Keelung Red-Braised Eel Thick Soup

Red-braised eel thick soup is a signature thick-broth dish from Keelung's Ai-Si Road area, made from sea eel marinated in red fermented rice, coated, fried, and dropped into simmering broth. At the entrance to Ai-Si Road Night Market, the Zun Ji Red-Braised Eel sign has hung in the alley for half a century. Eel pieces marinated in red fermented rice are coated in sweet potato starch, fried until golden-red and fragrant, then poured into steaming broth. A bowl of vivid orange-red eel soup arrives: the eel is crisp and tender, the broth carrying a tangy-sweet aroma. This is the flavor served on Ai-Si Road since 1965, passed down across three generations without a break.

Zun Ji Red-Braised Eel was founded in 1965 at a stall in the alley of Ai-Si Road Night Market in Keelung, and remains a sixty-plus-year-old red fermented rice eel soup institution on Ai-Si Road, now run by its third generation. The red fermented rice marinating technique traces back to Fuzhou cuisine, a culinary trace left by Fuzhou immigrants in Keelung's port.

What is red-braised eel thick soup?

Red-braised eel thick soup is a signature thick-broth dish from the Ai-Si Road area of Keelung. Fresh sea eel is cut into pieces, marinated in red fermented rice (hong zao), rice wine, sugar, and soy sauce, then coated in sweet potato starch or tapioca starch and deep-fried until the exterior is crisp and the inside remains tender. The fried pieces are dropped into a broth simmered from flat fish, dried shrimp, and shiitake, thickened with tapioca starch. The dish is finished with a scattering of cilantro or basil. The broth is golden-red, tangy-sweet with a fermented rice aroma; the eel is crisp outside and tender within, with the texture of fried food set against the warmth of a thick soup. Unlike Tainan's red snapper thick soup or Hsinchu's squid thick soup, the defining element in Keelung's version is the red fermented rice — its unique fermented aroma is unmistakable and recognizable, a trace of Fuzhou culinary heritage left in Keelung's port.

Why Ai-Si Road? Ai-Si Road is one of the early night-market districts in Keelung, a second street-food cluster beyond Miaokou. Zun Ji Red-Braised Eel was founded in 1965 by the first generation using a Fuzhou-derived adapted method, and has passed through three generations since — the long-established representative of red-braised eel thick soup on Ai-Si Road. Keelung has a history of Fuzhou immigrant communities, and the use of red fermented rice is a core marker of Fuzhou cooking. Old Miaokou shops such as "Guangdong Shantou" and "Tian Sheng Pu" have also offered red-braised eel at times, but Zun Ji's focused and consistent version on Ai-Si Road has earned its place as the local benchmark. As one of Taiwan's main sea eel producing areas, Keelung has a stable supply of fresh eel — a reason this dish has maintained its quality for sixty years.

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Local knowledge

Information compiled from the Keelung City Government Department of Tourism and City Marketing and large-volume public reviews, with sponsored content filtered out. Photos to be replaced with channel-exclusive material after Dio's on-site shoot.