Big Tea Pot — Restaurant in Wenshan District

Verdict: Will NOT recommend if you are used to quality Chinese food. Very disappointed with the food because they were mostly VERY oily with no tea taste. We were looking forward to better standards as this is one of the most popular restaurants in the area, but the food was mostly terrible for TW standards. These are the things we ordered:

bamboo shoots in tea oil - just literally submerged in a big bowl of oil... but guess couldn't fault restaurant on this... The oil itself does not have any tea taste and just tasted oily by the way, so it was really very unappetizing. We mostly washed the bamboo shoots in tea to not risk clogging our arteries.

Meesua - has a layer of oil on it (tea oil again but just tasted like oil) and was salty with not much other flavour

pork with spring onion - the pork had mainly fatty parts on it instead of meat. So it was a plate of pork lard. Sauce tasted slightly middle-eastern.

Green tea fried egg - decent tea taste but was very oily and a poke of chopstick will squeeze out oil. The kind which will leave big oil stains on plate.

Tea fried rice - one of the better dishes as the smell of the tea was strong. Though in actual taste it doesn't come through - but overall decent.

Prawns with rose petals - one of the few dishes that were okay. Addition of rose was interesting

Beef in claypot - one of the best dishes on the table for us (though competition was not great lol). Beef was tasty.

We asked the waitress if we ordered too much for 7 pax, and she replied it really depends on the group. Since there were 2 soup sizes (small and big) we decided to go for 2 flavours in small sizes, assuming it's a small pot. Was very annoyed the waitress didn't advise against it because the "small" pot was HUGE - one pot can easily serve at least 20-30 small bowls of soup. So we didn't even finish half the soup, which was just a waste of food and money.

Our soup options:

Chicken soup with tie guan yin - you could taste the tea but unfortunately the ingredients were too little for such a big pot. It tasted bland and had absolutely no depth of flavour - if you are used to chicken soups at din tai feng this was a far cry.

Pork ribs with Shan Yao and Mint - more interesting with the mint addition and overall slightly more flavorful but yeah it's still pretty flat.

Long review but I really want to advise people against going there because the food was really bad and extremely oily and unhealthy. Go...

The restaurant is located on the first floor, we were a bit confused as we thought both floors belong to the same place. The restaurant is an easy 700m walk from the gondola. We were able to enjoy the gorgeous view for about 15 minutes right before it starts pouring. It is a family run business with the children helping out their parents. We ordered a pre-set meal for 6 people. Most dishes are cooked with tea leaves and it was our first time experience something like this so we were very impressed. The place is not upscale or fine dining but the food, service, and the view were exceptional. It was worth the walk in the light rain. Some of our favs were the shrimp with fried tea leaves, tea infused fried rice, the chicken stew with tea bags, the mixed salad with a native green leaf that I'm not familiar with but it is very tasty. If it is your first time, it...

Tea centric cuisine with excellent views.

The food isn't fine dining, but for what it is, it's a pretty neat experience. Take the Maokong Gondola ride up and when you get out of the station, make a left and start walking down that road. You'll see roadside stalls selling snacks and souvenirs. Keep going down that road for a while and you'll see a two story restaurant with awesome views of the valley.

Most of the dishes are made with tea leaves as an ingredient. It's a little hit or miss. Some dishes are special and you really taste the tea while others fall flat and taste just like their non-tea counterparts.

On a clear day, it's a really nice view. If you keep walking further down that road you'll come across a tea house where you can try the local tea for free and feed some giant koi in an...