Tripod King 鼎王麻辣锅 @ Guangfu North Road, Taipei

For our full trip itinerary, please click here.

On the last night of our trip, KampungBoy wanted to splurge on dinner. Apparently, he had “too much” of Taiwanese Dollar left because he spent very little on food, accommodation, transport, etc (credits to my good planning). Being a good girlfriend, I did my fair bit in helping him by……buying cosmetics and skin care products as seen in the picture above! If you love drug store brands, just walk into any Sasa/Watson’s/Cosmed outlets and you’ll go crazeeeeee over the beauty finds!

Together with two huge shopping bags, we then walked for about 45 minutes to Tripod King, a very famous hot pot restaurant in Taipei other than Tai He Dian. You can opt to take a cab but since our “dinner” reservation was set at 11pm, we took our own sweet time to stroll along the streets of Taipei. Originally from Taichung, they have recently set up a branch in Taipei and is so popular that reservations have been pretty hard to get, which explains the “odd” slot that we got.

Tripod King, what a name right? It is actually a direct ranslation from its Chinese name, Ding Wang 鼎王, and was in reference to the three legs that these pots stood on. Everything from the exquisite dark wood furnishing, dainty iron teakettle and teacups arranged beautifully on the table to the beautiful wait staffs cladded in traditional chinese costumes that smile sweetly at you screams nothing but expensive.

As a token of appreciation, the waitresses need to do a 90 degree bend whenever they approach the patron’s tables. However, as they did that everytime after they refill your tea or bring you a new saucer plate, it gets pretty annoying.

rice and sauce is free and refillable.

Our yuanyang pot comes in two flavors: mala aka spicy broth (麻辣鍋) and Dongbei pickled cabbage and pork broth (東北酸白菜鍋, or Dongbei pickled cabbage pot). NT196 + NT150 for two pax.

One can always choose the level of spiciness for the mala broth and the level of sourness of the pickled cabbage broth. We had medium level of spiciness and sourness but the strong flavor is enough to set our tongue tingling and contort our face into frown.

Coagulated duck’s blood cubes and half firm tofus were found in the mala broth. The coagulated duck’s blood cubes were bouncy and bouyant, similiar to panna cotta. And it doesn’t have the bloody blood smell, like steel or iron. I love it! The pickled cabbage broth with pork strips too, has worked really well in whetting our appetite.

The broth, together with the ingredients were refillable as well. You can always make your money worth by having the broth and rice alone, all for only NT 98 (RM11).

Of course we could not settle with just the rice and broth alone because KampungBoy wanted to “spend some money”, so sliced abalones were ordered (NT180).

We had some beautifully marbled beef slices (NT290) too.

From L to R: Old You Tiao (deep fried crullers), assorted mushrooms, assorted fish/meat/squid balls. The Old You Tiao was really intriguing; deep fried repeatedly to achieve a hard and crunchy texture, it will not soften even if you dunk it into the broth for hours! Great for a hot pot session like this!

I love the Sour Plum Juice 酸梅汤! Made of smoked sour plums, it imparted a somewhat smoky and slightly salty taste. It works really well in combating the mala/numbing spiciness sensation too. Delicious!

We were NT1349 poorer but it was a very satisfying dinner. So no qualms on that!

What a perfect ending to our Taiwan trip!

鼎王麻辣锅
Address: 89, Guangfu N Rd, Taipei City (台北市光復北路89號)
Telephone: (02) 2742-2116
Open: 11:00am to 2:30am
Reservation is a must!