Sanmo is a Korean restaurant located in Yonghe, New Taipei City. It serves authentic Korean cuisine, including popular dishes like Korean fried chicken, and a whole host of spicy meat dishes. This Yonghe restaurant has a cozy and comfortable atmosphere, with traditionally clean Korean décor and friendly staff.
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Sanmo is located just 10 mins walk away from DingXi MRT station Exit 2, and serves up some great value Korean food in a nice, clean atmosphere.
Sanmo’s menu
The menu at Sanmo reads like the who’s-who of Korean food and is best found here with lots of pictures that can help you to decide what you want. Dishes range from about $180-$400, and almost all of those come with sides and soup. The value for money here is really quite good.
Spicy chicken with cheese 起司辣炒雞 $279
One thing that I think Sanmo does so well is present their food nicely, with all of those little side dishes that make it such great value for money. Korean restaurants are definitely known for this, and it continues to excite me wherever I eat them. Please note that all side dishes, rice, and soup here can be refilled as many times as you would like – winner!
In terms of the chicken, it was good. It was spicy, it was cheesy, and it was juicy. We’re not talking chicken breast here, we are talking about some good chicken thighs that are cooked delicately to keep them juicy, then lashed with gochujang and topped with cheese.
The side dishes this was served with were spicy beansprouts, kimchi, and cold dressed seaweed. All 3 were great, with the kimchi obviously pairing really nicely with everything and anything. But, the best of these side dishes was the cold dressed seaweed that had this sweet vinegar taste and crunchiness with it. I got this refilled.
Spicy chicken 春川辣炒雞 $259
The spicy chicken here was similar to the one above but minus the cheese. It was similarly spicy, juicy, and delicious. Did I prefer the one with the cheese? Maybe, but I don’t think the cheese offers much more in flavour, it’s possibly more in the feeling of decadence as it goes all stringy and looks awesome when you lift it up on your fork.
The 3 side dishes that this meal came with were different. Here we have the lightly pickled daikon radish, kimchi, and pickled cucumber. Even though the sides are different, you can go ahead and refill any that you want, they don’t have to be refills of the initial ones you were given – I like that!
The daikon radish offers that fresh pop of flavour that we all appreciate, similar to the cucumber. The winner is still the pickled seaweed from above, though.
All meals come with soup that can be refilled as many times as you want. The soup has a miso base to it that is salty and rich, but the onions help to cut through some of that richness, and the tofu helps to present that extra freshness in flavour that you want. I got a refill of the soup, as I thought it was tasty – and that chicken was a bit spicy, so it helped to calm my mouth down a little.
The bottom line
Is it worth the trip to Yonghe for? I see Sanmo as a place that I will return to because I live just round the corner. But, I get the feeling that if I didn’t live here, I probably wouldn’t bother travelling to as the sole purpose of my visit.
What else should I check out in Yonghe? Less than 10mins walk away is LeHua night market, a great value steak restaurant, with some delicious BBQ skewers, pretty good Vietnamese Banh Mi, and unmissable Taiwanese snacking pancakes stuffed with cheese!