Eat Like a Star: Local Eateries That Have Gained Attention After Celebrity Visits

TEXT　Jenna Lynn Cody

PHOTOS　VISION

In Taipei, restaurants and street stalls that look humble can still attract serious star power. Restaurants visited by Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, regularly make the news. K-pop idols also constantly create buzz when they eat out in Taipei. Sometimes it's a night-market stall with sizzling oyster omelets, a beef noodle restaurant that is open well past midnight, or a local favorite for pork trotters – all of these spots gain a bit more fame when celebrities pull up a seat.

Jensen Huang's Favorites

Few business leaders are as well-regarded in Taiwan as Jensen Huang, the co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA. For many, he embodies the middle-class-to-riches dream. His frequent visits to Taiwan have earned a great deal of positive publicity. Entire articles are written about the places he visits while in Taiwan, including restaurants.

▲Goose meat, fried rice, and stir-fried water snowflake

On a recent visit, Huang was spotted at Goose City Seafood, a well-known quick-fry establishment in Zhongshan District with an extensive menu and quick service. As with most such restaurants, the seafood here is on display on ice and in water-filled tubs and small tanks; patrons choose what they want by looking over the day's fresh catch. Among the most popular choices are the restaurant's signature goose, along with classic seafood dishes like whole fish, a variety of shrimp plates, and fresh sashimi. The menu also features classic Taiwanese dishes, including items like stinky tofu and century egg cooked in a three-cup sauce—a mixture of sesame oil, light soy sauce, and rice wine. You can also find other staples common in stir-fry restaurants, such as fried rice and stir-fried water snowflake.

Of course, the goose is popular as well, with tender sliced goose meat served with fragrant basil, slivered ginger, and tangy dipping sauce, and both goose liver and gizzard, on the menu. And as with every quick-fry restaurant, no meal is complete without a bottle of Taiwan Beer.

Goose City Seafood 鵝肉城活海鮮

🚩77, Liaoning St., Zhongshan Dist.

📞(02) 2751-6922

🕝4:30pm-1:00am

Huang also visited Fu Ba Wang Pork Restaurant on Nanjing East Road. Pork knuckle is a quintessential dish in Taiwanese cuisine: braised in rich soy sauce, green onion, sugar, and spices – usually a combination of cinnamon, fennel, star anise, pepper, and clove – until the skin and meat turn a dark caramel color, it's as indulgent as it is fattening. Fu Ba Wang regularly draws long queues for its bento lunchboxes, and also because dine-in seating is limited.

The kitchen's top dishes are all pork leg cuts: hock, knuckle, and trotter. The pork hock is a sliced cut of leg, the knuckle is the whole joint cut, and the trotter is the foot. They're all succulent, collagen-rich dishes, but the trotter is known specifically for being collagen and gelatin-forward after the long braising process.

Fu Ba Wang Pork Restaurant 富霸王豬腳

🚩20, Ln. 115, Sec. 2, Nanjing E. Rd., Zhongshan Dist.

📞(02) 2507-1918

🕝Tue-Sat 11:00am-7:30pm

K-Pop Stars Raving about Beef Noodles

When K-pop artists lend their star power to Taiwanese eateries, the country takes notice. Tien Hsia San Chueh in Daan District, long recognized by Bib Gourmand for seven years, gain even more popularity among K-pop fans after visits by Woozi and Hoshi, members of the Billboard chart regular boy band Seventeen. During their tour visit in July 2025, Woozi was so impressed by the restaurant's beef noodle soup that he shared his culinary experience with fans during their Taipei concert. They even went to the restaurant again the next day. The visits, along with Woozi's expressed desire to learn the recipe, and Hoshi's Instagram photo dump, created a stir online and made the restaurant a must-visit destination for many of their fans.

The restaurant has always been popular for its exceptional food quality at affordable prices. Boldly proclaiming to serve "The Rolls Royce of Beef Noodles," the restaurant is known for its upscale atmosphere, a stark contrast to the typical simple and often cramped beef noodle eatery. The key component of the beef noodles is the broth, which is created by simmering beef bones, ribs, and four different types of tomatoes for eight hours, resulting in a deep, rich, and sweet flavor profile..

▲Beef noodle soup with the upgraded tomato broth is a top pick

The Signature Beef Noodle Soup is particularly special as it features four distinct cuts of Australian beef, including beef tail, beef shank, beef tendon, and beef heel muscle, allowing patrons to savor a range of textures and flavors in a single bowl. What also distinguishes this restaurant from other beef noodle establishments is that it offers a selection of red wines (Cabernet Sauvignon), the perfect complement to the high-end beef noodle offerings.

Tien Hsia San Chueh 天下三絕

🚩3, Ln. 27, Sec. 4, Renai Rd., Daan Dist.

📞(02) 2741-6299

🔗www.noodle3.com.tw

🕝11:30am-2:30pm, 5:30pm-8:30pm

Woozi and Hoshi aren't the only K-pop artists making waves in Taiwan. Enter Jeon Somi and Taeyang (also known as SOL). Somi is a South Korean and Canadian singer-songwriter known for her hit singles Birthday, Dumb Dumb, and Fast Forward, and Taeyang, a member of the legendary K-pop group BigBang, has pursued a successful solo career since his boy band days.

Both artists have visited Taiwan Beef Noodles · Chicken Soup while in town, a popular late-night beef noodle spot in Taipei's fashionable East District, where there's always at least a half-hour wait. The thick-cut beef noodles here are chewy perfection and served with tender cuts of beef in a mouthwatering broth with a hit of spice; one small bowl will sate the heartiest appetite after a night out. The chicken soup is a must-try as well, with its generous chunks of bone-in dark meat and clams working to create a savory broth with a hint of seafood that will have you slurping to the last drop.

Taiwan Beef Noodles．Chicken Soup 牛肉麵．雞湯

🚩164, Sec. 1, Dunhua S. Rd., Daan Dist.

📞(02) 2778-7776

🔗facebook.com/Taipei.Midnight.BeefNoodles

🕝6:00pm-3:30am

Three Must-Try Treasures on Quanzhou Street

While in Taipei, Taeyang enjoyed more than beef noodles. He also went to the quietly famous Three Treasures of Quanzhou Street, a local nickname for a trio of simple joints dishing up food so tasty that cars sit double-parked on the road while their drivers line up to buy snacks for themselves and, judging by the size of some of the orders, all of their friends, family, or coworkers as well.

Taeyang and J-Hope from the K-pop trend-setter BTS, who has since launched a successful solo career, including a collaboration with American rap legend J. Cole in 2023, both tried the chargrilled sausage at Huang's Sausages. This is a hole-in-the-wall establishment where the grill starts working (and the people start waiting in line) at 12:45 and doesn't stop until 7pm or so. The Huangs churn out massive quantities of grilled sausage for the long lines, which usually form before they've opened for the day. It may take as much as an hour to get your snack as you share the sidewalk with senior citizens, parents with children, and people in business attire, but it's well worth it.

The sausages themselves are larger than the typical snack eatery fare, and are the perfect balance of juicy and charred, especially when eaten with small bites of raw garlic clove. Raw sausages are sold at Huang's as well, and can be purchased without lining up.

Huang's Sausages 黃家香腸

🚩32-3, Quanzhou St., Zhongzheng Dist.

📞(02) 2309-7428

🕝Tue-Sun 12:45pm-7:00pm

A few steps away, Authentic Auntie's Large Intestine Vermicelli has been visited by Taeyang as well. The classic Taiwanese "vermicelli," or thin noodles, are served in small blue-andwhite bowls and are surprisingly filling. The thick soup contains large oysters, which add salty umami, and slices of large intestine, which are soft and chewy without being rubbery. The enterprise shares a small space and two steel dining tables with Yuanfu Lemon and runs a brisk takeout business as well. It's not uncommon to see diners pick up a bowl to go with their sausage from Huang's, flavoring it with condiments on the table: chili bean paste, black vinegar, and white pepper. The chili bean paste creates an Instagram-worthy splash of color, but the essential addition is the black vinegar, which adds a complex sourness.

Authentic Auntie's Large Intestine Vermicelli 正宗阿桑大腸麵線

🚩32-2, Quanzhou St., Zhongzheng Dist.

📞0958-273-597

🕝Tue-Sun 11:00am-7:00am

The sausage and noodles pair perfectly with a lemon and calamansi (small Philippine lemon) drink from Yuanfu Lemon. It's the consummate refresher on a humid Taipei day. Traditionally, a dried sour plum is added to this lemonade, a taste which may be surprising to foreigners but pairs impeccably.