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Compiling a list of restaurant recommendations is an arrogant thing to do. It assumes that the recommender has eaten at almost every restaurant in town, and has tried most of the dishes at those restaurants. But who could eat that many meals, besides maybe Akebono?

The Wednesday Night Club, that’s who. This is a group of seven or eight Taipei residents who have lived here since the Sixties, and every Wednesday night since then they’ve gone out for dinner. That’s eight people, say 50 weeks a year, times maybe 10 dishes per meal, times 30-odd years. That adds up to 120,000 Chinese dishes, more or less.

So when the Wednesday Night Club talks about food, I listen. Also these guys are, what’s a nice way to say this? They are cheapskates. They demand good food, and lots of beer, for around US$15 dollars each. If the price tag hits $20, there is grumbling, and if it reaches $25, they never return.

There is no agreement among the Wednesday Nighters, on any topic, but the following list represents a rough consensus, with one exception. They have chosen five regional cuisines – from Taiwan, Beijing, Hunan, Shanxi, and Sichuan – and a Shanghai snack place. It is a culinary tour of China that never leaves Taipei.

Why make a list of good restaurants in Taipei? Because they would be impossible to find without a list. Most restaurants in Taipei are simple and nondescript, and it is impossible to tell a great place from an average one, just by looking.

Without further ado, here is the Wednesday Night Club list of recommended restaurants:

Celestial: The venerable Celestial is an institution, a big popular restaurant that never serves a bad meal. The staff here are polite, friendly, and helpful, no matter how busy they are. The first thing they will ask is, Do you want a duck? The correct answer is yes.

The Peking duck – in Taiwan they call it roast duck – at Celestial is a real culinary treat. The dish is hard to make. At some restaurants, the skin can be chewy or stringy, the pancakes doughy, the spring onion stale, or the meat dry. None of this ever happens at Celestial. Here the skin is crisp and fresh, never oily, the spring onion is mild and sweet, and the pancakes are always perfect. This is as good as this classic dish gets, and it should be: the Celestial makes 100 ducks a day.

The Celestial has a traditional northern menu with many good dishes, and it also serves a signature dessert. Pieces of apple or banana – the Wednesday Nighters demand apple – are coated in hot caramelized sugar with sesame seeds, then plunged, at the table, into a bowl of ice water. It’s a sweet tangy ending to a rich feast.

Din Tai Fung Surprisingly, this choice was not unanimous among the Wednesday Nighters, and its selection engendered a cascade of argument and vitriol. Din Tai Fung is the most famous restaurant in town, thanks to a New York Times article that called it one of the world’s best. In any case, the place is a scene, with dozens of cooks, heaps of bamboo steamers, and great piles of the pork and dough that are rolled and wrapped into its signature dish, the dumpling. That’s right, the anxious diners waiting on the sidewalk are here just to eat Shanghai snack food.

The dumplings at Din Tai Fung are thin and fresh, never soggy or doughy. The most popular dumpling is also the most basic, with green onion, ginger, pork, soy sauce and sesame oil. A dumpling must be served immediately after it is steamed, and that process is virtually guaranteed by the sheer popularity of Din Tai Fung.

Lai Yuan Lai Yuan represents a new trend in Taipei dining, as twenty- and thirty-somethings, and couples, prefer upscale restaurants, especially ones that serve down-home country food, like Lai Yuan. Its specialties are local Taiwanese dishes made from native favourites like taro root, duck, freshwater shrimp, betel-nut shoots, and pork stomach.

One recommended dish is a southern comfort food called pork oil rice. Traditionally, it was eaten when people had no money to buy meat and vegetables, and now here it is, served on the most elegant tables in the capital city. The same with common taro, which is mashed and rolled with shrimp inside a bean curd wrap, then fried in oil. The Taiwanese taro has a sweet taste and a sticky texture prized by local diners.

Peng Yuan Peng Yuan, or Peng’s Place, is another Taipei icon, and it has grown into a mini-chain with six restaurants. The Wednesday Night Club chose the one on Nanjing East Road, and on this particular night, the place was packed. But in the accommodating Taiwanese way there is always room, and we are eventually wedged into seats at a round table.

The highlights are minced shrimp wrapped in lettuce leaf, a light, cool dish, and Viceroy chicken, which is hot and sweet. Peng’s Tofu, invented by the old man himself, is a rich stewed dish. I am told that you have to order Peng’s Tofu, but my favourite dish is Hunan ham stir fried with green vegetables. The ham is rich and smoky, and the scallions and chili are spicy, a perfect combination. Hunan is where Mao Zedong holed up, but the peasant-turned-chairman never ate food like this.

Shao Shao Ke Most Taipei restaurants, no matter how good, are featureless, but Shao Shao Ke is an exception. It has booths, graffiti, colourful ethnic wall hangings, and good music. It is very local and very good, a gem of a restaurant. They serve some of the best dishes in Taiwan: one is made from grated potato, which is stir fried and seasoned with a touch of garlic, a hint of vinegar, a little chili, and some pickled vegetable. Other good dishes are the tofu, called Tiger Skin Stew, and a vegetable dish made from lotus flowers and mushroom.

But the highlight dish is pork rib. These arrive in a thick roasted slab, a couple of pounds of fatty pork that are salty, rich and delicious. Shao Shao Ke has an upstairs dining room, but try to sit downstairs. Reservations are recommended.

Xiao Wei There are many Sichuan restaurants in Taipei, but the Wednesday Nighters like Xiao Wei, a friendly, old-fashioned place that draws big crowds. The menu is extensive, but we stick with Sichuan basics: tofu with spicy minced pork, shrimp stir-fried with dried chili peppers, hot and sour soup, and steamed bread. We also order one adventurous dish, pork rib steamed in lotus leaf. The shrimp is a highlight, sweet, fresh and tender, and the pork rib is also excellent. It is rolled up in a lotus leaf with small-grain rice and chili, then steamed.

The hallmark of any good Sichuan restaurant is judicious use of oil and garlic. The cuisine is rich, but the dishes shouldn’t be drenched in oil, and the flavour of garlic should not overwhelm the other spices. This often happens at lesser Sichuan restaurants, but never at Xiao Wei.

Celestial: 3/F No 1, Nanjing W. Road. Tel: 2563-2171 Din Tai Fung: 194 Hsinyi Road, Section 2. Tel: 2321-8927 Lai Yuan: B 1/F, Westin Hotel, No. 133, Nanjing E. Road. Tel: 8770-6565 Peng Yuan: 63 Nanjing E. Road, Section 2. Tel: 2541-9102 Shao Shao Ke: No. 15, Lane 41, Renai Road Section 2. Tel: 2351-7148 Xiao Wei: 3/F, 13 Gongyuan Rd.; Tel: 2371-8427

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