Most people have probably never heard of Amigo, a pleasant little California-style Mexican restaurant located a block north of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and a block east of National Taiwan University Hospital, at the intersection of Linsen South and Renai roads. Which is a shame, because it's one of the few Mexican restaurants in Taipei that doesn't overcharge for the kind of food it serves. You can get a set meal with soup, drink and an entree like a burrito or taco for NT$150; or a beef taco, chicken burrito, corn chips with salsa, and a drink for NT$185.
“Everyone does Mexican food differently. The most important thing is you use lots of fresh vegetables,” said manager Jean Chao (趙翼英). “But usually it's supposed to be simple, but healthy, and you're not supposed to charge a lot for it.”
Chao has lived in California on and off for the last two decades, where she learned English and a little Spanish. A chef who had emigrated from Mexico taught her how to cook. She came up with the concept behind Amigo while visiting Taiwan after the 921 earthquake. A lot of people had lost their jobs in the wake of the earthquake and she wanted to help them by creating a business model that anyone could execute.
Things inside Amigo (www.amigos.com.tw) are simple yet comfortable, with soft norteno music, bronze light fixtures and warm yellow and turquoise paint on the walls. There's also a takeout window with a bar for eating or drinking Coronas outside.
Chao estimates around 70 percent of her ingredients are imported, including the cheese and jalapenos. The lettuce and green peppers are rinsed with pure water in a power washer. Prices are low because “we save money on overheads to spend it on the best food for out customers,” she said.
Unfortunately the place has yet to catch on. Chao said passers-by express curiosity but decline to try the food, because they mistakenly assume it's too spicy. She saw an increase in business several months ago after a cable TV station ran a program on Mexican food. But Tuesday, when thousands of anti-Chen Shui-bian protestors marched past her shop on their way to besiege the Presidential Palace, she sold “a lot of iced tea” but not much of anything else.
Chao, however, doesn't appear worried, and she already has plans to open a second restaurant, possibly further east on Renai Road.
“This is a simple restaurant that two people can run,” Chao said. “If you give people a job and a place to eat, that's good enough?”
Oct. 27 to Nov. 2 Over a breakfast of soymilk and fried dough costing less than NT$400, seven officials and engineers agreed on a NT$400 million plan — unaware that it would mark the beginning of Taiwan’s semiconductor empire. It was a cold February morning in 1974. Gathered at the unassuming shop were Economics minister Sun Yun-hsuan (孫運璿), director-general of Transportation and Communications Kao Yu-shu (高玉樹), Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) president Wang Chao-chen (王兆振), Telecommunications Laboratories director Kang Pao-huang (康寶煌), Executive Yuan secretary-general Fei Hua (費驊), director-general of Telecommunications Fang Hsien-chi (方賢齊) and Radio Corporation of America (RCA) Laboratories director Pan
The consensus on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chair race is that Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) ran a populist, ideological back-to-basics campaign and soundly defeated former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), the candidate backed by the big institutional players. Cheng tapped into a wave of popular enthusiasm within the KMT, while the institutional players’ get-out-the-vote abilities fell flat, suggesting their power has weakened significantly. Yet, a closer look at the race paints a more complicated picture, raising questions about some analysts’ conclusions, including my own. TURNOUT Here is a surprising statistic: Turnout was 130,678, or 39.46 percent of the 331,145 eligible party
The classic warmth of a good old-fashioned izakaya beckons you in, all cozy nooks and dark wood finishes, as tables order a third round and waiters sling tapas-sized bites and assorted — sometimes unidentifiable — skewered meats. But there’s a romantic hush about this Ximending (西門町) hotspot, with cocktails savored, plating elegant and never rushed and daters and diners lit by candlelight and chandelier. Each chair is mismatched and the assorted tables appear to be the fanciest picks from a nearby flea market. A naked sewing mannequin stands in a dimly lit corner, adorned with antique mirrors and draped foliage
The older you get, and the more obsessed with your health, the more it feels as if life comes down to numbers: how many more years you can expect; your lean body mass; your percentage of visceral fat; how dense your bones are; how many kilos you can squat; how long you can deadhang; how often you still do it; your levels of LDL and HDL cholesterol; your resting heart rate; your overnight blood oxygen level; how quickly you can run; how many steps you do in a day; how many hours you sleep; how fast you are shrinking; how
RSS