Golden Formosa

Pork ribs set the pace

Crisp pork ribs leave the pass under Eric Chen, chef-owner and executive chef at Golden Formosa in Shilin, Taipei, Taiwan. The dish is compact in name, direct in force: 蓬萊排骨酥, deep-fried pork ribs with a crust that gives first, then fat, salt, sweetness, and heat. Chen’s authority here sits less in biography than in repetition. He holds the chef-owner’s role and the executive chef’s station, and the room understands his kitchen through one plate before it reads the rest of the menu.

Golden Formosa, also known as 金蓬萊遵古台菜餐廳, has worked from Tianmu East Road since 1987, carrying old-style Taiwanese cooking into a room built for families, elders, and tables that order broadly. The restaurant holds one Michelin star, first awarded in the 2018 Taipei guide, and Chen lets a signature bear weight without turning the meal into a demonstration. Deep-Fried Pork Ribs stay central, while Buddha’s Temptation, Mullet Roe Fried Rice, and Tonic Soup Chicken-in-Tripe give the menu a wider grammar of comfort, ceremony, and heat.

Frying, braising, steaming

The method here is not hidden behind a tasting-menu structure. Golden Formosa works à la carte, with big portions and dishes meant to cross the table. Frying carries much of the kitchen’s voice: pork ribs, red yeast seasoned pork, taro pastries, cuttlefish balls. The point is texture, not delicacy, and the bench must hold the line between crunch and heaviness. Reviews of the ribs return to the same sequence, crisp exterior, juicy meat, pepper fragrance, a finish that asks for rice.

Braising does another kind of work. Pig intestines arrive chewy and soft, carried by a salty sauce; spiced meat sauce covers tofu with heat and thickness rather than polish. Steaming keeps its own place in the program through crab with glutinous rice, whole fish, and the cleaner side of the kitchen’s seafood language. 土魠魚米粉鍋 brings narrow-barred Spanish mackerel into rice noodles and broth, a dish built for sharing rather than display. The kitchen’s tradition is not minimal. It is abundant, cut into pieces, ladled into bowls, and sent out hot.

The room answers back

The room is lively in the old restaurant sense: tables turning over conversation, servers moving between family groups, dishes landing in the middle rather than in front of one diner alone. Golden Formosa’s polish comes through the pacing of this bustle. It is upscale casual without becoming hushed, a place where Michelin recognition sits beside a Taiwanese dining rhythm that still depends on sharing, elders choosing, and one more plate being added because the table can take it.

That atmosphere matters to Chen’s food. Deep-Fried Pork Ribs do not read as a solitary composition here; they work as a first gesture in a larger meal, followed by rice, broth, tofu, offal, chicken, and fish. The pass serves a room that wants generosity as much as precision. When the final plate is cleared, the memory is not an award line. It is the crackle of 蓬萊排骨酥 at Tianmu East Road.