Hoshina Teishoku 穗科食堂 @ Taipei

Meeting a couple of friends that I have not met for 30 years, the first reunion was in Taipei and they have turned vegetarian. Luckily, Taipei has a lot of good vegetarian places like Hoshina.

Hoshina teishoku is part of a vegetarian restaurant chain, and they make their own udon and ramen to strictest vegetarian standards. All their cuisines are no-egg, no-garlic, no-msg vegetarian.

All their udon set meals come with either a choice of a serving of tempura or a bowl of stewed vegetable. I ordered the Hoshina’s special cold udon set 自慢冷麵 which is a Tempura Udon set. All sets come with a trio of side dishes and a dessert.

The udon was a bit too soft for my liking (but the Taiwanese like it this way). It is not the Zaru Udon style, where you dip the udon into a cold dashi soy sauce. Instead a cold soup was directly served with the udon.

You can taste the sweetness and umami, but none of it was from mirin or seafood. I guessed it was made from sweet miso and seaweed.

My friends shared a set of Thai-style red curry vegetables stew rice 泰式紅咖哩燉蔬菜定食. It came with a bowl of kelp soup 昆布湯. The portion was really big, and the red quinoa rice 紅藜飯 was free serving, so you can go for another helping.

The trio of appetisers was the same – pickled plum cherry tomatoes 梅灒番茄, burdock with sesame 芝麻牛蒡 and sesame paste spinach 胡麻野蔬.

There were two surprises that were served. Deep-fried tofu stir-fried with carrot and white tofu paste 金沙豆腐 tasted like salted eggs!

Tofu skin roll with golden mushroom and nori was made from tofu skin that were stuffed with enoki and deep-fried. The sauce was unnecessary as the bean curd and nori were tasty.

It looked like an expensive Japanese restaurant from the outside, but it was reasonably priced.

That’s because it s a self-service restaurant. You order at the counter, collect the food and bring them to the table just like a fast-food restaurant.

So there’s no service, no problem. The place is really clean and well-kept and everyone was really polite and patient. I guessed being a vegetarian makes one more patient after all!

hoshina teishoku 穗科食堂
中山區中山北路二段16巷21號, Taipei, Taiwan 105
Number 21, Lane 16, Section 2, Zhongshan North Road, Zhongshan District
Tel : 02-25362828

Date Visited : Feb 2019