Seafood galore @ Wen Chin Seafood Restaurant, Cijin Island (Kaohsiung, Taiwan)

Southern Taiwan is blessed with abundant seafood, and Cijin Island - a mere 10-minute ferry ride away from Kaohsiung - is reputed to be the best place for fresh seafood in Kaohsiung. During our visit to the island, we enjoyed a delicious seafood lunch at one of the local seafood restaurants on the main street. There are many such restaurants, with trays of seafood on ice out the front to lure seafood-lovers into their shops.

Fresh seafood on ice on display, and customers choose their seafood dishes before entering the restaurant:

We chose Wen Chin Seafood Restaurant based on recommendations from the wikitravel page for Kaohsiung, and it was a pretty good choice. The restaurant was simply furnished with tables and chairs and minimal decoration, but it was clean and family-friendly. Ordering was fairly easy, as I mostly needed to point at whichever seafood we wanted, and the guy would write down my order. The easiest option is to allow the restaurant to prepare each seafood dish as they like, but I asked for options on how each would be prepared, and chose accordingly. Staff understood my fumbling Mandarin well enough, and allergy requests were taken. There was also an a-la-carte menu in English, from which I chose a rice and two vegetable dishes. We were famished from all that cycling we did earlier, and the food tasted really good.

Tasty Fried Rice, mostly for our fried-rice-loving 4.5-year-old:

This was a local vegetable, but I can't remember what it's called. Quite tasty for a leafy veg:

Fried Oysters. I think the boy would have eaten the whole plate if we'd let him:

This was another local vegetable, a type of melon whose exact name has slipped my mind. Cooked with crispy little shrimps, it had a silky texture not very much appreciated by either hubby or the boy. More for me!

Scallops, fried first and then cooked with vegetables. A tasty way to get more vegetables into our bodies:

Everything came under TWD700, which was very cheap for seafood. Seafood lovers are spoilt for choice on Cijin Island. I'm sure you can't go wrong with most of the seafood restaurants on the island, but Wen Chin Seafood Restaurant has our vote.

A bit crowded inside and outside the restaurant by the time we left:

Wen Chin Seafood Restaurant
28 Miaoqian Road
Cijin District
Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Tel. +886 7 5714568