林明堂素食麵 菜卷

There are only two choices here, dry or in soup, and you pick noodles or rice vermicelli. Either way the star is the fried tofu skin. The rolls are fried until the surface turns golden and crinkled, then dropped into a clear broth flecked with minced celery, where they soak up the soup. The dry noodles are oil noodles tossed with savoury vegetarian minced "pork" and crisp bean sprouts, with more sprouts lining the bottom of the bowl. Google reviewers describe "dry noodles piled with savoury, well-seasoned vegetarian mince and crunchy bean sprouts" and tofu skin that "bursts with sweet broth when you bite into it"; another puts it plainly: "just two options, dry or soup, both come with tofu skin — the tofu skin is good, and they sell it separately too." If that's what you're after, the dry tofu skin can be ordered on its own.

The shop sits under the arcade on Jieshou Road Section 3, a vertical red-and-white sign hanging down from the second floor and a green awning over the noodle-boiling station and its row of steamer baskets. Staff work the kerbside, lifting noodles and ladling soup, and a wooden plaque by the door marks it as a designated stop on the Lugang food-culture trail. The menu runs to eight items: dry noodles with tofu skin soup for NT$45, tofu skin soup on its own NT$30, dry tofu skin NT$13, bean sprouts NT$10. Open daily from 10:30am, until 6:30pm on weekdays and 6pm at weekends. Dine-in and takeaway queue together — as one review warns, "they're not separated" — so allow time at peak hours.