This is the story of Chocolate and Love -- and serendipity.
Barry Smit flew to Taipei from Amsterdam with his girlfriend and a plan to open a restaurant. He'd never run one before, but partnering with his girlfriend's uncle, Tony, seemed a safe enough bet. Shortly after they arrived, the girlfriend went by the wayside, but Barry and Tony's relationship has blossomed into one of the hipper eateries east of Dunhua.
The place has the feel of a jazz joint. In fact, there has been live music in the upstairs and Smit is currently planning upcoming gigs. Chocolate and Love also hosts the Taipei Poets Society, whose handwritten works adorn the walls. Last Saturday they hosted a Caribbean party that went into the small hours.
PHOTO: DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES
But if you've only come for music or poetry, you're missing the pasta. Pescatore basilico (NT$200), seafood and basil herb in a creamy sauce, is al dente pasta piled with shrimp, clams and scallops. If the scallops aren't surprise enough, the spiced celery surely will be.
"I lived in Italy for a while," says Smit. "And I know Chinese love noodles. So I wanted to get the pastas right."
Other options, to name just a few, include antonella (NT$160), clams and jalapeno chilis in a tomato and garlic sauce or the same seafood combination as the pescatore basilico but with a pomodori tomato sauce (NT$200). All the pastas run between NT$150 and NT$200 and come with bread and the soup of the day (either cream corn, tomato and cabbage, onion or spinach cream). They're also available during the lunch hour in smaller portions, at smaller prices.
Smit says the formula is to make Chocolate and Love "a place where West meets East and East meets West."
There's little in the way of chocolate to be found in the place, but Barry and Tony have put their love into it.
"I greet people as they come in the door and show them out. Little Western touches like that, we hope makes it special. If a place is comfortable and the conversation is friendly, the food and the drinks taste better."
Does being a restaurant owner come naturally? Smit gives a look as if to say he's not sure it comes at all. It does. It's serendipity.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
A sultry sea mist blankets New Taipei City as I pedal from Tamsui District (淡水) up the coast. This might not be ideal beach weather but it’s fine weather for riding –– the cloud cover sheltering arms and legs from the scourge of the subtropical sun. The dedicated bikeway that connects downtown Taipei with the west coast of New Taipei City ends just past Fisherman’s Wharf (漁人碼頭) so I’m not the only cyclist jostling for space among the SUVs and scooters on National Highway No. 2. Many Lycra-clad enthusiasts are racing north on stealthy Giants and Meridas, rounding “the crown coast”
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern