Tienmu’s Popular Home-Style Kitchen Serves 8 Flavors of Super “Pork Ribs”!

Text & Photos /Burnout Nurse

Located next to Tienfu Park in Tienmu, Jinbashi is a restaurant that promotes healthy, delicious, low-oil, and low-salt meals, making guests feel like they’re dining at their own home. In addition to its incredibly tasty pork rib rice, it also offers signature dishes such as lion’s head meatballs, pig trotters, and steamed mackerel.

Jinbashi? When people first see the name, they might wonder what it means—it doesn’t seem related to pork ribs at all. Actually, Jinbashi represents eight super pork rib flavors, but the shop only offers seven varieties. The eighth might be a hidden menu item, but the owner won’t sell it, so no one knows unless he suddenly decides to bring it out. Also, the shop name doesn’t immediately suggest pork ribs, so you might think it serves Japanese cuisine. However, it takes the route of a health-focused kitchen, where guests can dine as if they’re at home—and indeed, there was a family there that day treating it like their own home kitchen for a gathering. Apparently, they’re regulars who visit multiple times a week.

The shop name is already quirky enough, but walk up to the counter and there’s even freshly ground coffee.

The dishes emphasize low oil and low salt, with vegetables cooked using a water oven. The oil used is O&CO.’s premium extra virgin olive oil from Spain—750 ml bottles cost 750 NTD. Seasoning is done with Italian herb sea salt developed by Michelin three-star chef Jean Marie Meulien. After ordering, vegetables are cooked in the water oven, then placed directly into bowls, tossed with olive oil and herb salt, and served.

■ Some customers might comment that the food here isn’t hot, because dishes cooked in the water oven and dressed with “extra virgin” olive oil aren’t meant for high-heat cooking.

Menu Overview
Burnout Nurse came for an interview during the Tienmu Food Festival. The owner said their pork ribs are delicious and come in seven flavors, offering her a serving of each. Oh no, owner, at this rate she’d need liposuction before the interview ends—luckily she knows surgeons in both plastic and general fields.

Though she declined the owner’s generous offer, he still quietly served a whole table of dishes. To make matters worse, when she checked Facebook, she found fans had already visited Tienmu for the festival (which hadn’t even started yet), checking out spots but no one came to her rescue.

The set meal includes vegetables, eggs, and plain rice, and you can also choose your own drink. The rice used is premium Chihshang rice from Taitung—super chewy and delicious.

All stews are served in cast iron pots. The cabbage and lion’s head meatball stew is truly delicious—if you want to eat lion’s head meatballs in Tienmu in the future, just come to Jinbashi. And the lion’s head meatballs are really huge.

Netizens in Tienmu highly recommend the braised pork trotter stew here. However, while the pork trotters are tasty, they have a chewy skin and less meat, which might be just enough for someone like the writer, who already has plenty of collagen.

There are seven flavors of pork ribs: crispy skin, soft and fragrant, crispy, curry, tomato sauce, braised, and black pepper. Today, she tried three and found the rich and not greasy braised flavor to be her favorite.

▲ The curry flavor is meant to be eaten with curry sauce.

▲ The crispy flavor is coated with a layer of curry powder batter, giving it a distinctive taste.

▲ The most loved braised flavor of the day

Since Tienmu has a large foreign population, the restaurant offers steak dishes to cater to international tastes, seasoned simply with herb salt.

At Jinbashi, you can also ask about soups. That day’s daily soup was radish and pork rib soup—truly a homestyle flavor, rich but not overly heavy.

The signature dish of steamed mackerel uses fish from Pingya Farm, certified by National Pingtung University of Science and Technology for toxin-free farming. The bottom is layered with potatoes and simply seasoned with herb salt, then cooked in the water oven. Compared to regular steamed fish, it offers the tender deliciousness of the fish without any extra heaviness.

This shop not only uses special olive oil and herb salt but also sources its pork from fresh market pigs. The frying oil is changed multiple times a day depending on how many ribs are fried. Paired with the water oven cooking method, it delivers the spirit of home-style, low-salt, and low-oil cooking. It’s a place where you can enjoy pork ribs with peace of mind. If you want to eat pork ribs in Tienmu, you definitely have to come to Jinbashi.

Jinbashi KingBox Homemade Pork Rib Restaurant
Facebook Page:https://www.facebook.com/king8ox/
Address: No. 29, Lane 50, Tienmu East Road, Shilin District, Taipei City
Phone: 02–2873 1808
Business Hours: 11:30 – 20:30
★ Buy three 120 NTD pork rib takeout bento sets and get one free.
Customizable bentos from 90–100 NTD (no buy-three-get-one-free deal), delivery requires advance reservation.

We’re the overworked nurses “Meatball” & “Bowl | Junbao.” We’ve been in the medical field for many years and truly understand how precious free time and good moods are. That’s why we’re eager to share our travel experiences and introduce the beautiful natural scenery, cultural charm, and local delicacies of various places through our writing. We hope our stories can evoke the same fond memories in you. Blog、Fan Page