Address: 50 Hoping W. Rd., Taipei (台北市和平西路50號)
Telephone: (02)2303-0999
Open: Tuesday through Sunday, 5pm - 1am
PHOTO: GAVIN PHIPPS
Average meal: NT$400 per person.
Details: English menu. Credit cards accepted.
Looking for a refined evening out? Then try sipping on fine wines and munching on healthy Spanish fare at Tapas Bar.
Opened six months ago by German native Michael Zug, Tapas Bar (
The fact that the owner is German and not of Iberian descent doesn't matter in the least. The food cooked up by Zug could have come straight out of a cantina in Madrid. The dishes are delicious and add the ever-present aroma of olive oil, the Spanish music and the relaxed and friendly atmosphere, and you'll find that sitting in Tapas Bar is the closest to Spain you could possibly get without investing in an airplane ticket.
While not extensive, the menu at Tapas Bar is splendidly Iberian. Zug's Paella (NT$450) is by far the most authentic and palatable version of the Spanish specialty to be found anywhere in the city. Packed with plenty of seafood and chicken and large enough to feed two, the dish is a must when dining at Tapas. Other main courses include the seafood plate (NT$280), chocos -- fried squid in tomato sauce -- (NT$200) and albondigas, or Spanish meatballs in tomato sauce (NT$180). There is also a choice of colorful salads to accompany your main course. These include chicken (NT$180), squid and prawn (NT$260) and Parma ham and parhigiano (NT$260).
Of course, being a tapas bar, snacks and wine are not far away. However, unlike tapas bars in Europe, the snacks are not left on the bar for customers to eat at their leisure. Instead, patrons must order their choice of tapas from the menu. Zug says this way each customer receives freshly prepared snacks.
At present the wine list is lacking in full-bodied Spanish reds, but has an ample choice of French wines to suit all tastes. Common red wines, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Chianti and Merlot are available along with more specialized ones, such as Chateau La Commanderie De Queyret 1998 and Domaine Du Mas Montel, an oak cast matured wine. The white wine list is not as extensive, but still includes some fine Chardonnays. All wines cost NT$130 per glass and NT$800 per bottle. Before you settle on a bottle of wine Zug is more than happy to allow customers to first sample a glass.
While the view of Hoping West Road is far removed from that of a beachfront somewhere on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, Tapas Bar is a great choice of eatery. The choice of tapas and wine along with the piped Spanish music that echoes around the joint will leave any customer contented, well fed and dreaming of life in sunny Spain.
Dissident artist Ai Weiwei’s (艾未未) famous return to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been overshadowed by the astonishing news of the latest arrests of senior military figures for “corruption,” but it is an interesting piece of news in its own right, though more for what Ai does not understand than for what he does. Ai simply lacks the reflective understanding that the loneliness and isolation he imagines are “European” are simply the joys of life as an expat. That goes both ways: “I love Taiwan!” say many still wet-behind-the-ears expats here, not realizing what they love is being an
Google unveiled an artificial intelligence tool Wednesday that its scientists said would help unravel the mysteries of the human genome — and could one day lead to new treatments for diseases. The deep learning model AlphaGenome was hailed by outside researchers as a “breakthrough” that would let scientists study and even simulate the roots of difficult-to-treat genetic diseases. While the first complete map of the human genome in 2003 “gave us the book of life, reading it remained a challenge,” Pushmeet Kohli, vice president of research at Google DeepMind, told journalists. “We have the text,” he said, which is a sequence of
Every now and then, even hardcore hikers like to sleep in, leave the heavy gear at home and just enjoy a relaxed half-day stroll in the mountains: no cold, no steep uphills, no pressure to walk a certain distance in a day. In the winter, the mild climate and lower elevations of the forests in Taiwan’s far south offer a number of easy escapes like this. A prime example is the river above Mudan Reservoir (牡丹水庫): with shallow water, gentle current, abundant wildlife and a complete lack of tourists, this walk is accessible to nearly everyone but still feels quite remote.
It’s a bold filmmaking choice to have a countdown clock on the screen for most of your movie. In the best-case scenario for a movie like Mercy, in which a Los Angeles detective has to prove his innocence to an artificial intelligence judge within said time limit, it heightens the tension. Who hasn’t gotten sweaty palms in, say, a Mission: Impossible movie when the bomb is ticking down and Tom Cruise still hasn’t cleared the building? Why not just extend it for the duration? Perhaps in a better movie it might have worked. Sadly in Mercy, it’s an ever-present reminder of just
RSS