Leida Free-Range Chicken

Review

Leida Free-Range Chicken sits on Gang'an Road in Tianliao, reached by driving up the mountain road on Dagangshan, and it is one of the veteran chicken restaurants in the area. Supertaste included it in a feature on Gangshan, Tianliao and Yanchao, and one blogger calls it the original Dagangshan chicken restaurant, saying the genuine one is marked by a blue carrying pole at the door. The name comes from a nearby radar station, and the open view offers mountains by day, sunsets at dusk and the lights of Kaohsiung at night.

Chicken is the star. Frequently recommended dishes include fermented-tofu fried chicken, salt-baked chicken, honey-glazed chicken, garlic chicken, white-cut chicken and stir-fried raw chicken, with soups such as pickled chilli chicken soup and fleeceflower root chicken soup, and chicken vermicelli as a staple. Diners especially recommend betel palm flower, a crunchy, subtly sweet mountain vegetable. Chicken is usually priced by the half or whole bird and varies with size and cooking style; iFoodie lists an average spend of about NT$500 to NT$800 per person, so check prices on site.

Praise centres on the view, the generous portions and prices that beat city view restaurants, with the fermented-tofu chicken crisp outside and tender inside and the betel palm flower refreshingly crunchy. Foreign visitors note that the chickens roam freely and that both the roast and fried versions are good. On the downside, some find the meat loose and the flavour plain, no better than an ordinary view restaurant, and others mention the inconvenient location, about an hour's drive from the city with a winding climb best done by following navigation.

Hours are about 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., closed Mondays, and some listings say booking is required; for weekend dinners it is especially wise to phone ahead to reserve a table and a chicken. There is a dedicated car park in front, and the dining area is an open-sided metal shed with plenty of large round tables and public toilets next door. It gets cooler on the mountain at night, so bring a jacket.

Good for family gatherings, friends out for the night view, or big Lunar New Year tables. Four to six people can order one chicken cooked two ways, such as half fermented-tofu fried and half salt-baked, plus a pot of chicken soup, betel palm flower and vermicelli, then enjoy the Dagangshan night view afterwards.