Taipei's anonymous districts are turning into neighborhoods. Homogenous barrack-style buildings are gradually being torn down or renovated, creating unique residential areas with character. All the construction going on indicates that Taipei is reinventing itself into an international city, and its cafes and restaurants are following suit.
Shih Horng-ren (施弘仁) has this same international vision for his eatery. The owner of the recently opened Shih's Bagels first fell in love with the round breads when he was studying for his master's degree at Yale University. He recounts walking the cold winter streets of New Haven looking forward to entering a bagel shop, from where the smell of cinnamon and raisins wafted out onto the sidewalk and "you could feel the warmth of the bagels."
To help him fulfill his dream, he has hired Israeli chef Amir Arie who has added salads, soups and desserts - all made from scratch - to the menu.
PHOTO: NOAH BUCHAN, TAIPEI TIMES
But bagels are Shih's stock and trade and he bakes seven different varieties - plain, cinnamon raisin, blueberry, sesame and black sesame, cheese, black pepper and green tea (NT$40 each, or buy five get one free) - on the premises for all to see.
He plans to add black olive, onion, sun dried tomato, sunflower seed and whole wheat within the next month or so. Don't expect poppy seed bagels, though, Shih says, as the ingredient is a controlled substance in Taiwan.
As one might expect, Shih's menu is heavy on daytime dining and light in the evening. The all-day breakfast menu features two set meals, each NT$180. Set A features a two-egg omelet, home fried potatoes (though I substituted a delicious marinated eggplant salad), green salad, fruit, bagel and choice of tea, milk or bottomless Davidoff coffee. Set B is the same, but with the option of substituting bacon for the potatoes.
Lunch consists of classic bagel sandwiches and includes smoked salmon and cream cheese (NT$160), roast beef (NT$140), chicken (NT$130) and ham or egg and tomato (NT$120). I opted for the ham sandwich. The potato salad made up most of the center of the sandwich, which, though tasty, wasn't what I was expecting. Some veggies other than lettuce and a zesty compliment like hot mustard could have livened the ensemble up a bit.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby