I have no idea how long ago sukiyaki first made its way to Taiwan, but I’m sure it’s been around for ages. Yet, hopelessly behind the times as I am, I only tried it for the first time within the past year. Talk about being late to the party.
But once I finally tried it, I ended up visiting several places in a row and worked my way through Taoyuan’s best-known sukiyaki restaurants, including Ueno, Ben Fan, and Chang Qu. All three come highly recommended online, but after comparing them, my favorite is Chang Qu Sukiyaki! Why? Because ithas more comfortable seating, a wider selection of vegetables, and dishes that suit my tastes better; at the other two restaurants, I found the seating more cramped and the atmosphere consequently noisier—although that also depends on the customers, of course! Location-wise, however, Chang Qu is more out of the way, while the other two are in the much livelier areas of Zhongyuan and Zhongli.
Chang Qu was the first sukiyaki restaurant I tried. After visiting Ueno and Ben Fan once each, I still went back to Chang Qu twice more, so I thought I’d recommend it to everyone!
All of these sukiyaki restaurants are all-you-can-eat, so you can order as much meat and as many vegetables as you like.Prices are charged per person: NT$329 at lunchtime on weekdays and NT$399 on weekday evenings and holidays.。
Sukiyaki restaurants usually serve shared pots, with one pot for every two people, and you can choose your preferred broth. Besides sukiyaki, Chang Qu also offers individual hot pots, including shabu-shabu, miso, kimchi, and soy milk. There are also set meals, such as pork cutlet, sukiyaki, and curry sets.For details, see the menu on Chang Qu’s official website, although I haven’t tried any of those yet. If you’re interested, you can order one and see how it is.
Naturally, I order the sukiyaki most of the time! Once, when our group had three pots going at once, I tried the miso broth, which was cooked with kombu and tasted pretty good. It’s a nice choice when you’re dining with a large group and someone wants something lighter. But most people come here for sukiyaki, after all, so that’s what I’ll focus on!
[ The view on the table… hahaha ]
The most important thing with sukiyaki is using egg as a dipping sauce, so each person gets one egg. Crack it into the small black bowl and beat it well. They also serve you a cup of hot tea at the beginning!
[ The sukiyaki has just gone on the stove, with onions sizzling for extra flavor ]
[ The sukiyaki has just gone on the stove, and the sukiyaki broth is being added ]
Only a shallow layer of broth is added to sukiyaki. The first batch comes with the restaurant’s own carefully balanced ratio of water to sauce, so the flavor is just right. As it continues cooking, it gets saltier, so you’ll need to add water to adjust the flavor—or add more sauce yourself if you prefer.
[ Sauce and tableware ]
They provide one bottle of sauce and one bottle of water so you can adjust the saltiness of the sukiyaki. The all-black tableware looks quite stylish, too!
[ Appetizer ]
While you’re waiting for the sliced meat to arrive and the sukiyaki to come to a boil, they serve a tiny appetizer. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s chilled thin noodles with a slightly sweet-and-sour sauce, and it’s quite refreshing.
[ The initial platter of vegetables ]
At the beginning, they bring out a platter of vegetables selected by the restaurant. Much like a standard individual hot pot set, it includes napa cabbage, tofu, enoki mushrooms, assorted meatballs, processed hot pot ingredients, and more.
[ Chicken ]
At the beginning, they’ll ask whether you want beef, chicken, and pork all at once. This is the chicken! The pieces are fairly thick, so they don’t cook very easily in the shallow sukiyaki sauce. You need to keep turning them over and let them cook longer, but they’re delicious and somehow remind me of eating at Yoshinoya, hahaha.
[ Beef ]
This is the beef you’ll keep ordering again and again. Once cooked and dipped into the beaten egg, it is absolutely delicious. The meat at Chang Qu is quite good. It may not be top-grade beef, but for an all-you-can-eat restaurant, the quality is already impressive—and it tastes really good cooked in the sukiyaki sauce!
[ Pork ]
The meat quality is also very good, and it goes wonderfully with the sukiyaki sauce! Still, beef is what I order most often～
[ Sliced meat dipped in egg ]
This is a must when eating sukiyaki: put the freshly cooked slice of meat into the beaten whole egg. The salty meat paired with the egg is truly delicious.
[ A generously loaded pot ]
[ Adding more vegetables ]
Once you’ve nearly finished the initial platter, a server will wheel over a cart and ask whether you’d like more vegetables. The cart is loaded with boxes of ingredients like these, and there is plenty to choose from. There are usually around three kinds of greens, such as water spinach, bean sprouts, cabbage, and broccoli, plus enoki mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, rice cakes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, taro, konjac, glass noodles, processed hot pot ingredients, corn, tofu, and more.
[ Handmade ramen available with reservations ]
If you make a reservation in advance, you’ll receive these handmade ramen noodles for free. They cook up wonderfully springy and delicious!
[ Seating area ]
The restaurant is decorated mainly in white with touches of red. It’s simple and clean, and the black tableware adds a refined, minimalist feel. The lighting also gives the dining room a comfortable atmosphere.
[ Six-person seating area ]
This is the six-person seating area. We sat at one of these tables once, but the chairs on the outside weren’t very comfortable. The restaurant also has a few small decorative touches that are simple yet lovely.
[ Outdoor seating area ]
There’s also an outdoor garden with chairs where you can sit! However, it was almost closing time when I took this photo, so the chairs had already been put away. The restroom is on the left.
[ Decorative details around the restaurant ]
I think they put a lot of thought into the restaurant’s décor. Nothing is overly complicated; it’s all simple and elegant.
[ After-meal drink ]
When you first order, they’ll ask what drink you’d like after the meal. You can choose Coke and other soft drinks, which come with free refills. Black tea, coffee, other teas, and fruit juices are also available, but those cannot be refilled. The drinks are fairly ordinary and nothing particularly special, but this is a sukiyaki restaurant, after all—the after-meal drink is just a bonus.
[ After-meal dessert ]
They’ll also ask you to choose your after-meal dessert when you first order. These are usually the two options, although it seems they occasionally offer others. On the left is brown sugar kanten jelly, and on the right is matcha shaved ice with red beans and ice cream. I recommend the matcha dessert: shaved ice topped with matcha sauce, red beans, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Cold dessert tastes especially satisfying after a piping-hot sukiyaki meal! The kanten jelly, on the other hand, is rather bland. Kanten itself has no flavor, after all, so it relies entirely on the brown sugar. Eating it feels kind of… boring, hahaha.
Overall, Chang Qu offers quite good quality in both its meats and side dishes, with a wide variety of ingredients. There is an appetizer before the meal and dessert afterward, and everything tastes pretty good. The atmosphere is comfortable, and the service is generally good too—apart from one slightly arrogant server I’d never seen before. Besides taking additional orders when you ask, the staff will sometimes proactively come over to see whether you need anything else.
However, sukiyaki itself is strongly flavored and can get a little heavy, so even I sometimes can’t eat very much. If you love sukiyaki or simply want to give it a try, I highly recommend coming here! I haven’t tried Momo Paradise in Taipei, but people who have eaten at both say they think Chang Qu is better than Momo.
It’s a great place for a group meal, although the location really is a little remote. The surrounding area is so deserted that you may start wondering whether you’ve taken a wrong turn—and why on earth they decided to open the restaurant here, hahaha.
Important Information
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Chang Qu Sukiyaki House SUKIYA |
