During my recent trip to the Taiwanese mountains, my friend took us to a restaurant run by the aboriginal tribes. The restaurant is called Yupasu and is perched on the mountains at 1000m ASL. My friend said he first came here over 10 years ago and it was just a road side stall, and now they've developed into a very busy restaurant.
We hadn't made a booking so arrived shortly after they opened at lunchtime. There was already about 15 cars parked alongside the road. Luckily they still had a table available for us.
As I walked inside, I was gobsmacked by the views outside. I'm not kidding when I say the restaurant is perched on the side of the mountain. It is totally open on both sides, no windows at all. We were blessed with a beautiful clear day, blue skies smiling at and not down to us. The occasional ripple of white clouds touching the tip of the mountain, who themselves were like layers of fans swaying the cool mountain breezes towards the diners. If you dared, you could reach out to touch the lush green vegetation on the mountain side.
Me and my friend's girlfriend were so excited and we went around the restaurant taking photos. The guys ignored us (of course) and ordered the food.
The food arrived at super speed, a bit too fast in my opinion. Despite the spectacular view, the service seemed a little too mechanic, and the food was all set meal with most of them pre cooked, hence the speed. I didn't take photos of all the dishes, here are a few.
This is rice cooked in bamboo, a speciality with the local cuisine, and also popular in many rural areas around Asia. Traditionally people are very resourceful and use what utensil they can find from nature. Bamboo gives a hint of nice aroma, but I found the rice a little too sticky.
This is wild fish from the streams (so they said), fried and then marinated in a very nice dressing. I don't know what's in the dressing, probably local herbs. The fish was a bit like sardines and had quite a lot of little bones. Not everyone's cup of tea. It was so so.
The salad on the left was very refreshing. It consist of chayote, a type of guord, and tomato and the dressing included a local spice called litsea cubeba. It's a type of pepper with a very fragrant lemony flavour. I bought a little packet from the restaurant, now need to look for some recipes on how to use them.
The other dish is barbecue sausages and pork. They were definitely my favourite!
And I found out why as we were leaving. They were charcoal bbq'ed outside in front of the mountains gods!
Overall I think this is a nice restaurant where I'd be happy to come once and dine in front of the mountains. The food was so so, it wasn't overly expensive but I've had much better value meals in nice surroundings. Most of the price we paid for the view, which to be honest I could have sat outside at one of the many viewpoints. At least I've been once now, and it was an enjoyable meal with my friends which I won't be seeing again for a long time.
Postcard Experiment
Would you like a postcard from the beautiful Taiwan? If some, please check out my post here...
@livinguktaiwan/its-time-to-resume-my-postcard-experiment-on-hive
