What it is
For decades steak stood for Western food in Taiwan, and eating it meant swapping chopsticks for a knife and fork. Two styles survive. Old Western restaurants serve it as a set with soup and bread. The cheaper style, found in steakhouse chains and night markets, brings it on a hot iron plate with noodles, an egg and a thick black pepper or mushroom sauce.
Where it came from
Steak first arrived as a luxury, and Western restaurants were still uncommon in 1970s Taipei. The Grand Hotel (圓山大飯店) opened its Ming Che steakhouse (明哲廳) on 10 October 1973, billed as the first steakhouse in a Taiwanese five-star hotel. In 1976 Sun Tung-pao (孫東寶), a former Western-cuisine head chef, began selling cheap iron-plate steak with a small heap of noodles from a lane off Bade Road in Taipei. The idea caught on, and his name became a chain, followed by others such as My Home Steak (我家牛排).
Where the iron plate came from is disputed. Some trace it to Japanese teppanyaki. Others point to the sizzling-plate set meals launched by Maxim's in Hong Kong in 1956, which a FoodNext history of the dish judges the more direct influence, given close ties between Hong Kong and Taiwan. Cooks also adapted the pairings. Potatoes were unfamiliar, so noodles took their place, and with imported dairy expensive the sauces were thickened with starch rather than built on butter.
How it is made
The steak is grilled or pan-fried to the doneness ordered. In the iron-plate style it goes onto a very hot iron plate with noodles and a few vegetables, often frozen mixed ones, and a raw egg is cracked beside it to half-cook in the heat. The black pepper and mushroom sauces start from mushroom, onion, shallot and garlic fried until fragrant, then ketchup and soy sauce, thickened with sweet potato starch.
How to eat it
Choose the doneness and the sauce, usually black pepper or mushroom, when ordering. Iron-plate sets normally come with a bowl of corn soup and garlic bread, and some places add a self-serve salad bar. Some diners pour the corn soup onto the hot plate and stir it into the noodles. Old-style Western restaurants serve the set with soup and bread.
Around Taiwan
- Kaohsiung
- New International Western Restaurant (新國際西餐廳) in Cianjin District dates from 1964 and keeps the old-style set. Its steaks come with a choice of four soups, French onion among them, and garlic bread.
