Sometimes the best meals aren’t the fanciest ones
There are restaurants you remember because of the setting, restaurants you remember because of the service, and restaurants you remember because someone accidentally orders two main courses.
Lao Shan Dong Homemade Noodles in Taipei managed to give me the third — along with some seriously good food.
I found the restaurant while staying in Ximending during a short weekend in Taipei. It’s hidden away in the basement of the Wannian Commercial Building and, on first impressions, this is definitely not luxury dining.
There are no white tablecloths. No elaborate presentation. No hushed dining room.
Instead, there are busy tables, bowls of steaming noodles, handwritten order slips that aren’t particularly helpful if you don’t read Chinese — as I was about to discover — and strangers sitting together wherever there’s space.
And that’s part of what made it brilliant.
A Taipei institution since 1949
I hadn’t realised quite how established Lao Shan Dong was when I arrived.
The restaurant has been serving its homemade noodles since 1949 and has built a loyal following around its beef noodle soup. Today it also carries Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition.
But I discovered its history in a much nicer way than reading it online.
I was seated at a shared table with five complete strangers. The first group were fairly quiet, but a local couple sitting beside me eventually started chatting. The husband told me he’d been coming to Lao Shan Dong since he was five years old.
That says rather more to me about a restaurant than any award on the wall.
First up: the noodles
I ordered the beef noodles and immediately understood why the place has survived for generations.
The homemade noodles were fantastic — thick, irregular, substantial and wonderfully chewy. You can immediately tell you’re eating something that hasn’t come out of a packet.
The beef came in generous pieces in a deep, comforting broth, and it was exactly the hearty lunch I’d been looking for after spending the morning exploring Taipei 101.
I’d also helped myself to what I thought looked like an innocent glass-noodle side dish.
It wasn’t.
It was distinctly seaweedy.
Not everything can win a Thacks Award.
Then came my slight ordering problem…
I decided a few meaty dumplings would be the perfect addition.
Unfortunately, faced with a Chinese order sheet and rather too much confidence, I selected number 14.
What I thought I’d ordered was essentially:
A few dumplings, please.
What I’d actually ordered was:
Yes, I’d love another entire main course.
A large bowl of hot-and-sour soup containing dumplings subsequently arrived at the table.
The local couple beside me started laughing.
I started laughing.
There was absolutely no possibility of pretending this had been intentional.
And so lunch number two began.
And then the dumplings stole the show
The ridiculous thing is that the accidental second main course ended up being one of the highlights of the meal.
The dumplings were superb.
Their wrappers had that same substantial, chewy, homemade character I’d loved in the noodles, wrapped around a delicious pork filling. They tasted properly handmade rather than mass-produced.
And I ate every single one.
I’ve previously eaten Michelin-rated dumplings in Hong Kong — another wonderfully cheap meal that I really enjoyed — but these were better.
There. I’ve said it.
Perhaps that comparison is slightly unfair, because they were different styles of dumpling. But purely in terms of how much I enjoyed eating them, Lao Shan Dong wins.
By quite some margin.
Strangers around a table
What elevated the experience beyond simply eating two very good — and very large — lunches was the table itself.
After chatting with the Taiwanese couple, I later met a French couple who had only landed in Taipei a few hours earlier. They were exploring the city with two local guides, who joined the conversation as well.
So this very ordinary shared table in the basement of a shopping building became a mixture of locals, a South African/British traveller living in the Philippines, two newly arrived French visitors and Taiwanese guides swapping stories over bowls of noodles.
Nobody had planned it.
That’s exactly why it was memorable.
Afterwards I headed back outside, considerably heavier than when I’d arrived, and continued exploring the neighbourhood and a nearby temple.
Dinner that evening was no longer necessary.
Michelin versus Thacks Awards
Lao Shan Dong already has Michelin recognition.
Good for them.
But the philosophy behind Thacks Awards is slightly different.
The world is rather fixated on Michelin stars, famous restaurant lists and establishments being told what constitutes a great dining experience.
Thacks Awards isn’t interested only in expensive ingredients, immaculate dining rooms or technically perfect plates.
There is no government tourism board deciding who should be promoted. There is no sponsorship arrangement. Restaurants don’t pay to participate. And there’s certainly no mysterious inspector whose opinion I’m obliged to agree with.
It’s simply about this:
Was it good? Was it memorable? Was it worth the money? Would I tell somebody I care about to go there?
Lao Shan Dong ticks all four.
The setting isn’t glamorous.
The ordering process defeated me.
One of my side dishes tasted like something retrieved from the seabed.
I was seated with complete strangers.
And I accidentally ordered lunch twice.
Yet I walked out thinking I’d just had one of my favourite food experiences of the trip.
That’s precisely the sort of restaurant Thacks Awards exists to celebrate.
🏆 The Thacks Awards verdict
Although not an official Thacks Awards winner for 2026, certainly worth visiting for the low low price!
Food: Outstanding homemade noodles and exceptional dumplings.
Atmosphere: No-frills, busy and unmistakably local.
Experience: Shared tables, conversations with strangers and an accidental second main course. Impossible to manufacture.
Value: Excellent.
Would I return? Absolutely — although next time I’ll know that number 14 is not a side dish.
📍 Lao Shan Dong Homemade Noodles
Location: Shop 15, B1, Wannian Commercial Building, 70 Xining South Road, Wanhua District, Taipei, Taiwan
Known for: Homemade beef noodles and dumplings
Established: 1949
Recognition: Michelin Bib Gourmand
Thacks Awards tip: Go hungry. Order the beef noodles. Order the dumplings. And unless you’re very hungry, perhaps don’t order both of them as separate main courses.
THACKS AWARDS 🏆
Great experiences don’t need permission to be great.
Review… written by John T – one of the international Thacks Awards panelists, living in Manila. When not traveling and wine-tasting, John is an iGaming specialist reporting into director level in the sports betting industry with a degree in Information Technology.
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