Review: 永安八海鮮美食餐廳 (Kaohsiung, TW)

After having breakfast at Dandan Hamburger, we continued walking around the neighbourhood to burn some of the food that we ate.   We then met up with parents from both families (my family and my bro-in-law's family) for a nice family meal together before the wedding, which is a reflection of the really, really welcoming Asian hospitality.   

They took us to their favourite restaurant, which located in a fishing village about an hour outside of Kaohsiung's city center.  The resto is called 永安八海鮮美食餐廳 and located at No. 486-1號, Shiban Road, Yong'an District, Kaohsiung City

This was a new experience for us!   Most of the dishes are traditional dishes that we've never tried before.  Plus, because we were in a fishing village, all the seafood was super duper fresh!  We were so excited & eager to try the dishes that we didn't do a very good job taking pictures of any of the food.  Sigh.  Sorry everyone.  

This is a Taiwanese salted / cured fish roe (mullet roe, to be exact).  The roe is wholly air-cured, usually hang dry in sunlight.  When you go to fishing towns in Taiwan, you would see a lot of vendors hanging these roe on their store front.  Apparently they can be eaten raw; but the ones that we ate at the restaurant seem to have been pan seared.  

These are delicious!!!!  I didn't know what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised. It's very umami, and super rich.  Looks like they're usually eaten either with sliced fresh garlic, or green onion, or daikons, or a combination of all of them.   What a great appetizer to prep your palate!  (oh, turns out these are usually a special treat, and they're quiet pricey depending on the quality.... it's not something that people eat on a daily basis).     

Moving on to another cold dish.  I really wasn't excited about trying the squids, because they were served plainly like this, and they weren't hot.  So what could be so special about them, right?  Plus... I cannot turn off my food microbiology "brain" off, and.... you know.... I generally avoid eating room-temperature seafood (except for Japanese cuisine eaten at a trusted Japanese resto).   

After some emotional battle between my stomach (which was hungry) vs. my brain (which puts up all the red lights), I took a bite because I was curious about this dish.  And *drum roll* this was probably one of the best room temperature squid I've ever eaten!  They were not chewy at all!  They were cooked perfectly; the texture was  "crunchy" yet tender.  The squid was so fresh that there was no fishy smell at all; all I could taste was the squid.  Wow.  I was so amazed.   

Moving on to the next dish!  It was this peculiar yellow soup that I initially thought was a pumpkin or sweet potato porridge.   Boy, was I wrong!  We took a scoop out of that big bowl, and we had a crab shell.  This was a very rich crab congee/porridge, and the darker yellow pieces that you see in the picture were crab eggs.  OMFG.  This dish blew my mind.  It was so delicious!   The porridge was so simple yet so flavourful; the ingredients are basically a plain porridge + crab meats + crab eggs + spices.   The crab meat and crab eggs did all the work!  

They told us that we came at the right time, that's why we were able to have so much eggs in the porridge.  If we had come during the off season, there wouldn't have been as much egg, and the colour of the porridge would be more plain/white rather than yellow.   But man, that porridge was so rich I was so full after eating a small bowl.   

Next dish that we had was oysters; They oysters are smaller than the North American ones that I usually eat in Vancouver (which are generally bigger and so juicy).  These ones are simply cooked in some soy sauce and cooking wine, I think, and the dish was blessed with lots of onions!  The oysters were fresh and didn't taste or smell fishy at all.  What a great simple dish.  The sauce wasn't over powering and really highlighted the oysters.  

And this was the last dish that we took pictures of.  LOL.  We got too distracted with eating and enjoying the food that we didn't have a chance to take pictures.  Plus, it was actually quiet awkward to take that many pictures since we were eating with soon-to-be family members at that time!  This was a deep fried fish with Chinese thick brown asuce.  Oh la la.  I don't know how they kept it so crispy, but it was such a great contrast & combination between the rich, thick sauce and the crunchy fish pieces.  

Aside from these dishes, we had some more fish, we had giant prawns, we had lot of vegetable dishes as well.  We emerged out of the restaurant 5lbs heavier; almost everyone fell asleep in the car ride home.   The owner of the restaurant was also very friendly!  They came and greeted us, and celebrated my sister's wedding festivities with us for a little while.   They're good friends of the family and they've watched my bro-in-law grew from a young boy until they're now adults.  

What a wonderful experience; we wouldn't have found this place on our own if not because we were invited by their family.   I'm so glad we got to enjoy Taiwanese seafood dishes at their best!