We waited till a rainy day to go to the National Palace museum which has a very impressive collection of ancient Chinese artifacts and artworks. You can spend hours in there. So it’s good that they have a range of eateries there, from simple cafe to chichi gourmet dining. We chose to go to the tea house on the 4th floor called San Hsi T’ang which was a little bit difficult to get to. There’s only one elevator in the back of the museum that takes you to the 4th floor (all the other elevators could only go up to the 3rd floor) and there were no signage for it at all. It took us awhile to find it.
The interior was gorgeous. It’s a tea house so they offer a wide range of Chinese tea and the menu only has light meals. I was actually delighted to see dim sum on the menu because at that point I was getting a little tired of Taiwanese food (like street food and beef noodle, all have bold flavors). For those who aren’t familiar with the differences of Chinese cuisine might not notice, but their palates taste very different to me.
Shumai Pretty good.
BBQ pork bun and custard bun. The bun texture wasn’t so good. The fillings were pretty good though.
Cabbage roll and Sticky rice roll. I was a little bit disappointed at the cabbage roll because it was a “limited item”, so I expected it to be more special tasting.
As expected the dim sum were overall average and weren’t as good as the dim sum in Hong Kong (nor Los Angeles!). But they did the job of satisfying my urge for something that taste Cantonese/non-Taiwanese. Also expected, since it’s a designy place, the food was a little pricey. It’s probably better to just come here for tea time.
San Hsi T’ang Tea house 三希堂
4th floor of the National Palace Museum
haha i thought cabbage roll was japanese yoshoku…never imagined it in dim sum ^^;
Haha it taste very different from the yoshoku kind (which is based on Eastern European ones?)