The Latin ambiance is pretty popular these days, especially in music, but in cuisine, the food of South America is not well represented in Taipei. Salsa Bistro, tucked away in a lane off fashionable Anho Road, might be leading a new dining sensation with its small but unusual menu and probably the best selection of Chilean wines you are likely to find in this city.
Salsa Bistro's managing director and executive chef Ali Lai (賴奕岭) has created a menu that is representative of much South American cuisine with the exception of Brazil, which has its own separate culinary traditions. The food is served very stylishly, and is prepared and presented in a manner "a little more sophisticated than what is usual in South America." The careful control of cooking time to make sure that lamb chops are nice and tender is an example of this management, but overall, Lai says that the dishes are true to the originals.
PHOTO: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
Although small, Salsa Bistro produces everything on the premises, and even the simplest dishes such as the sopaipilla (pumpkin bread with a cilantro and chili sauce) are outstanding in flavor and visual appeal. Other dishes such as the seviche (sword fish marinated in lemon juice) and the empanaditas make great entrees and also a great accompaniment to the extensive wine list. A light refreshing Tarapaca sauvignon blanc is a great way to get the meal going, and for the main meal, moving on the Tarapaca Maipo Valley gran reserva is a recipe for bliss.
Lai, a Chinese born in Chili, came back to Taipei to start an import business for Chilean wine, which explains the extensive wine list (only Chilean wines), which are very well priced and represents a wide range of what Chilean vineyards are now capable of. Most wines are between NT$1,000 to NT$1,500, and dollar for dollar, you are doing much better than with most French wines. Main courses are attractively laid out, but servings are substantial and you won't be walking away hungry.
One of the house specialties is the baked corn and meat pastry (NT$300), which you are unlikely to find anywhere else, but even seemingly common dishes such as roast chicken (NT$500) and grilled lamb chops (NT$580) have a unique twist to them, full of the flavor of unexpected spices.
Salsa's decor does not seek to overplay the Latin theme, with pleasant music of the Buena Vista Social Club variety and traditional pottery, but otherwise aims at modern elegance. Service is knowledgeable, friendly and efficient, and Lai or her staff are on hand to provide explanations as to the various dishes and wines. To finish off the meal, Salsa also has excellent coffee.
Address: 9, Lane 141, Anho Road, Sec. 1, Taipei (台北市安和路一段141巷9號)
Telephone: 02-27003060
Open: Noon to 2:30pm (lunch); 6pm to 11pm (dinner)
Average meal: NT$500
Details: English menu available. Credit cards accepted
The problem with Marx’s famous remark that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, the second time as farce, is that the first time is usually farce as well. This week Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) made a pilgrimage to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “to confer, converse and otherwise hob-nob” with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. The visit was an instant international media hit, with major media reporting almost entirely shorn of context. “Taiwan’s main opposition leader landed in China Tuesday for a rare visit aimed at cross-strait ‘peace’”, crowed Agence-France Presse (AFP) from Shanghai. Rare!
What is the importance within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of the meeting between Xi Jinping (習近平), the leader Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), the leader of the KMT? Local media is an excellent guide to determine how important — or unimportant — a news event is to the public. Taiwan has a vast online media ecosystem, and if a news item is gaining traction among readers, editors shift resources in near real time to boost coverage to meet the demand and drive up traffic. Cheng’s China trip is among the top headlines, but by no means
A recent report from the Environmental Management Administration of the Ministry of Environment highlights a perennial problem: illegal dumping of construction waste. In Taoyuan’s Yangmei District (楊梅) and Hsinchu’s Longtan District (龍潭) criminals leased 10,000 square meters of farmland, saying they were going to engage in horticulture. They then accepted between 40,000 and 50,000 cubic meters of construction waste from sites in northern Taiwan, charging less than the going rate for disposal, and dumped the waste concrete, tile, metal and glass onto the leased land. Taoyuan District prosecutors charged 33 individuals from seven companies with numerous violations of the law. This
Sunflower movement superstar Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) once quipped that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could nominate a watermelon to run for Tainan mayor and win. Conversely, the DPP could run a living saint for mayor in Taipei and still lose. In 2022, the DPP ran with the closest thing to a living saint they could find: former Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中). During the pandemic, his polling was astronomically high, with the approval of his performance reaching as high as 91 percent in one TVBS poll. He was such a phenomenon that people printed out pop-up cartoon
RSS