Longing to taste Shanghai cuisine without leaving Taiwan? The Grand Hyatt Taipei might just satiate that craving.
Last Wednesday, the hotel began a 12-day-long journey back to what it says was the Shanghai of yesteryear, giving customers a chance to eat an authentic Shanghai meal in an authentic Shanghai setting.
PHOTO COURTESY OF GRAND HYATT
Naturally, Chinese cuisine varies from province to province, with some dishes saltier than others and some sweeter than others. Shanghai cuisine incorporates sweet and salty tastes with a healthy dose of oil, lending a somewhat slippery texture to each dish.
"The Shanghai style of food served in Shanghai, compared to Taiwan, is stronger," said Johnny Liao, the head chef who has been cooking Shanghai style for almost four decades.
Among some of the dishes on the "Shanghai Shanghai" menu were steamed shad with pickled cucumber and Yunnan ham wrapped in a crepe; braised seafood bean curd parcel in a crab roe sauce; steamed pork dumplings; and a creamy walnut and peanut soup for desert.
The steamed shad, a type of fish, was unique in that it was not scaled. Each piece was wrapped in a thin, filmy substance resembling Saran-Wrap. (Don't worry, it's edible.) The fish was then steamed using nothing but its own juices, creating a taste that was both clean and light on the pallet. Just remember, though, to watch out for the bones.
Another dish on the menu was braised seafood bean curd parcel. Like the shad, this dish also used a thin, edible material -- the skin of bean curd -- to wrap up the seafood. The bundle is then sauteed using a technique that makes it slippery and wet. The bean curd skin, lightly fried, was rather fun to eat.
Apart from the seafood dishes, there was also steamed marrow and pork dumplings. Many dumplings in Taiwan are often over steamed, leaving the inside bone dry. These dumplings, however, were oozing with juices, so much so that a spoon was required to avoid spillage. The dumpling's filling was heavy on the chopped scallions, lending a biting though zesty taste.
For desert, there was a creamy walnut and peanut soup, served luke-warm. The sweetness, mixed with nuts, somehow successfully managed to counterbalance the main dish's salty and oily flavors, satisfactorily rounding up the entire meal.
Liao, the head chef who has been plying his trade for over three decades, said it's seldom one comes across a restaurant in Taiwan serving genuine Shanghai-style cuisine.
As for the different types of cuisine offered at the Grand Hyatt, Liao said, "It's important to keep changing styles. You have to add fresh feelings, otherwise guests will not come back."
The Shanghai Shanghai special ends on Sept. 12. Apart from the food, the atmosphere of the Shanghai Court conjures up the feeling of 1930s Shanghai, complete with the decorations and music of the time.
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
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
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