This Chennai kitchen makes a convincing case for authentic Taiwanese food

What’s cooking at Taiwan Maami’s new Chennai branch? The same thing it has always been: imported tapioca pearls from Taiwan cooked in small batches every two hours, single-estate whole-leaf organic tea from the Nilgiris that exports ninety-five percent of its produce to premium markets in Japan, Germany, and the UK, sauces made entirely in-house with zero shortcuts, and a kitchen run by Theresa Hu, who has been carrying her culinary traditions across borders her entire life and has never once seen that as a reason to compromise.

Theresa Hu brings her edible autobiography to a third Chennai address

The new Anna Nagar space carries that into its interiors, too. It is an enveloping wash of deep red, with patterned flooring, warm wood, cane-backed seating and hanging floral installations softening the intensity of the colour. Shelves behind the counter hold delicate crockery, while Chinese-inspired figurines and artwork add to the sense that this is a room built around cultural references rather than generic Asian décor. The framed artworks are replications of pieces from the National Palace Museum in Taipei, including Lady Cooling Off, dating to around 1300. Making it a little pocket of Taiwan and Chinese cultural memory tucked into Anna Nagar.

Theresa's grandparents came to Taiwan from Shanghai and Beijing in 1949 during the Chinese Civil War. She grew up in Taiwan, lived in Hong Kong, the USA, the UK, and has been in India for more than half her life. The food she makes is an edible autobiography: truthful to where she comes from, unafraid of showing the real traditions of Taiwanese and Chinese cuisine in a market that has largely settled for Indo-Chinese approximations. Her residency at The Leela Hyderabad was titled exactly that. The new branch carries the same philosophy in a new room, and walking in, the cup and straw already in hand before the order even lands, you feel it immediately.

The boba is where most places fail and where Taiwan Maami does not. The Caramel milk tea is warm caramel stirred through a milk tea base that keeps the tea holding its ground underneath, the pearls chewy in the specific way that only authentic Taiwanese tapioca achieves. Theresa is clear about why this matters: without real Taiwanese pearls and the precise operational knowledge to cook them properly, the spirit and texture of the original drink cannot be preserved. The drink proves the point.

The Yaki onigiri arrives with red oil, soy and white sesame, corn inside, the rice exterior holding a light crispness that makes every bite structurally clean. The red oil alongside it is an authentic Sichuan condiment: Theresa uses local chilli varieties she has found to be wonderful substitutes for the Shaanxi, erjintiao, and chaotienjiao peppers traditionally used, and the result is a dip that, “Taiwan Maami’s Red oil is a foundational ingredient for us,” she says. Eat the onigiri immediately. The crispness of the exterior has a window, and it is worth catching.

The Original ChickGozilla is the name and the reality: a giant Taiwanese XL chicken steak with a batter built from traditional tenderising techniques and a natural flour blend that Theresa keeps to herself. The exterior shatters, and the interior is insanely tender. It comes with a house salad, an in-house gochujang made from fermented bean paste, and a sweet pink mayo that makes the gochujang’s bold fermented depth approachable.

The Kung pao chicken rice is the dish that makes the entire argument for why Taiwan Maami exists. Kung pao is defined by the lychee flavour profile: layered vinegar, sugar, Sichuan peppercorns and dried chillies at precise temperatures. “Most ‘Chinese’ food served in India falls under Indo-Chinese because it misses these intricate layers,” Theresa says. Tender chicken thigh, roasted peanuts, mala oil, Sichuan peppercorns, steamed rice. Completely addictive. The dan dan noodles close things out: springy, sesame-rich, red oil-forward, the numbing spice building slowly and staying.

Taiwan Maami has always known what it is. The new branch simply gives more people in Chennai a chance to find that out.

Meal for two: Rs 800 onwards. From 3 pm to 12 pm. At Taiwan Maami, Anna Nagar.

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