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| 艋舺200柳州螺螄粉 Monga 200 Liuzhou Snail Rice Noodles | No. 175, Guangzhou St, Wanhua District, Taipei City, Taiwan 108 🚅 Longshan Temple station (Blue Line) ☏ +886 22 306 1636 ⏰ 11am - 9pm |
Heard a lot about Liuzhou snail noodles before coming to Taipei - China's infamously smelly noodles. We have not been to Liuzhou nor China's Guangxi province before, so we were eager to try the popular Liuzhou snail noodles restaurant near Longshan Temple.
One of the most popular places in Taipei to enjoy freshly cooked Liuzhou snail noodles is at 艋舺200柳州螺螄粉 near Longshan Temple. The lady boss hailed from Liuzhou, home of China's notorious smelly noodle.
So, here we were.
The little restaurant was humbly furnished but clean and comfortable (air conditioned).
The menu. All Chinese 🤭
We opted for 螺蛳粉豬+牛+腸 snail noodle soup with pork, beef and pork intestines i.e. everything in for NT$190 (around SG$8). Besides meat, there were preserved / pickled vegetables, greens, peanuts, etc in the bowl.
The snail soup was complex. It was made with paddy / river snails 田螺 and pork bones with lots of herbs and spices as well as fermented bamboo shoot. The watery soup had subtle earthly sweetness overlaid with sour savoury spiciness.
Snail noodles are not served with snail meat. The snails are used only to make the soup and its flesh is not served with the dish. Pork and beef meat are served instead with the snail noodle soup.
Our everything-in bowl had meaty chunks of (imported New Zealand) beef. Tender, spongy, softly chewy, savoury beefy.
The pieces with fat had the most savoury beefy taste.
The pork was porcine sweet but a lot less intense in flavour than the beef, in comparison. (Personally, I would skip the pork next time.)
Stewed / braised pork intestine, soft tender with rich savoury sweet flavours.
The thick rice vermicelli with slippery smooth, springy tender bite was one of the winning features of Liuzhou snail noodles.
Liuzhou snail noodles is admittedly an acquired taste. The earthy taste of snails, the peculiar smell of fermented / pickled vegetable and bamboo shoots need a bit of getting used to. But, once you acquired the taste for it, once you are hooked, your life is changed.
The smelly noodle soup sets off cravings for this dish - perhaps explaining the global popularity of the instant noodle version of Liuzhou snail noodles.
Now, I look forward for a chance to visit Liuzhou, Guangxi home of luosifen one day.
Restaurant name: 艋舺200柳州螺螄粉 Monga 200 Liuzhou Snail Rice Noodles
Address: No. 175, Guangzhou St, Wanhua District, Taipei City, Taiwan 108
Nearest MRT: Longshan Temple station (Blue Line)
Tel: +886 22 306 1636
Hours: 11am - 9pm
Written by Tony Boey on 6 Jun 2025
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spongy beef = baking soda-ed beef ?
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ReplyDeleteWow just got back from a 6D5N tour to Guilin & Yangshuo in May 2025 . Liuzhou snail noodles are served everywhere at Guilin and Yangshuo . Most hotels will serve Guilin Noodles ( the soup stock is sourish akin to the Snail Stock ) for breakfast sans snails. In Guilin & Yangshuo the noodles are served with a tiny weeny slither of pork ( no sign of beef ). At Yangshuo the local municipality government mandated that Guilin Noodles can only be sold at Renminbi 6 per - bowl ( food for the mass ) with Snail Noodles at slightly higher price
ReplyDeleteI believe part of the smell of Liuzhou Snail noodles is derived from the Bamboo Shoots added . My wife being Cantonese will not touch Bamboo Shoots as she complained it smells like ammonia :-) And it gave me aEureka moment to realise that there aint no bamboo shoot dishes in any Cantonese Restaurant - one can only find bamboo shoot dishes in either Hokkien or Teo Chew Restaurants LOL . Further in Guilin?Yangshuo ; they used vacuum dried soya beans & not peanuts as you featured in the Taipei eatery. In Guilin/Yangshuo, the instant packed snail noodles costs Renminbi 15 a packet . There are about 6 to 7 packets of condiments and garnish to snip open and pour into the bowl :-)
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