Along the charming scenic route of the Tam-Jin Highway (淡金公路) on the northeast coast it can be rather difficult to find a decent restaurant. This could be a problem for the visitors who will be thronging to the annual International Kite Festival at Wanli (萬里) and Shihmen (石門) this weekend and next.
If you drive from Jinshan toward Shihmen and look a bit harder, however, you may find a restaurant sign with large Chinese characters saying, "Japanese-Style Cuisine (
The Yuan Dao Activity Hall offers a spacious and elegant dining setting, unlike those long and narrow cafe shops lined up by the coast. Most of the dining tables in the restaurant are arranged by the glass windows on the side facing the sea. The dining rooms on the second floor, which are limited to group dinners with a basic cover charge of NT$10,000, provide a magnificent ocean view.
PHOTO: DEREK LEE, TAIPEI TIMES
The restaurant started to operate two years ago and is well-known locally for serving a Japanese-style set menu all year long. The "cherry-blossom" (櫻花套餐) and "kaseki-ryori" (懷石套餐) set dinners are highly recommended. Both come with a light salad dripping in home-made Japanese dressing. For the cherry blossom set the two main courses include top-grade sirloin beef and imported soft-shell crabs. For the kaseki-ryori set there is an emphasis on local and seasonal seafood, such as steamed grouper with shredded green onion and sauce.
As to beverages, iced milk tea stands out for its unusually smooth taste. The red-bean sticky rice for dessert, rather than the cheese cake or coffee jelly, would be the right choice for a perfect ending to your meal. The Japanese-style hot pot with lots of vegetables and seafood is very popular among light-meal eaters. The restaurant also offers vegetarian foods.
David Lin (林大維), manager of the restaurant spelled out why people enjoy dining at Yuan Dao. "People enjoy the relaxing atmosphere in the restaurant and love our hot pots. I guess they enjoy having their food at their own pace. Nothing is to be rushed while they are looking far away at their wide-open ocean view."
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built