Heaven, earth, you and me

I lunched at 四知堂 today.  When I was last in town, we had tried to do lunch here on a Monday, not knowing that they don't open on Mondays.  There seems to be somewhat of a buzz surrounding this place, so I was pretty happy to check it out.

The interior of the place looks like a rustic farmhouse, and there is some greenery immediately in the wraparound corridor right outside our window.  All this made for a pretty nice and relaxing dining environment.

There were a couple of starters on the table when I arrived, one of which consisted of strips of baby corn and okra.

The first to arrive was the steamed chicken (蔬菜香草雞), covered in a heap of salad.  The meat was succulent and juicy, and you can taste the flavor and the chewier texture of the free-range chicken.

The stir-fried gold-banded lily with pork (山百合炒肉絲) was a novelty to me.  It basically looked like asparagus to me, although the taste was certainly different.  Alas, the shredded pork was overdone...

The stir-fried shredded tofu with chili peppers (糯米椒炒干絲) was pretty decent, but again the pork was overdone...

Wax gourd with Venus clam in white wine (白酒山瓜子絲瓜) - pretty typical Taiwanese fare, using the yummy wax gourd in season and very delicious Venus clams.

Stir-fried beef with leafy mustard (福岡高菜炒牛肉) - the varietal used here is 高菜 from Fukuoka (福岡), which was marinated not unlike what Chinese does with its cousin 梅菜.
The beef was actually tasty and reminded me a little of what I'd get at Yoshinoya (吉野家).  The tofu skin was also good.

We shared bowls of noodles with sesame sauce (麻醬麵), which also had a little peanut sauce as well as ground pork and garlic.  The handmade noodles had plenty of bite and were yummy.

The owner Superman (超人) treated us to some herbal soup with pig intestines (四神湯).  The intestines were chewy and yummy, and the barley were very soft.

We finished some some herbal jelly and red beans (仙草紅豆) and capped off a pretty good meal.