Steak lovers will be pleased to know the Australian grill that started in the US, Outback Steakhouse, has stoked up the coals in Taipei. Customers sidling up to an Outback booth between now and Feb. 5 will be offered a 50 percent discount as long as they order steaks exceeding NT$390 in value. And if you get there between 5pm and 7pm ,on Monday through Friday, you can take advantage of the capital city's latest, greatest happy hour special: Buy-one, get-one free beer.
The branch that opened on the second floor of the Hyatt Hotel next door to AsiaWorld shopping center is no toehold in the Taipei market. Outback has moved into a 300-ping space capable of seating 240 people in a dining room outfitted with boomerangs and surfboards. It is the company's 1,156th franchise and the first in Taiwan.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Though Outback offers an extensive menu of steaks, seafood, pastas and more, those thousand restaurants came about because of six dishes that have done very well.
First is their "already famous" appetizer, the Bloomin' Onion (NT$240), diced and deep fried to look as though it's exploded in the plate, with a bowl of dipping sauce dropped in the middle. Choosing between it and the Aussie Cheese Fries (NT$190/NT$260) will be a tough choice, given the combination of Monterey Jack and cheddar cheese that's been drizzled over Outback's "Aussie Chips" -- French fries, that is.
In a country that fancies bony broths, a bowl of Outback's creamy onion soup (NT$90/NT$120) will be a guaranteed winner for anyone who misses heartier Western-style soups.
Then it's time for the meat. If it's any gauge of the quality of Australian beef, Outback started its empire in Orlando, Florida, in 1988, in a time and place where people drove Fords, watched baseball and "spoke American." But the steaks were good enough to win converts from the several other steakhouses that line US highways. Since then, the same has happened in 20 other countries.
The reason is the Outback Special (NT$390/NT$490), an 8oz or 11oz center-cut sirloin seasoned and seared to perfection in a proprietary steak pan. It comes with a dipping sauce, but you don't need it. It also comes with veggies and fries that tend to be forgotten given how good the steak is.
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
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