Dishes
Shacha goat stir-fry
沙茶羊肉
Also called: 沙茶炒羊肉 · sa-te goat
Goat stir-fried with shacha sauce, the signature dish at Joes, a Gangshan goat restaurant dating to the mid-1950s.
Photo: bryan... from Taipei, Taiwan, CC BY-SA 2.0
Photo: bryan... from Taipei, Taiwan, CC BY-SA 2.0
Photo: Jpatokal, CC BY-SA 4.0Where it comes from
Shacha takes its name from satay: 沙茶 is read 'sa-te' in Teochew and Hokkien. English Wikipedia traces it to satay sauce brought back from Southeast Asia and later adapted with dried seafood. Teochew immigrants brought it to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War, and the Bullhead brand was created in Tainan in 1958.
How it is made
The goat is stir-fried in a wok with shacha sauce. At Joes, family members take turns cooking. No outside chefs are hired, to keep the family's flavour.
How to eat it
It belongs in a goat meal, with rice. Michelin also recommends two other dishes at Joes: the herbal goat-bone broth with offal, and goat stir-fried with bitter melon.
In Kaohsiung
Goats were traditionally raised in northern Kaohsiung because of the poor land, and Gangshan became a centre of the goat trade, with dozens of goat restaurants using meat slaughtered the same day. Michelin dates Joes to 1955, while TVBS gives 1956.
Where to eat it in Kaohsiung
Sources