resisting Warmth |
Sour Mandarin Tea + Mandarin Cake
NT$80
A unique Hakka tea drink, sour mandarin tea is made by repeatedly steaming and drying tea leaves stuffed into tiger-head mandarins, following the "steamed into rounds" method dating back to the Tang and Song dynasties. This rare compressed tea is used for health and wellness, with the lightness of aged tangerine peel aiding in vitality and warmth.
Shoal continues the tea-making tradition passed down from Zheng Xingze’s mother, Zheng Wang Qin-zi, who followed ancient tea-making methods. The tea blends twenty-year-old roasted tea with various herbs, following field research on Taiwanese herbal tea formulations, which often adapt to local needs. These practices honor the wisdom of traditional Chinese medicine.
The tiger-head mandarin from Miaoli’s Yuanli is grown with natural farming methods. Thick-skinned and juicy, the fruit’s sour and sweet flavor is released by opening the stem end and stuffing the cavity with tea leaves and herbs. The fruit is carefully steamed, compressed, sun-dried, fermented, and baked, undergoing nine rounds of steaming and drying. Over time, it becomes dark, firm, and shiny, embodying labor-intensive craftsmanship.
After being used in New Year offerings, these mandarins are transformed into tea, symbolizing blessings of peace, hence known as "peace tea." It takes six months to turn a single sour mandarin into sour mandarin tea, with its sweet and mellow flavor becoming richer as it ages, offering a glimpse into the wisdom of ancestral diets.
Mandarin Cake, made by preserving the whole fruit in syrup, offers a balance of sweet and spicy flavors. Mentioned in Qing dynasty records, it has become part of Taiwan’s Hakka culinary heritage, offering a nourishing, rich flavor.
Sourced from Chen Chin-feng’s Chien-yeh Farm in Hsinchu’s Emei, following traditional Hakka methods, the mandarin is scored, flattened, and cooked until it releases its juices. The fruit is then simmered with bamboo-furnace-cooked malt syrup, Shoal’s winter melon sugar, and rock sugar, forming a rich, amber-colored syrup. After resting overnight, the mandarin is baked until the skin is firm and the flesh soft, offering a complex, sweet, and tangy taste with a refreshing finish. Time transforms the mandarin peel’s sharpness into a soft sweetness.
Mint and Mandarin Tea
NT$80
As recorded in Chen Shi-duo's New Compilation of Materia Medica: "When I encountered people suffering from external afflictions and emotional distress, I advised them to drink Mint and Orange Peel Tea, which brought immediate relief. The recipe uses one qian each of mint, tea, and orange peel, steeped in boiling water and consumed in a large bowl." Mint is not only effective for dispelling wind but is also known to ease melancholy. Shoal applies this traditional recipe alongside the Mandarin Cake and Tangerine Molasses, offering a soothing remedy to alleviate life’s burdens and stresses.
Stewed Pear Juice
NT$75
According to Compendium of Materia Medica, pears are ranked second among fruits, with Li Shizhen stating, "Pears promote fluid flow and have a downward-cleansing effect." Organically grown and naturally farmed, these pears are as sweet as honey, with a crisp texture and thin skin. The whole fruit is stewed with rock sugar, with no additives, resulting in a pure, warm beverage. The pear juice is as refreshing as jade dew, capturing the essence of autumn in a sweet and nourishing drink.
Starfruit Soup
NT$90
A traditional Taiwanese drink, starfruit soup carries a deep local flavor. As recorded in Taiwanese General History, Vol. 27: Agriculture, "The fruit has five or six ridges; sour varieties are used to make candied fruit or soaked in sugar water for soup." The yellow-green star-shaped fruit is preserved in sugar, creating a translucent amber-colored broth rich in natural fruit aroma. The candied fruit ridges transform into a gentle, thirst-quenching force, soothing the throat. The starfruit is sourced from Liu Family's Starfruit Soup in Tainan, a recipe passed down for three generations over 85 years, evoking warm memories of starfruit juice stands from childhood, like a nostalgic poem in a glass.
| Supreme Desserts |
Lychee Granita
NT$165
Sourced from Jiangxia Orchard in Puzi, Chiayi, where the wild-grown Heiye lychees are allowed to fully ripen on the tree, these lychees are soft, fragrant, and bursting with sweetness. Peeled, deseeded, and blended into a refreshing granita, they leave a long-lasting floral and fruity aroma in the mouth. After tasting the lychee granita for the seventh time, Ms. Da Nei Kang Ji remarked, "I truly felt like my soul was cleansed." This statement perfectly captures the essence and value of this dessert.
Fruit Ice | Preserved Plum
NT$100
Shaved ice topped with preserved plums, drizzled with cinnamon-scented caramelized sugar, is a beautiful and unparalleled dessert. The plums are harvested from wild trees at an elevation of 1,000 meters in the Yushan mountain range during early summer. These wild plums, cherished for their bright, sweet flavors, provide a refreshing escape from the sweltering summer heat. Shoal’s signature preserved plums are handpicked from wild old trees in Yushan National Park, meticulously deseeded by hand, and sealed with sugar syrup to preserve their natural, vibrant taste. The result is a naturally sweet, ruby-like plum, with a floral fragrance reminiscent of cherries.
Preserved Plum Cheesecake
Sun Moon Lake Assam Tea
NT$190
A harmonious blend of fruity and creamy flavors, Shoal’s preserved plum cheesecake delivers a luxurious combination of the rich sweetness of preserved plums and the indulgent smoothness of cream cheese. In Shoal’s dessert repertoire, only a cake as fragrant and full-bodied as this deserves the name cheesecake.
The preserved plums used are handpicked from wild trees growing on the cliffs along Laonong Creek in the Yushan mountain range, at an elevation of 1,000 meters. Without chemical fertilizers or pesticides, these plums are fully ripened on the tree and harvested just before they drop, their vibrant color and juicy sweetness preserved through meticulous hand-deseeding and slow cooking in molasses. The result is a naturally bold and fragrant plum with layers of intense flavors and a cherry-like aroma.
The cheesecake crust is made from local wheat flour, grown using sustainable practices by rice champion Tian Shou-xi from Zhubei. The crust perfectly complements the rich cream cheese filling, which is layered with bits of preserved plum and baked to create a seamless and unique flavor experience.
The menu at Shoal changes monthly according to seasons and festivals, designed based on the portion size and price for one person. You can decide the number of portions needed according to the number of people and appetite, and all dishes are served family-style. We accept reservations for only ten customers every thirty minutes.
