August 2026 Shoal Menu
∥August 2026 Shoal Menu｜The Antidote to a Long Summer∥
Autumn arrives on the seventh of August, at the solar term Liqiu, the Start of Autumn. It is autumn in name only. That day still falls inside zhongfu, the middle stretch of the dog days; the heat received no notice and reports for work as usual. The old saying runs, "the heat lives in the three fu." In Taiwan the fu days are high summer at its clearest and hottest, a whole day of running sweat. This year the fu run long, forty days in all, and we do not come out of them until the twenty-third of August. August is spent, for the most part, in hiding.
The Guangya, in its chapter "Shigu," glosses the word: "Fu is to hide." Zhang Shoujie, in Correct Meanings of the Records of the Grand Historian, explains: "To fu is to lie concealed, to shelter from the height of the heat." What the ancients meant was that in weather like this there is no need for bravado. Hide, and that is enough. You may hide from the sun; you cannot hide from your appetite. Those who come in from outside always find the air conditioning insufficient, unable to settle in a chair or to eat. When the long summer is at its hottest, people are at their most wilted.
Cold dishes to refresh, the stove to whet, and through the August menu sourness runs as the warp thread. The sourness of plum wine, of green lime, of rice vinegar; the fermented sourness of soured bamboo shoot and soured long beans; the sourness of smoked dark plum, of salted lemon... Sourness engenders fluid, and with fluid the appetite wakes. To those who cannot think of food in the long summer, give sourness first.
With a thought for friends who come to eat on their own, so that they too can share in a family style meal, our dishes are conceived with one person's portion as the base unit; each à la carte price is the price of a single portion. Friends arriving as a group may add as many portions as their numbers and appetites call for. In every case, dishes come to the table family style. Wine, other drinks or cake brought from outside are subject to a modest cleaning and service charge, set at ten percent of the meal total.
Shoal's menu changes each month in keeping with the seasons of the year, and only ten guests are served every thirty minutes. To reserve a table, please send a private message to our page, and we will reply when we have a free moment. If you would rather not use digital tools, telephone reservations may be made in the afternoon, from 14:30 to 16:30. For reservations other than for the current meal, please avoid telephoning during service hours, for in the heat of the rush it is hard to attend to things properly.
August business hours: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, serving lunch and dinner; weekend afternoon tea is suspended for now, and we are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. When visiting Shoal 2.0, please make a reservation and note the business hours; as there are occasional unscheduled closures, please take care that your visit is not in vain.
| August 2026 Shoal Menu |
| This translation is provided by Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini, and cannot guarantee complete accuracy. Please refer to the original Mandarin menu for detailed information. |
Plum Wine Drunken Chicken
NT$340
At Qingming we steep the green plums; by Liqiu they are ready for drunken chicken. The plum fragrance is clear and refined, quickening the appetite. Shoal's own plum wine, the marinade all wine, never thinned with stock. Fresh boneless free-range hybrid native chicken leg, firm and full in texture. A fruit wine paid for in steeping time; a flavour that admits no shortcut. The plums come from friendly cultivation, gathered from the dooryard of the Dongshi family home of Liu Shih-chieh, founder of Shih Brewing: an old plum tree beside the house that fruits year after year, the green plums crowding the branches thick as beans.
Chilled Seafood and Cucumber Salad
NT$260
Cucumber turns from green to golden yellow when ripe, thus earning the name “large yellow cucumber.” Whether peeled or not, its pale and deep greens mingle; sliced raw, it yields a crisp, lightly sweet bite that invites curiosity. We add baby corn, cherry tomatoes, and red onion, dress the ensemble with a Southeast Asian–style vinaigrette, then crown it with blanched-and-ice-chilled white shrimp, clams, and squid for pure ocean freshness. Celebrating Taiwan’s seasonal rhythm of vegetables, this salad captures the island’s summer in one refreshing dish.
Chilled Mushrooms with Niu Gan Ba
NT$180
Seasoned with Yunnan Hui minority’s unique dried beef jerky, "Niu Gan Ba," a well-preserved and portable staple. Featuring various mushrooms, such as tea tree mushrooms, shiitake, and black fungus, along with red peppers, this dish is tossed in fresh lemon juice instead of vinegar, creating a clean, bright, and refreshing acidity that awakens the taste buds.
Braised Dried Tofu
NT$150
Selecting Ming Feng original dried tofu, a legendary brand in the soybean revolution. It uses imported, contract-farmed, naturally bred, food-grade, non-GMO soybeans from the United States. Through ten stages of water filtration, the beans are cold-soaked, yielding the first pressing of soy milk, which is coagulated into tofu and shaped by hand in gauze, retaining its original flavor and color with no dyes or additives.
Taking the richly fragrant Shoal cured meat braising liquid, steeped with the unctuous sweetness found only in marinated pork belly, it is blended with the exceptionally elegant aroma of Jui Chun original soy sauce, a century-old pure-brewed brand from Xiluo. The fragrant and mellow braising liquid permeates deeply, yielding a rich elegance of soybean and sauce aromas. The thinly sliced dried tofu, tinged with a tea-brown sauce hue like a misty wash, offers a soft, tender, moist, and sweet texture, punctuated by the aromatic touch of Shoal chili oil.
Lemon Century Egg
NT$185
Using award-winning, lead-free herbal century eggs produced by exemplary farmer Su Qing-fa from Tainan. The duck eggs come from ducks raised in low-density conditions, with a 90% egg-laying rate, fed on cornmeal, soybean meal, and probiotics. Coated in a mixture of red soil, acacia, plantain, banyan aerial roots, wild grapes, and lemongrass, and aged for a month, these century eggs are clean and free of off-flavors. The egg white is a deep black, and the yolk is as molten as lava. Diced tomatoes and onions, mixed with celery, cilantro, and minced garlic, are tossed in a light and translucent Yongxing soy sauce, and grated lemon zest is added for a refreshing and appetizing flavor.
Seasonal Vegetables Braised in Bonito Soy Glaze
NT$215
We start with Yong-Hsing’s premium amber soy paste from Tainan, prized for its clarity and lift, and blend it with a delicate katsuobushi dashi. Eggplant, zucchini, and pumpkin are simmered slowly until tender, then chilled, allowing the glaze to penetrate and refresh. The technique borrows from Japanese home cooking but celebrates Taiwan’s vibrant produce. The recipe nods to Haruki Murakami’s “Norwegian Wood”: it was one of the dishes Midori Kobayashi prepared for Watanabe during their bountiful bookstore supper, the scene where she later shared her iconic strawberry-shortcake philosophy of love.
Golden-Jade Chilled Bamboo Shoots
NT$150
We choose Taichung Dakeng “Golden Jade” bamboo shoots, cultivated under soil and cloth so they never meet sunlight. Lifted from the earth at their peak, these premium sunken shoots are plunged into 2 °C water to seal in sweetness. Long organic moso shoots emerge crisp and delicate, reminiscent of iced pear. Because true luxury in bamboo shoots lies in their own purity, we serve them almost unadorned, adding only a gentle dip of Tainan Yong-Hsing sun-dried white soy paste for subtle umami. Li Yu noted in “Xian Qing Ou Ji”, volume 5, “Food and Drink, Vegetables I, Bamboo Shoots”: “Boil until tender, add a hint of soy sauce; the finest things flourish when left alone.”
Coir Raincoat Cucumber
NT$120
Coir Raincoat cucumbers are coiled like a curling dragon, utilizing the artisan's snake-belly cutting technique; the silent fall of the knife cultivates the mind and character. Fresh, crisp, and refreshing, yet richly appetizing; soy sauce, Sichuan peppercorn oil, and rice vinegar form a harmony of spices, dedicated solely to the duty of cutting through richness.
Sichuan Peppercorn Shrimp
NT$350
A shrimp dish to make you swallow your tongue, the peppercorn fragrance intense and yet clear. Oil rendered with Sichuan peppercorn; peppercorn fried crisp and coarsely crushed; peppercorn milled to a fine powder. Every form the spice can take, its scent clinging to every medium, carried by the heat of the wok until it wraps the sweet, delicate white shrimp everywhere at once. Layer folds upon layer, heightening the flavour without usurping it, and the bright taste of the sea rises through.
Butterfly Ginger Chicken
NT$210
The scent of butterfly ginger has presence. Bring it indoors and the room fills; put it in a dish and the fragrance stays in the mouth. Clear and refined yet dense, it comes at you in waves. Chicken tenderloin cut into strips, simply seasoned and massaged with a little Yung Hsing Bo grade black bean soy sauce, pale enough that it will not mask the flavour. Hot wok, cool oil, medium flame, quickly tossed. The white blossoms are like white butterflies: lovely, singular, delicately uncommon. Seasonal only, at the height of its moment, from small farms under friendly cultivation.
Cured Sausage with Fermented Yardlong Beans and Minced Pork
NT$180
Once a standby on the tables of the military dependants' villages, a dish that can be lavish or lean. The yardlong beans are its soul. Fermented young yardlong beans, fragrant with the smell of the ferment, cut the fat of the pork and lift the dish clear of richness. Stir-fried hard and fast with fresh ground pork, then Kuei Lai-piao cured sausage for a richer register: sour, salty, savoury, aromatic, remarkably bracing.
The sausage is made to our own formula, without MSG or preservatives, by Kuei Lai-piao, sixty years in the trade, who insist on the full northeast monsoon, open shop only in winter, and hold to the flavours of their home province of Hunan. Thirty percent fat to seventy percent lean, the meat diced by hand rather than by machine so that texture and juices stay true, and stuffed into natural hog casing.
Stir-fried Lamb with Sour Bamboo Shoots
NT$240
The sour bamboo shoots are what open the eyes of the dish: cool, clean, bracing, their fermented acidity starting the saliva. A standing pickle in any Yunnan kitchen. Hot wok, hot oil, aromatics flashed, then the shoots fried until fragrant. That distinctive ferment and sourness, brought to New Zealand spring lamb, cuts its richness and reveals its sweetness, throwing into relief the milky, clean, appetising, fortifying character that is the lamb's own.
Shoal ferments its own sour shoots. We choose Golden Jade cold shoots from Dakeng, Taichung, raised with fine care under mounded soil and cloth: the finest sort, sunk in earth and never having seen light. Cut and placed at once into 2°C water, these organic ma bamboo shoots have the fine texture of an iced pear, sweet and crisp. Husked, shaved into threads, no salt, no water, fermented wholly on their own, packed tight into a sealed vessel and left until the sour fragrance comes up. The method is particular to the Dai people, learned from our good friend A-tsai, a Yunnanese Burmese.
White Water Snowflake with Preserved Cordia Dichotoma
NT$150
A signature vegetarian dish from the “Shoal Bento for Cheng Hsing-tse.” White water snowflake—the xìng-cài praised in the Book of Songs—thrives in the irrigation ponds of Meinong. Once a foraged summer lifesaver on Hakka tables, it was later domesticated as a post-tobacco cash crop, inspiring Zhong Yong-feng and Lin Sheng-xiang’s rural epic “Wild Snowflake Leaves the Village.” Preserved cordia dichotoma, adopted from Plains Indigenous foodways and found in no other world cuisine, lends a salty-tart brightness; Lin Sheng-xiang’s song “Across the Black” evokes both its flavour and the weight of everyday life. Shoal took part in the long campaign to clear Cheng Hsing-tse’s wrongful conviction, providing regular visits, emotional support, and home-cooked meals to the detention centre for three years until his acquittal on 21 November 2017.
Minted Offal Soup
NT$165
Xià‑shuǐ—poultry innards such as chicken hearts, livers, gizzards, and duck intestines—bob in a rich chicken stock. A handful of fresh, responsibly farmed mint leaves releases a heady coolness, joined by crimson goji berries for gentle sweetness, creating the perfect summer heat‑relief broth. Offal soup is classic Taiwanese street fare once ubiquitous beside markets and noodle stalls. The term xià‑shuǐ traces back to English “haslet soup,” borrowed into Japanese ハススープ during the colonial era and rendered in Taiwanese with a similar sound.
Fragrant Rice
NT$30
A frequent champion among award-winning rice varieties: Tainung No. 71, Yihchuan Aromatic Rice. To commemorate Dr. Kuo Yih-chuan, who bred the rice variety, it was named “Yihchuan.” Created by crossing Koshihikari rice with Taikeng No. 4, it inherits the beautiful appearance of Japanese rice while fully preserving the rich taro aroma of Taiwanese rice. As it cooks, its distinctive rice fragrance already overflows; the grains are lustrous white and rounded, with a soft, glutinous, cleanly sweet texture. We select it from Wufeng, the home of Yihchuan Aromatic Rice and Taiwan’s largest fragrant-rice-growing region. Its mountain-adjacent climate, wreathed in morning and evening mist, and the Wu River, originating from the southwestern foothills of Hehuan Mountain and irrigating fertile fields, together with the natural conditions and the local farmers’ association’s human management, have supported, since 2005, cultivation without pesticides, chemical fertilizers, or herbicides, making it one of Taiwan’s most scaled and systematic natural-farming rice-producing regions.
| Pre-order Delicacies | Two days in advance
Chicken Rice
NT$250
Founder Su Wen-Wen's nostalgic recollections of her childhood and hometown. Originally a family dish made only for a few days during the anniversary celebration, it has accumulated countless fans who praise it as "the world's most delicious chicken rice!" Ma Shifang acclaimed it as "a peerless delicacy," while Feng Xiaofei said, "We need food like Shoal's chicken rice to increase rice consumption." One mother's comment was the most heartfelt: "This is exactly the kind of chicken rice a mother wants her children to eat!"
In a white porcelain bowl, soft and fragrant rice is topped with sweet, tender chicken, drizzled with rich chicken broth blended with aromatic traditional black bean soy sauce, and then finished with a generous pour of rich and fragrant chicken oil... One bite will bring you joy! The fragrant and silky chicken rice, accompanied by various exquisite side dishes, is both homely and refined, making it irresistible to finish every last bite.
| Refreshing Cool Drinks |
Dual Wen Herbal Tea
NT$85
Throughout history, when encountering miraculous herbs, ancient texts would often exclaim, "This is true heavenly herb." These medicinal and edible plants have become a staple of everyday life across the seasons. Each plant of resurrection grass is simmered in a clay pot, brewed into a cooling tea that dispels seasonal heat. Founder Su Wen-wen, with twenty years of study in Chinese herbal medicine, has perfected these cooling remedies, carefully crafting the formulas herself. As the saying from the Shennong Bencao Jing goes, "There is nothing useless in the world, only people who cannot make use of things."
Imperata Root and Bamboo Sugarcane Drink
NT$100
Clean and sweet, relieving summer heat, refreshing the mouth and quenching thirst, it is a staple of Hong Kong-style cooling tea. Bamboo sugarcane, imperata root, corn silk, and candied winter melon are simmered in an earthenware pot: a functional beverage that dispels dampness and clears heat, part of the traditional dietary culture of Lingnan and the folk wisdom of nurturing one's health. Tao Hongjing's Bencao Jing Jizhu likens the white imperata root, in its sweetness, to zha-qin. Feng Zhi of the Tang, in the Yunxian Zaji, writes: "When the thatch ground has had its branches and stalks burned away over the winter, in spring one takes the roots remaining in the soil that are white as jade, pounds them for their juice and decocts it; intensely sweet, it can be made into heart-cleansing sugar."
Prunella & Honey Date Infusion
NT$95
Adapted from Hong Kong food writer Wong Shuang-ru’s recipe in Shuang-ru Talks Food. Bencao Mengquan records: “It sprouts after the winter solstice and withers by the summer solstice, hence the name xiakucao.” The dried flower spikes and fruits of Prunella vulgaris carry a light aroma and help dispel internal heat. Gently simmered with honey dates, they produce a drink that is cooling, mellow, and subtly sweet.
“Elegant Abode” Sour Plum Drink
NT$95
A standout woody bouquet with the deep aroma of smoked black plums and a lingering return of red cardamom. After a long soak and two clay-pot decoctions, the herbal profile is fully expressed. It moistens and quenches without sticky afterfeel or heavy finish. The recipe draws on Professor Chang Wen-te of China Medical University and researches Liang Shih-chiu’s “Essays from the Elegant Abode,” tracing materia medica sources to recreate a concentrated, robust formula.
Salted Lemon Sparkling Juice
NT$120
Shoal's own salted lemons: fragrant lemons under friendly cultivation from Chiang Hsia Hsin Yuan in Puzi, Chiayi, with coarse salt from the Zhounan Saltworks, the whole fruit salted and laid down to age. What was fresh and astringent turns to a sweet fragrance somewhere between kumquat and preserved plum with aged citrus peel. Layered, sour and aromatic, mouth-watering, salty and sweet with a returning sweetness. Zhao Xuemin, the Qing dynasty pharmacologist, held in his Supplement to the Compendium of Materia Medica (juan 7, Fruits I) that the lemon settles a pregnancy, and named it the "mother-friendly fruit": salted and eaten, it settles the qi and harmonises the stomach, and is good for an unquiet pregnancy; made into a drink, it wards off the fierce heat and quenches thirst.
Preserved Oriental Plum Sparkling Juice
NT$130
Shoal proudly presents its sugar-preserved oriental plums, sourced from wild ancient trees in Yushan National Park and safeguarded by the Bunun people of the Meishan community. Grown without chemical fertilizers or herbicides, these plums ripen into brilliant ruby-like gems—so enticing that even macaques and wild boars are left with a lingering taste. Hand-picked at full ripeness rather than plucked unripe by poles, they are meticulously de-pitted by hand to retain whole fruit pieces. The naturally sweet, sugar-preserved plums are pure and free of additives, exuding a fragrance as delightful and aromatic as cherry blossoms. Blended into a sparkling juice, they yield an exquisitely refreshing cold beverage.
Preserved Akihime Plum Sparkling Juice
NT$160
These golden-hued plums are sweet and juicy from peel to flesh, shining as brilliantly as blooming canola in midsummer when cicadas serenade in the rainy season. Grown exclusively in Lishan, Taiwan, they have a very short harvest window and limited yield, making perfectly ripened Akihime Plums a rare summer treasure. Harvested at Baolian Orchard in Lishan—celebrated in A Woman Farmer’s Mountain Writings and often compared to a Taiwanese Walden—they’re nothing short of a natural marvel and a gracious gift.We sugar and simmer the whole fruit without any additives, transforming the soft flesh and fibers into a fragrant pulp that exudes a pleasantly sweet-tart aroma with a subtle honeyed note. Served in a tall slender glass, it bubbles into a champagne-like hue—bright, lively, and reminiscent of sparkling wine—while its distinctly sweet fruit flavor leaves an unforgettable impression.
Preserved Plumcot Sparkling Juice
NT$120
These plumcots boast a brilliant red skin and fragrant yellow flesh, yet their short harvest season and low yield make them truly rare. In Taiwan, the most coveted varieties come from Baolian Garden in Lishan—revered in Notes from a Female Farmer on the Mountains and honored as the Taiwanese equivalent of Lakeside Musings, cherished as both a prized and sacred offering. Hand-pitted and sugar-cooked whole using only natural methods and zero additives, they yield a radiant red syrup that is sweet, beguiling, and reminiscent of strawberries—showcasing the captivating fragrance unique to red fruits. The finely pulped flesh reveals layers of plum tang, peachy perfume, and plumcot essence, fresh and refined.
Preserved Pineapple Sparkling Juice
NT$120
Pineapple, so emblematic it’s like holding a Taiwanese ID card, representing the fervent summer of the south. Shoal preserves the whole fruit in sugar, first peeling the skin and boiling it into syrup until aromatic, then continuing to cook the fruit, capturing its fresh taste and fragrance through precise heat control. This southern flair sealed in sugar is bright and sweet. We select Tainong No. 2 pineapples from Songlinmei Organic Ecological Farm in Luye, Taitung, certified by MOA. Forgoing artificial flower forcing, the farm allows natural growth without inducing early bud formation. Farmer He Jiachen thanks beneficial birds for pest control, leaving some fruit for the wildlife. The result is tree-ripened fruit with a distinct acidity, intense aroma, and complex layers of flavor.
| Tipsy Quadrant |
Pomelo Ferment
NT$160
"My brewing represents freedom!" states Kou Yan-ding, author of "You've Committed the Crime of Subverting Taiwan's Fruit Brewing." A single bottle can create a universe, once deeply immersed in Yilan's secluded self-brewed pomelo, before leaving Taiwan, he entrusted his precious brew to Shoal as a living testament to his existence. The brewing process is highly experimental, dissecting the pomelo's peel, vesicles, and seeds to explore the detailed flavors of brewing, a unique and astonishing experience.
| Comforting Hot Drinks |
Sour Mandarin Tea
Preserved Orange
NT$80
A unique Hakka tea drink, sour mandarin tea is made by repeatedly steaming and drying tea leaves stuffed into tiger-head mandarins, following the "steamed into rounds" method dating back to the Tang and Song dynasties. This rare compressed tea is used for health and wellness, with the lightness of aged tangerine peel aiding in vitality and warmth.
Shoal continues the tea-making tradition passed down from Zheng Xingze’s mother, Zheng Wang Qin-zi, who followed ancient tea-making methods. The tea blends twenty-year-old roasted tea with various herbs, following field research on Taiwanese herbal tea formulations, which often adapt to local needs. These practices honor the wisdom of traditional Chinese medicine.
The tiger-head mandarin from Miaoli’s Yuanli is grown with natural farming methods. Thick-skinned and juicy, the fruit’s sour and sweet flavor is released by opening the stem end and stuffing the cavity with tea leaves and herbs. The fruit is carefully steamed, compressed, sun-dried, fermented, and baked, undergoing nine rounds of steaming and drying. Over time, it becomes dark, firm, and shiny, embodying labor-intensive craftsmanship.
After being used in New Year offerings, these mandarins are transformed into tea, symbolizing blessings of peace, hence known as "peace tea." It takes six months to turn a single sour mandarin into sour mandarin tea, with its sweet and mellow flavor becoming richer as it ages, offering a glimpse into the wisdom of ancestral diets.
We select organic-certified, tree-ripened oranges from Chu Chang-hui’s orchard in Xidiyao, Zhongliao, Nantou. Pure, natural, and additive-free, the whole fruit is preserved in stir-fried sugar and aged. A finger-licking candied treat, it is approachable and delicious, dispelling wind and nurturing health.
Mint and Orange Tea
NT$150
Chen Shiduo’s Qing-era “New Compilation of Materia Medica” records an old formula: “When someone is struck by external evils and burdened by stagnant qi and will not take medicine, counsel the use of thin-orange tea for immediate effect. Use one qian mint, one qian tea, one qian orange peel, and pour a large bowl of boiling tea to drink.” “Mint not only excels at resolving wind evils but is especially good at easing melancholy.” We apply this to Shoal’s tankan cakes and candied tankan, hoping to sweep away life’s many wearinesses, the five labors and seven injuries.
Tankan Cakes are whole fruits candied in syrup, sweet, spicy, and aromatically vivid, documented since the Qing and now part of Taiwan’s Hakka foodways. Nourishing and home style, they perfume the teeth and gums. We source from Zhong Jing-feng, head of the production group in Emei, Hsinchu. Following Miaoli Hakka tradition, the tankan is scored, pressed into cake shapes to release their juices, then simmered whole with Zhubaoyuan hand made wood fired malt syrup, Shoal’s winter melon caramel, and red rock sugar until the rind softens to orange, the pith turns translucent, and the syrup is as thick as honey. After an overnight rest they are baked to dry: the peel taut, the flesh tender, textures layered, sour and sweet in fragrant balance. With careful heat and aging, time transforms flavor and the peel’s sharpness becomes supple sweetness.
Starfruit Drink
NT$90
A traditional beverage rich in Taiwanese local flavor. In Taiwan History—Volume 27, Agriculture—Fruits, it's noted: "The fruit has five or six ridges; the sour ones are made into candied fruit or soaked in sugar water to make a drink." The greenish-yellow star-shaped fruit, with ridges like a sword's spine, preserves the sweet and sourness of starfruit with sugar. The clear amber-colored drink overflows with natural fruit aroma. The honey-soaked starfruit transforms into a gentle force, quenching thirst and soothing the throat. We select honeyed starfruit from the Liu family's Starfruit Drink in Tainan, a legacy spanning three generations over 85 years. It brings back warm childhood memories of roadside starfruit juice stands—drinking it is like savoring a gentle poem of nostalgia.
Stewed Pear with Chuan Bei Mu and Rock Sugar
NT$100
Pears are listed second among fruits in the “Compendium of Materia Medica,” where Li Shizhen wrote: “The pear facilitates flow by nature.” We stew wild-grown Hengshan pears from Dongshi whole with Yongliang handcrafted golden rock sugar, adding Chuan Bei Mu for benefit. Pure and additive-free, refined through careful heat and a period of resting, the result is gentle and harmonious. The pear is like uncut jade, and its nectar like jade dew, a clear and softly sweet restorative.
Ylang-Ylang Milk Tea
NT$160
Ylang-ylang is hailed as the perfume tree; as in Li Shangyin's poem "Composed at the Zhongyuan Festival," it is a being of "not knowing the path was lost because the flowers had bloomed." Using Yong-Liang's handmade golden rock sugar, Shoal cold-infuses the golden, ripened petals that dot the treetops like stars to make its own ylang-ylang flower sugar; together with Fourways fresh milk and Sun Moon Lake Assam black tea, it is simmered in a pot into a milk tea, a rich, sweet fragrance that soothes body and mind, drawing out the deep, honeyed sentiment that the tropical blossom exhales once ripened in the sunlight. Fourways has its own ranch, growing its own forage by natural farming methods and using no additives to adjust the flavor, so that its clean, full-bodied milk fragrance gives the sweetness of the ylang-ylang a place to settle. As though a flower were in full bloom within the cup, a warm and abundant floral milk tea.
| Desserts Supreme |
Preserved Oriental Plum Aiyu
NT$150
Shoal proudly presents its sugar-preserved oriental plums, sourced from wild ancient trees in Yushan National Park and safeguarded by the Bunun people of the Meishan community. Grown without chemical fertilizers or herbicides, these plums ripen into brilliant ruby-like gems—so enticing that even macaques and wild boars are left with a lingering taste. Hand-picked at full ripeness rather than plucked unripe by poles, they are meticulously de-pitted by hand to retain whole fruit pieces. The naturally sweet, sugar-preserved plums are pure and free of additives, exuding a fragrance as delightful and aromatic as cherry blossoms. The syruped plums crown hand-washed Alishan aiyu jelly for a dessert of pure elegance. Lian Heng writes in "Elegant Speech": "Aiyu jelly, a specialty of Tainan, stands in summer as a substitute for ice." "Taiwan Poets’ Anthology: Taiwan Miscellany" notes that thirty years before ice was sold on the island, people cooled themselves with grass jelly and aiyu.
Akihime Plum Granita
NT$160
Golden, radiant fruit, sweet and juicy; from skin to flesh, yellow as rapeseed flowers in full bloom, dazzling on the branches in the last month of summer, when cicadas call through the plum rains. In Taiwan, its only producing area is Lishan; the season is short, the yield small, and the fruit prone to cracking. Fully mature, intact Akihime plums are a treasure of high summer. Produced at Lishan’s Baolian Orchard, known from A Woman Farmer’s Mountain Journal, they are especially rare and difficult to obtain; praised with the fine reputation of being Taiwan’s version of Walden, they are divine things, gifts of grace. The whole fruit is sugar-preserved and syrup-simmered, entirely natural, with no additives. The flesh is soft in texture, tart-sweet and fragrant, releasing a distinctive honeyed aroma.
Plumcot and Shiso Ume Granita
NT$160
Plumcots, rare jewels with ruby skins and amber flesh, arrive from Baolian Orchard in Lishan, famed in the memoir A Female Farmer’s Mountain Journal. Each short-season fruit is hand-pitted and gently candied without additives, yielding a shimmering scarlet compote whose bouquet recalls strawberries and other red-fruited delights. We fold the plum purée into shaved ice together with Shoal’s decade-aged shiso ume; the resulting granita mingles tart ume undertones with the honeyed, floral notes of plum, creating a refreshingly elegant tribute to high-mountain orchards.
Orange Granita
NT$175
From Zhu Chang-hui’s orchard at Xidiyao, Zhongliao, Nantou, where eleven years of patient, friendly farming have yielded organic certified tree ripened oranges. All natural, with no additives. Whole fruits are candied, gently simmered, and aged. Garnished with Meyer lemons from a Pingtung supplier practicing friendly cultivation. This gentle citrus lends a clear, lovely freshness that brightens the finish.
Akihime Plum Butter Cake
Sun Moon Lake Assam Black Tea
NT$260
Golden fruit, sweet and full of juice, skin and flesh alike as yellow as rapeseed flowers in full bloom, blazing on the branch in the last month of summer, the month of cicada song and plum rains. In Taiwan it grows at Lishan alone. The season is short, the yield small, the fruit quick to split; a ripe and unblemished Akihime plum is a treasure of high summer. Those from Baolian Garden at Lishan are rarer still: the orchard of A Woman Farmer's Chronicle of Reckoning with the Mountain, celebrated as Taiwan's own Walden, a thing of the gods, a thing given in grace. The whole fruit is candied and simmered in honey, wholly natural, nothing added, the flesh soft and yielding, sweet-tart and fragrant, giving off a honeyed scent all its own.
We use LESCURE AOP unsalted cultured butter from France, certified to its appellation and made by the traditional methods of the region, with slow biological maturation; its dairy aroma is clean, like milk caramel.
The recipe descends through the family of Jennifer Thompson, founder of Healing Justice in the United States and one of the authors of Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption, the book of reconciliation between Jennifer, the perfect witness whose mistaken identification sent an innocent man to prison, and Ronald Cotton, who was wrongly convicted. Brimming with butter and sugar, and with a thick, uncomplicated happiness.
