Taipei Neihu Come Come Soybean Milk 台北 內 湖來來 豆 醬

The first visit I made to Taipei Neihu Lai Lai Dou Jiang was with the slowest driver in the world: My former landlady. In the back of her car, with her two kids, 8 and 10, moving at about 20km/h I sat eagerly awaiting our arrival.

She lived in New York while studying at Julliard and out of a sense of gratitude towards New Yorkers, to whom she owed a debt for their kindness, she wanted to take Britt and I to eat in "a real Taiwanese food place." It was her assertion that here you could find the kind of real food that Taiwanese eat, not the stuff geared towards western appetites. I was sure that Taiwanese eat all kinds of food, not just from this  one place, but I was encouraged nonetheless, eager to eat among the locals. I had been living here only a month or two by then and finding good food was becoming a problem. 

Scallions ready to go!

We put our stomachs in her hands, letting her order for us. 

We wound up with soup dumplings 小龍 湯 包, soybean soup  鹹 豆  醬 xian dou jiang that had been curdled in some way, very salty, along with some beef noodle soup 牛肉 麵.

Never worry about parking. Just pull right up to the kitchen

I won't lie. I didn't like it. The texture of the soup was bizarre, the stuff of Andrew Zimmernland and seemed too salty. The dumplings were okay, and the beef noodle soup was alright. I think it was just too much culture shock for my new-to-Taiwan self.

the steaming sidewalk

I never went back there for months, having been turned off by what I ordered, but the next time we went back, we resolved to try some different things.

They know their soybean milk

And we did, months later: The soybean milk. The soybean milk here is very unique. It has a kind of toasted flavor, and it is lightly sweetened, and it has a bit of thickness to it. Believe me when I tell you it is unlike the stuff you find in the States in cardboard cartons. It shouldn't surprise one though, the name of the place, dou jiang  豆 醬, means soybean milk. It is their specialty.

soup dumplings, beef and scallion roll, soybean milk

 You don't even need to speak a load of Mandarin to get what you want, you can usually just point and smile for most things. Scallions and egg omelettes, dan bings, taro cakes, pastries. Friendly smiling staff. When I leave Taiwan, it will be places like this I will miss most. 

an ever-changing pastry selection

Aside from the delicious soup dumplings, turnip cake 蘿 蔔 糕, onion cake 蔥 油 餅, there is also an interesting variety of baked  goods, almost all heavy on the sesame. I once had a kind of sesame doughnut there that was heavenly. They also fry longstrips of dough  (yo tiao) 油 條 made for dipping into soup and soymilk alike. good idea!

Everything out in the open.

Ready to serve

Brittany's dip for her dumplings: soy sauce, ginger, chili oil, rice vinegar, sesame oil,  chili paste

And my favorite of all, turnip cake

The joint has become our kind of hangover/comfort food place, great for a late breakfast on a weekend. They are open at all hours of the night, too. 

The ambiance is pleasantly chaotic.

But there is more to it than the food on the plate. The big open dining room, the families enjoying their snacks together, and the open prep area makes it a great place to just sit, eat and watch people. They are baking right on the sidewalk, after all.

Cookin' on the sidewalk.

If you never visited a place like this in Taichung, please do. You are missing out. This one is especially good though there are a great number of these kinds of snackhouses in Taichung and elsewhere. 

This particular one is at the intersection of Wenxin N. Rd and Xitun Rd. There is another on Xiangshang Rd near just east of Dongxing road, however, they are newly opened and still perfecting things. 

Here is another blog post about a visit to a similar place