An accidental discovery after a passport had been expired for six years: a blind-tasting visit to 忠青商行 near Shandao Temple
So, my passport had been expired for six years—long enough that I had basically retired it to a cabinet as a souvenir.
Recently I finally decided to face reality and tried the “conditional online passport renewal” service on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. I applied about three weeks ago, and to my surprise the process was smoother than expected and fairly quick. In that moment I suddenly understood that technology really does come from human needs—and, every now and then, government can be surprisingly humane too.
On the way to the ministry, though, the street names kept messing with me. So many shops and roads around here contain the characters “青島” (Qingdao), but for some reason my eyes kept auto-correcting them to “青鳥” (Bluebird). Maybe I have consumed too much political commentary lately and even my retinas have started taking political positions.
Today I made a special trip to the Shandao Temple area to pick up my new passport from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Official business finished; next it was time for my stomach to handle its official business.
As a veteran food lover, the most basic way to show respect to an unfamiliar neighborhood is not to research it too seriously. Wander around, follow your instincts, and let life and your stomach conduct a blind test. While doing exactly that, I happened across 忠青商行 (Chung Ching Store), which had been extremely popular on IG a while back.
This area is genuinely lively, with plenty of good food nearby, and the famous 雙月 right next door. Walking around gives you the feeling that “even picking a place at random is not really random.”
I had heard that 忠青商行 specializes in military-dependents’ village-style Taiwanese cooking, with shrimp rice, old-fashioned fried pork chop, and all kinds of braised dishes among its signatures. Since I was already passing by, obviously I had to go in and meet it properly.
Dining room and atmosphere
忠青商行 is not far from Shandao Temple MRT station and can be reached on foot in about 5 minutes. For someone who has just finished an errand and wants to grab a meal on the way, that distance is very friendly—no walking far enough to start questioning your life choices.
The dining room is not large. There are 2-person tables, 4-person tables, and a row of wall-side seats. The layout is compact and holds around 20 people, but circulation still works reasonably well and the room does not feel especially oppressive.
The dining area is clean and bright with a comfortable mood, well suited to a simple meal. The wall-side seats even have power outlets, which is a nice bonus if your phone is running low—at least you can eat without staring anxiously at the battery icon in the top-right corner.
Ordering is done by scanning a QR Code with your phone. It is especially friendly to anyone who would rather not make too much conversation with staff: quietly scroll, tap a few things, and the order is on its way.
Spicy Hand-Chopped Whisky Beef Mixed Noodles
The name “Spicy Hand-Chopped Whisky Beef Mixed Noodles” sounds impressively grand, like eating it should make you want to sit at a bar afterward and say a few profound things about adulthood.
But once I actually started eating, I have to admit that no matter how long I tried, I could not detect much whisky aroma at all. Maybe this is a case of “conceptual naming”? The way beef-tongue biscuits contain no beef tongue and wife cakes do not come with a wife.
Speaking of wife cakes, though, I do have a wife—and my wife does not eat pork. That directly meant the fried pork chop later on was almost entirely my responsibility (she did help me eat 2 pieces of crust). For someone with a small appetite, this meal had stopped being dinner and become a combined exam of personal strength and stomach capacity.
Back to the noodles themselves: traditional oil noodles are mixed with minced beef sauce, and the aroma is impressively rich with a tempting mild heat. The noodles have just the right springiness, and the bowl is generous with sauce. Once everything is mixed, every bite carries savory seasoning and glossy richness. This is a bowl of mixed noodles with a very definite presence.
The whisky itself may have checked in at the restaurant and left early, but the noodles are still solid on their own.
Blanched greens
Today’s greens were bok choy. I think they were bok choy. I am not a botanist, after all, so I can only rely on a food lover’s instinct.
The restaurant uses chicken stock to bring out the vegetables’ savoriness, giving this seemingly ordinary home-style dish a little more refinement. It is not the kind of version where someone briefly blanches the greens, splashes on soy paste, and calls it a day. These vegetables have clearly been looked after.
This one passes.
Braised Porous Tofu & three-item braised plate: kelp, dried tofu, daikon
Their Braised Porous Tofu has real soul.
One bite of the Braised Porous Tofu tells you immediately that this is not tofu that merely stood beside the braising pot hoping to absorb the atmosphere. It has genuinely soaked up the essence of the house sauce. Chew slowly and a faint sweetness from herbal spices emerges too. It is the kind of flavor that keeps rewarding another bite.
The braising liquid on the three-item plate follows the same herbal-spice direction. First comes the salty savoriness of the sauce, then the spices gradually open up, and finally a gentle sweetness lingers on the tongue.
The dried tofu deserves special mention. Whether ordered on its own or included in the mixed plate, it looks fairly pale and harmless, but the pores have already absorbed plenty of braising liquid. It is deeply seasoned.
And their dried tofu is sliced absurdly thin—thin enough to make you wonder whether the cook has a background in precision manufacturing. That thinness is actually part of the charm: the ratio of sauce to tofu lands just right, so it never becomes tiring as you keep eating.
Chung Ching Fried Pork Chop
This is a textbook old-school Taiwanese fried pork chop.
A thin layer of sweet potato starch goes on before frying. The heat is handled well, leaving the outside crisp while the meat inside still holds onto its juices. This is not one of those pork chops fried so dry that you immediately need water to call for help.
The flavor has that old-fashioned grandmother’s-kitchen quality: simple, direct, and clearly aromatic. No fancy presentation—just a pork chop fried properly.
The only unfortunate part was that my wife does not eat pork, so this plate was almost a solo mission for me. It was tasty, absolutely, but if someone had taken half, I probably would have eaten with much more composure—and looked a little more like an elegant adult.
Today’s dark horse: complimentary chilled herbal tea by the entrance
Finally, I absolutely have to introduce the “complimentary chilled herbal tea” at the self-serve tea station by the front door.
At first my thinking was simply, “It is free, so why not?” I poured myself a cup, took one sip, and nearly decided it deserved its own separate restaurant review.
This tea is genuinely cold. Not politely “cold,” but cold enough to make me wonder whether it had just returned from the freezer. More importantly, it was somehow even colder than the Pure Tea I had just bought at 7-11, which made me develop a whole new respect for the word “free.”
It goes down smoothly, tastes refreshing, and is extremely good at cutting richness. After a full round of deeply flavored braised dishes, mixed noodles, and fried pork chop, this glass felt like a beam of light in life, specifically assigned to escort grease out from the deepest corners of the soul.
I have to admit, the thing that left the strongest impression today may not have been the whisky beef noodles or the fried pork chop, but this free glass of herbal tea.
Conclusion
The original plan today was simply to pick up a new passport near Shandao Temple. Somehow that turned into an unplanned blind-tasting visit to 忠青商行.
Overall, 忠青商行 leans rich, home-style, and grounded in military-dependents’ village Taiwanese cooking. The Spicy Hand-Chopped Whisky Beef Mixed Noodles may not deliver much obvious whisky, but the noodles themselves are fragrant and well sauced. The braised dishes are dependable, especially the Braised Porous Tofu and thin-sliced dried tofu. Chung Ching Fried Pork Chop, meanwhile, is exactly what a good old-school Taiwanese fried pork chop should be.
As for that free herbal tea by the door, all I can say is: it was today’s biggest dark horse.
Renewing my passport turned out to be the side quest; discovering ice-cold herbal tea was the real prize. Next time you are near Shandao Temple, remember to pour yourself a cup. (Wait, no—remember to eat the mixed noodles.)
