At first glance it may seem like 2 separate restaurants but they're actually owned by the same company. In this particular case I'm at the Taoyuan City Carrefour (Taiwan's Walmart equivalent). This is on the same floor level as the other food vendors and close to the McDonald's.
Outside of the restaurant they have their display of meal options, with 2 that aren't shown. Each meal is 200NT (roughly USD$6). They have everything from a sashimi bowl to tempura shrimp.
Ding Shi 8 pretty much means 8 set meals. As you can see from the menu, the meals are numbered and there's appetizers on the left you can also order. We got the sashimi sampler for an appetizer and then ordered the Cheese Stuffed Tonkatsu, Eel, and Mackerel combos.
Sashimi Sampler
The food came pretty fast starting with this sampler. My mom said that they have some thing where they're suppose to serve the food within 10 minutes or it's free type of deal? I'm not sure. Anyways, this sampler had salmon, scallop, red clam, squid, salmon roe, shrimp, and white tuna. A plate like this in a nice sushi restaurant in the US would probably be $15-20? Here, not even $5.
BBQ Eel Combo
Each meal comes with other little goodies such as a seaweed salad, steamed seafood egg tofu, miso soup, milk pudding dessert, and fruit. The eel was grilled, topped with sesame seeds, and served with shredded egg on a layer of rice. For those of you that haven't had eel before, the meat is kind of like a hybrid between flaky fish and tender chicken.
Grilled Mackerel Combo
Every combo's side things were the same so you can refer back to the one above to see what was included. This mackerel was perfectly grilled and not overdone to where it would be dry. Since mackerel is higher in oil content than most other fish, squeezing the lime juice over it cuts out some of the greasiness in the taste, nonetheless, it's delicious.
Cheese Stuffed Tonkatsu
Tonkatsu is basically a Japanese style breaded and fried pork cutlet, in this case, it was a stuffed one. When it first came out it just looked like a regular tonkatsu, but when you slice it open, the cheese comes oozing out. It was a unique idea and the cheese wasn't too overwhelming. Just think chicken cordon blue without the ham and the meat is pork instead of chicken. Yum.
Miso Soup
With every meal comes miso soup, but at this area you can get unlimited soup and rice. Those black containers on the left contain stuff like seaweed, green onions, and other stuff that you can deck out your miso soup with.
Verdict? If after I go back to the states and someone asks me what the top 10 places I ate at were, I'm not sure if this place would make the list. Like I said before, this is in a food court area so this place would be like a Sbarro in the food court at the mall. I have to give this place some credit though because I think out of all the places in this food court, this one was the best choice.
定食8 - Ding Shi 8
桃園市經國路369號2樓 (369 State Road, Taoyuan City, 2nd Floor) *
phone: (03) 346-1878
*They have locations all over Taiwan so check the website for the one closest where you are.
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