Want a guaranteed good-tasting meal and attentive service when you dine out? Here's a tip: Try calling ahead and telling the owner you're a journalist interested in reviewing their restaurant. I tried as much on a recent visit to Corner, a new eatery opened in an alley off of Fuhsing North Road and Minsheng East Road, and to amazing effect. I was greeted at the door by name, regaled with friendly conversation and treated to a delicious meal. No more surreptitiously photographing meals that may or may not be worth the price tag (no more eating meals with price tags, for that matter), I'm calling ahead.
In business less than a month, Corner seems to have already ironed out many of the wrinkles experienced by most new restaurants. But Corner is more than a restaurant; it's also a florist shop and flowers dominate every aspect of the place, from what you see to what you eat. Part-owner Chen Shu-hsuen (
PHOTO COURTESY OF CORNER
But local businesses aren't the only ones taken by Corner. The same night I had my meal, Chen was busy talking with producers from Formosa Television (民視電台), who plan to air three segments of a popular weekend dining program at the eatery, introducing it as a florist boutique, cafe and restaurant. They seemed as pleased with their meals as I was with mine. "It's been really exciting, all that's been happening in the past month," Chen said, "But I'm very tired."
Thus far it doesn't show. In fact, Chen's energy seems as vibrant as the floral arrangements filling the space. His motivation, he says, is finding new ways of doing things that will interest his clients. "Our food isn't Italian or French -- it's no style in particular," he said. "We rather find interesting combinations of flavors that you might not have had elsewhere."
Breaded baked cod on a bed of onions covered with a thin layer of cheese is a tasty example. Despite the many heavy flavors involved, the succulence of the fish is what stands out most. It shares a plate with super-spicy Italian sausage, steamed vegetables and a lightly pickled okra. For desert, lavender-flavored gelatin topped with kiwi looked great, but I think I'd have preferred kiwi-flavored gelatin topped with lavender. You can't have everything, but tell them you're from a newspaper or TV station and you'll certainly get a lot.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located