Free refills and takeout for duck blood tofu cubes too—a spicy-soup hotpot for one in Taipei!

Text & Photos /Wisely

This year after Japan’s wagyu beef was introduced to Taiwan, many restaurants started offering various dishes, but most are quite pricey. However, tucked away in an alley in Taipei’s Dongcheng District, “Qing Ma La” takes advantage of its background in the meat trade to offer affordable wagyu combo hotpots at lower prices—letting fans of spicy-soup hotpots enjoy the flavor of wagyu for under NT$1,000 on their own!

The shop is located on Dajhong Road near the Dinghao commercial area in Taipei’s Dongcheng District. The owner is also a beef-loving foodie, and the main reason for opening this shop was to allow fellow wagyu hotpot fans to enjoy a solo meal.

The prices might surprise you—sets featuring Japanese Oda Black-haired Wagyu are just NT$980, which is practically a steal. And they even sell the rare A5 Itou Matsusaka Wagyu in hotpot restaurants, with sets priced at only NT$1,280. That’s truly unbelievable. Even weekday business lunches are great value—for just two or three hundred NT, you can enjoy premium beef.

The interior decor is simple but has a modern feel. Most seats are four-person tables, but dining alone is no problem. Pricing is based on the meat you choose, averaging around NT$500–1,000.

Currently, the restaurant offers two types of broth bases: kombu (kelp) and spicy-soup (ma la). One notable point is that the spicy-soup broth emphasizes numbing over intense heat—it’s a soup you could actually drink. The broth is simmered with more than ten kinds of seasonings from Sichuan, such as chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, sand ginger, licorice, and Pixian bean paste, along with Dahongpao peppercorns, plum blossom peppercorns, two-strip pepper, and bell peppers. It's also brewed with beef bones and wagyu fat, resulting in a truly captivating flavor.

The restaurant offers free unlimited refills of both duck blood and pressed tofu cubes—and you can even take leftovers home. For a single-person hotpot experience, that’s pretty rare. Other offerings include a light plum juice that’s also all-you-can-drink. The house dipping sauce is also worth mentioning—it’s simmered with flatfish, shrimp heads, fish bones, and fruit for seasoning, so it pairs well with both seafood and meat. Its flavor is refreshing and doesn’t overpower the taste of the ingredients.

Side dishes include white rice, noodles, instant noodles (Prince Noodles), and glass noodles. Personally, I think the noodles go really well with their broth.

The vegetable plate is quite generous, including greens, mushrooms, dumplings, and even creamed sweet corn.

I found the content of the optional mixed seafood platter quite solid, including tilapia, Taiwanese sea bream, sea bass, squid, grass shrimp, white shrimp, scallops, and clams. Though not as outstanding as the meat options, the seafood is fresh and plentiful.

Fans of beef tendons and tripe definitely shouldn’t miss their beef combo platter—paired with noodles, it becomes a delicious beef noodle-style dish. Add wagyu slices on top, and it’s absolutely heavenly!

For those who don’t eat beef, be sure to try Qing Ma La’s pork options.

The three types offered are Hungarian Mangalica pigs, Spanish Iberico pigs, and domestically raised Formosan black pigs. In terms of taste, they’re all excellent and unique in their own ways. But personally, I find the Mangalica the sweetest, the Iberico has a wonderful aroma, and the affordable Kagoshima-breed Formosan black pig is also great for hotpot.

As for wagyu, I got to try American wagyu, A4 Japanese Oda Black-haired Wagyu, and A5 Itou Matsusaka Wagyu in one go. After eating them, I felt a full 100% level of happiness—and my beef-tasting experience instantly upgraded. While Taiwanese wagyu from the U.S. or Australia/New Zealand has always been good, compared to Japanese wagyu, there’s a noticeable difference in aroma, sweetness, and richness. Among Japan’s big three wagyu (Matsusaka, Kobe, and Ohmi/Kyushu), you can try any one—each offers a unique and memorable flavor.
After trying it myself, it’s easy to understand why the restaurant went out of its way to develop such a distinctive spicy-soup broth. And the best time to enjoy the ingredients is after about five seconds in the pot—the unique sweetness and tender texture simply melt in your mouth. No wonder wagyu beef, which is already rare in Japan, is so sought-after in Taiwan!

Qing Ma La Spicy-Soup Hotpot

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Address: No. 22, Lane 51, Section 1, Dajhong Road, Da’an District, Taipei City
Phone: 02-2775-1010
Hours: Mon–Fri 11:00–14:00 / 17:00–21:30, Weekends & Holidays 11:00–22:00

Wisely
A Pisces man who records food, travel, and life,
Loves writing about the little moments in ordinary days.
Always yearning for the rich and colorful stories of others,
So he also earnestly documents his own life tidbits in his blog,
So the footprints he’s experienced and explored in life aren’t just left in his mind.
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