In ancient times tao hua yuan (桃花源) was a kind of utopia, a harmonious society, far from the maddening crowd, tucked away inside a valley. This is the kind of atmosphere that designer Syu Da (徐達) was tasked with creating at Shinyeh 101, a restaurant serving new-style Taiwanese cuisine on the 85th floor of Taipei 101.
It was a lot to ask for, but it's not a bad effort if your idea of heaven is seating for 210 people, five VIP rooms and seven semi-VIP rooms. White, linen-covered tables, plush red chairs and decorative lampshades give the place an Eastern chic and the lighting is subtle but imaginative. Sensibly, nothing dramatic detracts from the magnificent view.
The food was not as spectacular. It was a few notches above the usual fare served at Taiwanese banquets, but in this reviewer's opinion that is not saying much. The appetizer was a combination of four different cold dishes, including a large mussel, a satisfyingly salty mullet roe, a scallop and a portion of eel. As appetizers should, they switched the taste buds into on mode. The stewed shark's fin soup with chicken, pork tendon and knuckle, though ecologically unsound, was surprisingly good, with a strong taste and satisfying broth.
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
Moving on, it's hard to fail with a lightly cooked giant prawn, if it's fresh and arrives on the table warm and this was another success. The wok-seared vegetable would have been instantly forgettable without the scallop. A dim sum combination sounded better than it tasted, while the seasonal fresh fruits were … fresh and nicely presented. The meal ended with homemade dessert and hot almond soup. As for the service, it was Western in style, polite and reasonably attentive.
Shinyeh has been operating 30 years and has six Taiwanese-style restaurants, two curry houses, four Japanese-style buffet eateries and one hot pot place. It has proven to be an able operator and its latest catering establishment does not disappoint. It will be popular with the expense account crowd and no doubt this is the clientele mentioned in the business plan. Tourists looking for ambiance, good Taiwanese food and the best view in town could do a lot worse. While it wasn't heaven it wasn't a bad try.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50