Monday, January 27, 2014

Three Cup Chicken At Noodles Corner Brings A Taste Of Taiwan To Your Chinese Dinner

With the loss of Red Pearl, Noodles Corner has turned into our local spot for Chinese food, and we loved a Taiwanese dish called "Three Cup Chicken" over the holidays.

Noodles Corner is in Columbia in the same shopping center as Mango Grove and Pub Dog.  It's a casual place with a regular Chinese restaurant menu, but it also offers a second menu of "authentic" dishes that we have absolutely loved.

"Three Cup Chicken" or sanbeiji appears to be a bedrock Taiwanese dish cooked with soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil -- thus the "three cups" that make the sauce.  We got tender chunks of chicken coated in an amber sauce lively with ginger, basil, salt and maybe lemongrass.

The chicken dish is all meat, so it pairs perfectly with the "Basil Eggplant."  That plate comes to the table in a cloud of Thai basil.  It smells delicious, and the eggplant has been perfect -- firm enough to stay together, soft enough to cut with a fork.  We actually drove to Noodles Corner for the eggplant dish.  It is worth every mile.

Do you have any restaurant-dish recommendations for other Chinese restaurants around Howard County?  We are due for a trip to Odenton for Grace Garden, which remains my #1 favorite.  I'd love any other recommendations about where you go and what you order.

5 comments:

  1. 3 cup chicken (三杯雞)is indeed a traditional Taiwanese dish, and usually proves rather yummy to the last morsel.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love Noodle Corner, very accessible and cozy. Including their 3 cup chicken, I like their bamboo shoot shredded pork and beef stew a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Noodles Corner is my family's go to place for Taiwanese food. Being Taiwanese myself, I do have to warn that not every dish is good. Every time we've ventured outside of the more recognizable dishes, we regret it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Timothy -- What are the recognizable dishes? I'll take any recommendations.

    ReplyDelete
  5. @howchow
    Outside of the 3 cup chicken, there is the stewed pork intestines with duck blood (for the more adventurous), the pork + bean curd or pork + bamboo shoots (I've asked them to combine the dishes for me and they obliged with an extra cost), home style bean curd, black mushrooms with bok choy, fried pork chop on rice. There are probably a few more but will add once I go back.

    ReplyDelete

I love comments -- especially comments that specifically recommend dishes or items to buy. Tell people what you like and why. If you can, please don't leave it as "anonymous." Just choose "name/URL" below, type in a nickname and leave the URL part blank. I like following people's comments even if I don't know your name.