筑馨居 — Restaurant in Tainan

Do NOT waste your money here. Clearly standards have slipped since the days of glowing reviews. We had 8 courses; about 3 dishes were decent or good, and the rest were mediocre or just straight-up awful. There was pork belly with bamboo shoots, which was inedible for me, but in all fairness, this was me, not them; taste of the shoots was overwhelming (almost like pee). Also pan-fried scallops, the cold platter and milkfish - all good.

Now the bad: the whole fried snapper, which was not terribly fresh. Less than fresh fish is a big no no. Ditto the prawns -decidedly mushy. Another inedible dish. No Chinese chef with any sort of professional pride would serve his/her guests stale seafood. Yuck. The Chinese cabbage with scallops was mediocre at best - low on the taste meter, and not very much texture - and the last dish, soup, was oversalted and literally undrinkable.

Clearly, this joint is no longer a home kitchen, but a restaurant that, while operating at the scale of one, unfortunately does not have the necessary know-how with quality control. Tainan is a foodie haven and pretty affordable; for the prices that ZXJ is charging, FAR BETTER food can be had at a fraction of the cost. This was a...

DO NOT GO HERE

I don’t know what other reviews could have experienced, but this was not only by FAR the worst meal in Taiwan, but probably in my life.

Breathtakingly terrible from start to finish.

The prawns were so mushy and unfresh as to be disgusting. The soup was just plain terrible. The chicken dish a bunch of hard dry chicken with far more bone than meat. And, again was terrible

We also watched the servers/bussers/doshwashers cleaning plates, cups and other service ware in the trough in the street front of the restaurant- while standing in it with street shoes. They did notice I was going to take a picture of that, and closed the door, but yes, it really happened

The “service” consisted of walking by your table and dropping dishes off without comment

I honestly feel queasy from the experience and cannot stress enough how...

Would definitely recommend this omakase experience. It is 700NT for 7 entrees and 1 soup and dessert. Every dish was so delicious. We devoured all of it so fast. We especially liked the pork belly and fried fish.

The vibe is so fun too! It’s got some lanterns and an oldern feel.

The manager walked around and chatted and recommended things to do in Tainan.

Only caveat: 70% of the dishes for this menu was seafood! I thought the fish and seafood was incredible but if you don’t like seafood, maybe call ahead for the menu?

Give this...