Da Shan Wu Jia 大山無價 (Taipei: Xindian)

Finally down to the last entry of my eating report in Taipei, and it’s ending with a bang. Taipei has abundant of cheap good eats, but what about gourmet fine dining? While I was doing research on Taipei dining from blogs I read about this very special place called DaShan WuJia 大山無價. It’s a gourmet Taiwan/Japanese fusion restaurant located way up in the hills on the south side of Taipei.

DaShan WuJia means the Priceless big mountain. It’s reservation only and the menu is prix fix: 10 courses for 1100 NT which is about US $ 34. I called to make the reservation about 2 days ahead. From central Taipei, we had to take the MTR to the last stop toward south to the Xindian station and then ride taxi to go up to the mountain for about 15-20 minutes. The trip took about 45 mintues. The restaurant is inside a beautiful renovated old Japanese style house, surrounded by scenic mountains.

The interior was absolutely gorgeous. It’s Japanese style with the tatami but also felt Chinese at the same time. We got a table right by the window.

amuse-bouche: Red wine jelly. Very good!

Course no.1:
Peanut tofu with goji berry, pine nut, wasabi and Plum rice with ikura and shredded egg
Both were really good. I especially like the Plum rice cake.

Course no. 2: Scallop Soup.
The broth was fantastic. Lots of depth, very light but flavorful at the same time. One of the strongest dishes of the set.

Course No. 3: sashimi + salad .
The sashimi were prawn, salmon, tuna, squid and fish roe. There’re pieces of lilies in the salad which gave a subtle sweetness.

intermezzo: fruit vingear

Course No. 4:
Chicken and mushrooms in soy milk and Corn in salty soy milk
The fruit vinegar cooled me down a bit too much so I was glad these two dishes were hearty and warming.

Course No. 5: Fried tofu in veggie puree

Course No. 6: baked shrimp, fried yam and green beans, pumpkin and eggplane
The baked shrmip reminded me of district 9.

intermezzo: fruit vingear

Course No. 7: Lotus flower tea.

Course No. 8: Fried rice with mullet roe.
The orange thing on top is the mullet roe, which is considered a delicacy in Taiwan. It tasted a little bit like a cross between bacon and dried egg yolk. It’s very tasty.

Course No. 9: Lotus flower soup
I was actually a little bit disappointed that the final dish was a soup (especially right after drinking a lot of tea). But it was indeed very good. Healthy tasting but also very flavorful. There’re chicken, lotus root, lotus seed, Ginkgo nut and mushroom in the soup. I was warmed up and filled up by the end of it.

Course No. 10: molasses and taro, fruit plate

It was not captured in the pictures but each course was beautifully presented and decorated with flowers. Beautiful place, beautiful plating, top notch cooking, DaShan WuJia is definitely a one of the kind place in Taipei. $34 per person was a great value and truly worths it. Just make sure you have at least 3 hours to spare because that’s how long our meal lasted. I saw on the map that the beautiful aboriginal hotspring town Wulai is actually quite near at where the restaurant is (perhaps 30-45 minutes bus ride away?). So it would be a good day trip to visit both.

Forget Din Tai fung, this is THE must go dining experience and the best hidden secret in Taipei.

Da Shan Wu Jia 大山無價
No. 62 Sec. 3, Beiyi Road, Xindian City, Taipei County.
+886 2 2217 8891

Tags: fashionable, Japanese, Prix fixe, scenery, Taiwanese