Taipei Gourmet Lexington

Ewa opened Taipei Gourmet in Lexington back in '12 after having worked at the nearby Formosa Taipei. The excellent chef is a former colleague that has been with her from the start. I can't believe that I have been going here for almost 10 years, but time flies when you eat well.

This location has seen several restaurants come and go before this one. I'm so happy that she's surviving and managed to ride out the Covid-19 disaster. They have been a favorite of mine since they opened, and I probably visited every other week for the longest time. The food is excellent, and they will do spicy if asked. The waitress has been with them for a long time.

The place seems popular with both people who like Chinese/American and people who appreciate Chinese food. They also have a fairly extensive lunch menu that is very reasonably priced. The highlights here are definitely the Taiwanese dishes and the dumplings.

The default eating utensils are a fork, and despite my pleadings that chopsticks should be the default, nothing has changed. Starting with chopsticks makes it look like the restaurant is catering to Chinese customers, and you can expect authentic Chinese food.

Paying with cash gives you a 10% discount. She also has a portable CC machine now, so your CC can be run at the table. This should really be done in every restaurant and has been the norm in Europe for a long time.

Ewa went from closed to takeout only to dine-in, takeout only, and now take out and dining on the patio. She's serving inside on the weekend as well as outside.

You now get a disposable plastic table covering when dining inside. It used to be white linen table cloths during the week, but not on the weekends. Maybe because they serve Taiwanese Dim-Sum (Dian Xin) then. Pleading for linen napkins fell on deaf ears.

This picture of the interior is from pre-Covid because it is in a bit of shambles now due to the current seating restrictions. It's a big square room that you really can't do much with. The one good thing is that there are lots of windows, and adding curtains helped.

Spicy Noodle Soup with Pork ($8.84) enjoyed outside. It was really spicy today with sliced Bird's eye chilies floating around. The baby bok-choy was tender and cooked perfectly, and look at that dark and rich broth! It tasted as good as it looked. The noodles are excellent and cooked perfectly. I haven't had this for a year since I wasn't sure if the noodles would travel or just turn to mush. I finished all of it, and I'm now really stuffed! Not that I'm complaining.

Da-Lu Mien ($9.54) is described as Noodles Soup with Seafood. The soup is thick and really palatable, and there was plenty of shrimp and pork on top of the noodles. The whole thing is delicious. There was plenty of thick noodles in the soup. Today Ewa asked if I wanted it spicy, and I said yes. The dish went from a pleasant soup to an excellent soup with the change to spicy. If a dish is marked as spicy, I usually ask for it extra spicy. It never occurred to me to ask for a non-spicy dish to be made spicy.

The soup dumplings are listed on the menu as Steamed Mini Juicy Buns ($8.24), aka Xiao Long Bao. You get 8 small dumplings with perfect skins and filled with delicious pork and soup. The thin skin was tender but strong enough to hold the soup, and this time it was plenty of soup inside. Black vinegar with ginger is served on the side. There are two ways of eating these. 1. Plop the whole thing into your mouth, and get 3rd-degree burns. 2. Put the dumpling in the spoon, and carefully nibble one corner open, and slurp up the soup. Then add some ginger vinegar to it and enjoy the rest of the dumpling.

This common Taiwanese appetizer, Salt and Pepper Chicken ($7.84) started out as being prepared on the bone. That was fine with me, but apparently not with the rest of the customers since it quickly morphed into a new and improved version without bones. This was a big improvement since the previous version was mostly bones. Now you get a heap of tender and juicy fried dark meat chicken with fried basil and sliced bird's eye chilies scattered in there. A really well-executed dish now.

Now fully open again, but the white tablecloths are still missing!

I haven't had the Fried Pork Chop over Rice plate ($9.04) for a long time. The big and tender pork chop on the bone was perfectly fried. Why do I have to go to a Taiwanese restaurant to get a properly cooked pork chop? This is a classic Taiwanese rice dish, and you get chopped mustard greens, pickled daikon, bok choy, and a tea egg. The egg was delicious and was not overcooked. Underneath the pork chop, there is some braised pork. The pork was very tender, but the last time there was a lot more gravy.

I had to ask how you are supposed to eat the Porkchop with chopsticks? You pick the whole thing up and just bite off a chunk! If you only have chopsticks, this makes sense.

Not another picture of a Hot & Sour Soup! Well, this one deserves a picture since it's one of the best around, and it's a properly prepared hot and sour soup. It even has shitake mushrooms in it for more umami. I now ask them to hold my lunch order until I have finished the delicious soup.

One of my favorite lunch dishes is the Lunch Special Flounder Fish with Szechuan Sauce ($8.24) ordered extra spicy. Ordering extra spicy now gets me sliced bird-eyes chilis. The flounder is of good quality and always cooked perfectly. It's also a very decent-sized portion. There is absolutely nothing in the dish that has anything to do with Sichuan cooking. No Sichuan Peppercorns, or chili peppers, apart from the dried chili flakes.

You also get a crunchy vegetarian spring roll with your lunch. I usually leave it to the end and then use it to mop up the leftover sauce.

I now order my lunches with their vegetable fried rice that is excellent! I had no clue that this was an option until I ordered a lunch dish online. Unlike most fried rice, this one is light and easy on soy sauce and actually seasoned. Most restaurants serve fried rice that is heavy and gluggy and terrible.

Sichuan Peppercorns, btw, have nothing to do with peppercorns but are closely related to citrus. There are two more flounder dishes on the lunch menu, and they are both really delicious.

Didn't know what to expect the first time when ordering the Fried Chicken Leg over Rice ($9.04). I did expect a chicken leg still on the bone, but it was boneless. Ewa, the owner, told me that Americans don't like anything on the bone.

The chicken leg is still boneless with a crispy coating and was very nice and moist. You can't cook chicken better than this. I also got the same condiments as with the Fried Pork Chop above. The cooking liquid from the stewed pork soaks into the rice, making it doubly delicious.

Address 211 Mass Ave, Lexington, MA 02420 Phone number (781) 541-6999

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