The number of items available at hot pot restaurants throughout the island is only exceeded by their ubiquity on the streets of Taipei. In addition to the different meat, seafood and vegetables found at these dens of gluttony, patrons can also choose from Thai, Korean or local broths to boil their food in. The recently opened Mihan 101 on the fourth floor of Taipei 101 and operated by the Grand Formosa Regency, has taken the average shabu shabu restaurant and made it upscale by creating four unique broths based on traditional Japanese recipes.
Rather than offering a buffet like its pedestrian rivals, Mihan 101 offers a set menu that includes an appetizer, one of four soup bases — soymilk, miso, sukiyaki and dried fish — for cooking the main course and a dessert. The meat selection includes yoghurt pork, New Zealand lamb or free-range chicken (NT$780), US boneless rib and rib eye (NT$880) and US Wagyu beef (NT$1,280).
According to public relations manager Beth Tsai (蔡惠茹), the soymilk pot and sukiyaki pot are ideal for the meat menu. Made with fresh soybeans from Kyoto, the soybean pot goes brilliantly with the beef because the light soup compliments the taste of the red meat. Though this reviewer is not particularly fond of soymilk, I found the texture of the soup creamy and after cooking some ingredients, it retained an appealing meaty undertone.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE GRAND FORMOSA REGENT HOTEL
The sukiyaki pot is made with Kikkoman soy sauce, sake and black sugar from Okinawa. The saltiness of the dark soy sauce blends well with the rice wine and sugar to provide a rich seasoning for the meat.
The miso broth is an equal mixture of red and white miso, the soup was fragrant and ideal for the seafood combo (NT$980), a combination of oysters, squid, prawns, fish and clams. Lovers of crustaceans can also choose from lobster and seafood, king crab legs and seafood or oyster and seafood (NT$1,280). For those wanting to splurge, the high-end super combo (NT$1,680) is similar to the abovementioned with the addition of king crab, lobster and scallops, but minus the prawns.
In addition to specializing in the four hot pot flavors, there is an abundant selection of authentically Japanese a la carte items such as sashimi, sushi, tempura and grilled meats.
The year was 1991. A Toyota Land Cruiser set out on a 67km journey up the Junda Forest Road (郡大林道) toward an old loggers’ camp, at which point the hikers inside would get out and begin their ascent of Jade Mountain (玉山). Little did they know, they would be the last group of hikers to ever enjoy this shortcut into the mountains. An approaching typhoon soon wiped out the road behind them, trapping the vehicle on the mountain and forever changing the approach to Jade Mountain. THE CONTEMPORARY ROUTE Nowadays, the approach to Jade Mountain from the north side takes an
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and