Christine L.
Yelp
Also known as Ji Yuan Szechuan Restaurant, this is a lovely, old place that's most well known for its traditional clay pot chicken soup. It's a spot that's pretty famous among Da'an locals, apparently because some Taiwanese celebrities/talk show hosts have visited and named their soup as one of their favorites.
So some important things first. So locally, it's considered to be a more formal and fancier place, a restaurant you'd make reservations for when there's something big to celebrate. So probably be aware of that. When you enter, you're first going to be treated an open window view of where they're cooking all the clay pot chickens. This kitchen is separate from their actual kitchen and is solely devoted to the making process of making the clay pot soup, as the chickens requires 12 hours of being cooked with high heat. From there, you'll take the stairs to the left down into the main dining room. Most notably, they don't have any elevators down here. So if you need a wheelchair or are on crutches, you're gonna have a real bad time getting down there. It was because of this that my wheelchair-bound grandfather couldn't come with us.
Past the main dining room, you'll get a couple of separate, more private rooms. The room we were in had four tables and (for reference) we were a party of 11 that fit at one such table. It seems it's a pretty suitable place for large events with a lot of people, and they'll just divide up the tables in the rooms when somewhat large parties like ours make reservations
There are a variety of pricier options that includes them adding bamboo shoots, shark fin, abalone, and so on which is typically good-luck foods you would have in bigger celebrations. We just got the cheapest chicken soup available, which means just the chicken distilled broth. It's seriously a pretty intense flavor all on its own. For the record, the layer that forms on top isn't fat, it's COLLAGEN because they distill absolutely everything from the chicken. Just stir a bit in the soup and it will easily dissolve. One of the options I would highly recommend is the Adding of the Vegetables and Tofu (it's the option on the bottom of the Clay Pot Chicken Menu that's 300 TB). This option means that when you're halfway through the chicken broth, they'll add a bit more water or broth and then use that to cook vegetables and tofu. It's a bit less potent and much lighter. My parents told me that this second part is what they were used to eating as kids. And if you have leftover soup, no worries! Just ask, and they'll back the soup away in a pot you can take home for a deposit payment of $10 (300 TB). Once you return the pot, you'll get your money back.
Overall, each dish has a pretty distinct taste and stands out from each, so I would definitely recommend you try as many dishes as possible here. It's an excellent place to go with large groups or when you want to impress someone. Make it a fancier night out on the town so you have an excuse to drag down as many people as you can with you. This is Taipei. It's perfectly fine to celebrate that you're even here (I have FAMILY in Taiwan and everyone still celebrates going "YOU'RE HERE" even if we just visited a few months ago). If you're in the district, this is one of the places I would highly recommend going out of your way for!
Last interesting fact: the owner's son also has his own restaurant, a location I submitted to Yelp earlier. He had wanted to create something like this, but more suited for and as everyday fare. I'll post a review for that place next, as it was quite lovely as well.
