Recommended dishes: Jade Live Fish Rolls, Ginger Fish Maw, Ginger Large Intestine, Grass Carp, Pineapple Shrimp Balls
On Longtan Wenhua Road’s Live Fish Street, the red Chinese-palace façade of “Shiyuan Live Fish” is impossible to miss. Founder Chen Huiqing is the pivotal figure behind the Shimen live-fish industry. In the 1970s, when Shimen Reservoir became a hot tourist spot, 48-year-old Chen plunged into the live-fish business. The name “Shiyuan” comes from the Academia Sinica’s Shiyuan dormitory whose beautiful surroundings inspired Chen when he opened his restaurant.
Daring to break through and keep innovating
For a company to stand the test of time, Chen believes “innovation” is essential. Starting with the classic three ways to serve live fish, he kept experimenting, sparking a trend of “many ways to eat live fish”; today there are over 170 preparations. To speed up ordering, he commissioned a custom POS system in 1990, cutting order time and raising accuracy. At the time he also bought a parking lot larger than the restaurant itself, drawing skepticism—only now, when parking is scarce, do people see his foresight.
Shiyuan Live Fish’s signature dish is “Daddy’s Fish,” a recipe the founder created for his daughter: authentic Hakka pickled mustard is minced and slowly simmered so the fish absorbs a sweet, salty, and sour flavor. Ginger Fish Maw evolved from Ginger Large Intestine...