Luodong Angelica Lamb Soup

Luodong angelica lamb soup is a herbal lamb soup found along Minquan Road at Luodong Night Market in Yilan, made by simmering bone-in lamb with angelica root and Sichuan lovage into an amber broth with a sweet, non-gamey finish, contested by the neighboring stalls Yang Pu Zi and A-Zao Bo. The signature winter scene at Luodong Night Market is pots of angelica lamb soup bubbling away, their herbal-medicinal steam drifting down the entire street. The plastic stools in front of each stall are always full, some diners pairing the soup with thin wheat noodles, others ordering a separate plate of lamb to dip in fermented tofu — a fixed ritual for Yilan locals warming up on a winter night.

Yang Pu Zi and A-Zao Bo, standing side by side on Minquan Road near Luodong Night Market, are the two long-established angelica lamb soup stalls consistently listed together on "must-eat Luodong" rankings by major travel media; exact years in business vary between sources, so no single reliable figure is cited here.

What is Luodong Angelica Lamb Soup?

This is a soup made by simmering bone-in lamb with Chinese angelica root (danggui), Sichuan lovage (chuanxiong), and other herbs. The broth runs a deep amber color; the first sip brings the herbal fragrance of angelica, followed by the natural sweetness drawn from the lamb bones — far less gamey than most people expect. The standard way to eat it is a clear broth with sliced ginger and a dash of rice wine, served with thin wheat noodles or glass noodles. The lamb itself can be ordered separately as a sliced platter dipped in fermented tofu. It is the representative 'must-queue-in-winter' soup at the Yilan night market scene.

Luodong Night Market clusters around Zhongshan Park, while angelica lamb soup stalls concentrate along Minquan Road. Yang Pu Zi, listed on the Luodong Township Office's tourism website, and A-Zao Bo — locally dubbed the 'night market lamb duo' — have stood next to each other for decades, each with a devoted following. Their recipes differ slightly: broth sweetness, meat texture, and noodle options are all worth comparing. This is a rare opportunity to try two schools of the same dish at the same street in a single outing.

How to eat it like a local

Local knowledge

Information compiled from the Yilan County Government's Bureau of Commerce and Tourism, local township farmers' associations, and large-scale public reviews. Sponsored listings have been filtered out. Photos will be replaced with channel-exclusive footage after Dio's on-site shoot.