Why will this Taiwanese specialty cost you $320?
In Taiwan, beef soup with dumplings is practically a national dish. Beef bones and meat are cooked for hours, combined with spices and aromatic herbs, to create a rich soup served with wheat dumplings. Versions of this soup can also be priced at six dollars. But the father-son duo are making a version in Taipei that will cost you about $320 for a single bowl.
Wang Sung Juan opened Niu Ba Ba in 1990 and had the idea to create the best beef soup with dumplings. What makes all versions of this soup different is the quality of beef the restaurant works with.
Niu Ba Ba Presidential Noodle Soup
Wang and his son Eric, who now runs the restaurant, serve multiple versions of this soup, with the cheapest costing $16, while the best costing as a whole meal at a three-star Michelin star restaurant.
Niu Ba Ba Presidential Noodle Soup uses beef imported from Brazil, America, Australia and Japan in its recipe. The whole story begins by stewing different pieces of meat, cooking them, and then freezing them overnight. Extremely soft beef is added to a series of different broths that have been brewing for at least three days. The broths are layered in a gilded bowl, which in itself costs $ 600, and then dumplings and beef are added there. Depending on the depth at which you lower your spoon, the taste you feel will also depend. In total, the process of preparing this soup takes about a week.
Otherwise, we must emphasize that this soup is not always so expensive. When Niu Ba Ba restaurant was just about to serve it, its price was not defined, but Wang asked people to give as much as they wanted – some people gave almost $1,000, while others paid $16. Finally, they decided that set their price, which everyone knows now.
Niu Ba Ba Presidential Noodle Soup
