Clowns to the left, jokers to the right: Everything looks peaceful on the surface
Furtive as a street-corner stool-pigeon, Mr. Sun peers from behind a pillar and beckons with that palms-down flap that baffled me when I first saw students use it to signal for assistance, fresh off the plane, a decade ago.
I cross over.
“You know why they don’t want you taking pictures?” he asks. There’s no need to follow the trajectory of his small, sunken eyes. I already know what they’re fixed on: The corrugated iron façade directly opposite where a shop sign should be. I know because I quizzed the owner about this anomaly when I ate there the week before.
“You see. No name. I’ll tell you why. It’s a problem with Taipei City government. The owners …”
Sun stops short. The enemy has suddenly looked up from his soup basin like a dog catching a whiff of a malodorous waft. He darts a suspicious glare in our direction, then, satisfied there’s nothing too untoward afoot, resumes ladling broth into the bowls that are spread across the steel counter.
“Illegal?” I proffer.
“I can’t really say,” he says, all but saying. “But it’s not good. Not good”
Pulling power: Sun works his magic
There’s needle between the noodleries on Taoyuan Street. At Taoyuan Street Authentic Shandong Beef Noodles (桃源街正宗山東牛肉麵), which has been on this spot for 62 years, the diminutive, jug-eared proprietor, Sun Mao-song (孫懋松), has been pulling noodles since he was a nipper.
“Seven years old I was, when my dad first got me doing it,” he says, mimicking a chest expander exercise by way of demonstration. He also points out his various awards, including a medal from a competition in China and a certificate for “respecting and promoting public health.”
I was informed by an ex-pat Hong Konger that the signless rival has been around for a comparable period of time, though Sun professes to have no idea, which – given the stone’s throw proximity of the two establishments – seems a little hard to credit.
“I don’t know anything about them,” he sniffs.
Except that they don’t make their own noodles. And their water (allegedly) hasn’t been properly purified. And their noodles (allegedly) are full of starch (澱粉), which will do all sorts of bad things to your tummy. “You might as well go there and buy instant noodles,” says Sun motioning to the Family Mart around the corner.
Pinter would be proud
Customers don’t seem to share Sun’s disdain. Signless does a rip-roaring trade on weekends when it’s often full to 30-plus capacity. Sun’s second floor dining area is brighter and more attractively furnished but, at around half the size, would be hard pushed to accommodate as many people and, when I was there, didn’t look like it would need to. One thing I like about the Shandong place, though, is the dumbwaiter that brings up the steaming bowls from the cooking area below.
There’s not much to separate the hong shao (紅燒) style beef and broth at the two places. In both cases the meat is decent, tender and without too much tendon – unless, of course, it’s the half-tendon, half-meat (半筋半肉) you’re after – and the soup tasty enough without being anything extraordinary.
Sun’s noodles are wider, flatter and thicker, (寬板的) with the al dente texture that is apparently expected of the hand-pulled, homemade variety. I have to admit to being a bit of a philistine and preferring Signless’ softer, rameny-style offering. (It’s funny how ramen may have originated from the Chinese lāmián [拉麵] and that the two types confusingly share the same Chinese characters now. Would the addition of a hand (“手”) in front of “pulled noodles” make the difference?)
A bowl of Shandong's finest
Glutton that I am, I’d have to say that the bowl I had at Sun’s was noticeably smaller than what I got across the road. All in all, I’d give Signless the nod, particularly as it has the feel of a more traditional Taiwanese eatery.
Signless is unofficially known to many simply as Taoyuan Street Beef Noodles (桃源街牛肉麵), which seems to have led to some confusion between the two establishments, with local bloggers mistakenly giving the phone number for Shandong in reviews. *
To those in the know, Signless is in fact Wang’s Beef Noodles (老王記牛肉麵), which is what the boss told me when I ate there the week before.
Ending where I began: When I took some snaps out front after finishing my meal at Sun’s place the following week, I was shooed away and told it was “not allowed.”
Oi! Less of that mate: Lao Wang's boss doesn't do photos.
Now I know lots of businesses in Taiwan can be funny this way – often for fear of upsetting customers – but there seemed something more to it here. Friends have suggested a tax ruse.
Regardless of whether there is something going on, you can taste the beef between the two restaurants on Taoyuan Street.
* Sun’s place appears to have changed name and sign a few times over the years. The confusion, coupled with Sun’s assertions of uniqueness, bring to mind this scene from an all-time classic, which I dedicate to its biggest fan – my friend The Aesthete.
Taoyuan Street Authentic Shandong Beef Noodles, No. 16 Taoyuan St, Zhongzheng District, Taipei
桃源街山東牛肉麵, 台北市中正區桃源街16號
02 2375 8973
Lao Wang’s Beef Noodles, No. 15 Taoyuan St, Zhongzheng District, Taipei
老王記牛肉麵, 台北市萬華區桃源街15號
0937-860-050
(The restaurants are west of the Presidential Palace, about midway between 228 Peace Memorial Park and Ximen MRT)
I wonder about the photophobic thing:
1) Lao Wang’s boss (Wang?) just personally doesn’t like strangers, especially dodgie ones, snapping photos of him (understandable)
2) The boss possibly named Wang is running an illegal noodlerie in public view and thinks no one will find out if he tells a passerby to put the camera down (yeah sure)
3) Don’t know the street, but he may see a lot of tourists/camera-pricks stealing his soul without buying; several stallers in Kaohsiung’s Liouho Night Market have signs that say “no pictures allowed” as well, a response to tourist hordes. I figure that could mean “Buy a bowl of noodles and digitize your memory to your heart’s content” (pure speculation)
More on beef noodle controversies please, living vicariously through you
Yeah, I know plenty of people are funny about it Bill for various reasons (they often say iot upsets the customers and you’ll see a fair few Taiwan-based blogs blurring the faces of the punters). I don’t know what was going on and it being ‘illegal’ does, as you say, seem a bit hard to fathom. But Sun was definitely implying that …
Despite your explanation of annoying tourists, I think it’s a load of bollocks. I’ve heard there are actually laws about taking people’s pics but standing out in the street snapping? He doesn’t own the street. I asked him if it was illegal twice and he just looked away.
As for buying something and it being OK, that kind of reminds of the weird types here who won’t let you used their bins (outside) or those I’ve come across who act all off if you ask them for directions to (what they see as) a potential competitor. Not very savvy business sense. If you’re friendly and helpful I might think about coming tou you next time.
Everyone outside closed doors/shuttered windows should accept people taking their picture, because it’s not illegal
Man, you are writing kind of a food review? Think of the consequences!
It’s not a ‘kind of a food review’.
Dear me, JR. Humour bypass notwithstanding, you somehow always manage to miss the point.: It’s a bloody joke. I’ve held back from saying before but you seem to make a sideline out of misunderstanding me.
You have everything arse about tit, asking me if I realise this is ‘like’ a review. I specifically write this section of my blog with a twist. It’s not a case of it happening to be a review. I don’t blame you for not reading the other stuff but you can’t really get the picture if you don’t.
Bill gets it.
Before you say (I can pretty much anticipate it) ‘let’s see if they think it’s a joke’. Again, clearly gone over your head.
Out of interest, what have I said that’s dodgy?
I
To ‘James’ above.
Fair enough – I understand that people might not like it but I think this obsession with not having your pic taken borders on neurotic. It was the same when I was back in the UK: worse – as I say elsewhere – the police were stopping me for taken photos of buildings.
Dear me, James. Humour bypass notwithstanding, you somehow always manage to miss the point.:my comment was a bloody joke. I don’t blame you for not keeping previous threads about food reviews on other blogs in mind, but you can’t really get the picture if you don’t.
Out of interest, where did I suggest that you wrote something dodgy?
.-= justrecently´s last blog ..Chinese Press after Hazare’s Hunger Strike: Indian Society “stable”, not “turning” =-.
Cough … ahem … yes … course. Knew you were joking old bean – just testing.
OK, mate, touché! You’ve got me wittily banged to rights there. I’ll get my coat … 😉 In my rather pathetic defence, it was the morning after the night before and I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.
Obviously I knew which ‘food reviews on other blogs’ you had in mind but given the tone of the comments on MKL … Apologies!
I think the “food-review” debate was so explosive because it went to the heart of several crucial issues – freedom of the press, concepts of honor (noodle restaurant owners and beyond), blue or green (Taiwan), etc., and all that in the explosive environment of the Taiwan blogosphere. I guess the Taiwanese public opinion works much faster than America’s (let alone Europe’s), and it is much more about politics than America’s.
Btw, I do have a tendency to read everything literally. That has its advantages and its disadvantages, of course. 😉
.-= justrecently´s last blog ..German Press Review: Wikileaks’ Leakage =-.
How do you mean public opinion works faster, JR?
I think a politician in central Europe still has a few minutes more to think about how to respond to a challenge than in America (unless it’s face-to-face or live), and some 15 seconds more airtime for a reply to a question. Taiwan looks even faster than America to me.
.-= justrecently´s last blog ..Prince Claus Fund honors Woeser =-.
Ah, I skimmed that and missed your parenthetical proviso. Definitely not so in the flesh, as you say. American commentators frequently express their amazement at how bullish the questioning of public figures is in the UK.
So you mean the time they have to prepare from when a news story drops?
Yes, basically. (But I’ll need to add another parenthetical proviso here, too. Media in France and Germany – and especially in France – are tame when it comes to their presidents’ alleged corruption cases, for example, there’s nothing like the BBC either in France or in Germany, and maybe you can do a lot of things when you are an American politician, but as far as I can see, you must never be caught cheating on your wife.)
.-= justrecently´s last blog ..Jiang not Dead: Leung Ka-wing Resigns =-.
Yeah, we didn’t need the DSK debacle for an (admittedly stereotypical but not without foundation) insight on French sexual mores as represented in the media. Missus and mistress at Mitterand’s funeral about sums it up (not making a judgement her, btw).
I was more surprised at the level of introspection than the irrational persecution complex-type response of some of the French media, which was as kneejerk defensive as ever on an issue involving Les Americaines.
Is the media really that crap in Germany? Going off on a tangent here, if we haven’t already but how bad do you reckon corruption is? The expenses scandal in the UK caused a furore (in certain sections of the public) but, as was observed on our good old satirical quiz show “Have I Got News For You”, it was probably a source of amusement to, say, Italian MPs how lightweight and lame our corruption is.
There are some good papers – like Freitag and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, but German television is crap, and so is much of radio. Private broadcasters are apolitical, and public broadcasters are controlled by the political parties, churches, and other “civil society” organizations. News broadcasts are mostly determined by their influence, and the fact that Germany’s oldest television boradcasting station has the biggest network of correspondents when national news (stuff the parties have things to say about) take the first seat.
Former chancellor Helmut Kohl took donations from unknown generous personalities and thus probably saved his Christian Democratic Union from serious financial trouble in the 1980s and 1990s. He was asked to name the donators, but never did. No prosecutors followed up on this. Few papers (let alone broadcasters) did, and none of them really successfully. You may think of Germany as less bankrupt than many other European countries, but it is by no means a role model.
.-= justrecently´s last blog ..Links: My Unwritten Posts (of this summer) =-.
correction / insert: the fact that Germany’s oldest television boradcasting station has the biggest network of correspondents doesn’t mean much when national news (stuff the parties have things to say about) take the first seat.
.-= justrecently´s last blog ..VoA’s David Ensor: “Not Familiar” =-.