Facing the prospect of a hangover after a weekend of clubbing is no fun on a Sunday and there is nothing like comfort food to lift one's spirits. In addition to Sunday Brunch staples at Grandma Nitty's, and pub grub at JB's, comes a new offering from Carnegie's: the takeout curry. Now, many of this column's readers wisely give the establishment's Saturday night grab-a-granny fests a wide berth. But the curry is as good a reason as any to head down there, order, relax with a couple of beers while it cooks, relax with another couple of beers while your mates arrive and order theirs, and relax with another couple of beers knowing that you can always slam it in the microwave if and when you finally stumble home.
You'll be hard pressed to make it back from the South in time for a madras-to-go unless you manage to get a seat on the magic bullet train, but that's no reason to miss Swank's Gold Rush Sessions bash this weekend. The team sets the controls for the heart of Taichung tomorrow night, taking over Liquid Lounge with Gareth Jones, Declan, Matty D, Kriz, and 3b throwing down the house. One of the most successful and under-rated house outfits in the country, Swank have been going for over four years, and have also featured guests including Taipei's Saucey and no other than West Coast legend Rithma alongside the rotating residents and the thirty or so peeps who design and promote. More information at www.swank-dj.com, which also has some collectable live mixes to download.
If all that doesn't tempt you out of the big smoke, then fear not as there is more turntablist action as Soundminds continue an impressive run over the last few weeks. Fresh from hosting the well-received JR Flo and Craze around the city last weekend, tomorrow night they bring you hip-hop and R&B heavyweights Baby Yu and MC RG at Plush. For those who aren't sure who Baby Yu is, well, they don't call him 'The Remix Kid' for nothing and if he's good enough to play at Jazzy Jeff's 40th birthday party, then he's good enough for us.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF BABY YU
And if for any reason you miss him tomorrow night, or, indeed, he's just so damn good that you want to hear more, then Baby Yu will also be making an appearance at Genesis Open Mic night at the Riverside Cafe (B2, Lane 244, Sec 3, Roosevelt Rd) where he'll be dropping the underground tunes and the open-mic session features a capella, spoken word and fresh rhymes. Then you can go and grab that curry.
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
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
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