Mala Yuanyang Hot Pot (馬辣鴛鴦火鍋)
Address: 86, Dingzhou Rd Sec 3, Taipei (台北市汀州路三段86號)
Telephone: (02) 2365-7625
PHOTO: HO YI,TAIPEI TIMES
Open: Daily from 11:30am to 5am
Average meal: NT$359 from 11:30am to 4pm; NT$399 on holidays and weekdays from 4pm to 5am, plus 10 percent service charge
Details: Menu in Chinese; credit cards not accepted
On the Net: www.mala-1.com.tw
The frequent long lines outside of Mala Yuanyang (馬辣鴛鴦火鍋) first aroused my curiosity. Several failed attempts at getting a reservation prompted me to call on a Monday when business is supposed to be slowest.
"We won't have a vacancy till 9:30pm. Is that alright?" the woman on the other end of the phone asked, with an air of efficient dependability. It was.
Unfortunately, that dependable air was just that, an air. After arriving on time, we were told we weren't on the waiting list. "Don't worry, we'll have a table for you in a minute," the server at the counter said.
After being shown to our seats, the annoyance was quickly forgotten. Like many upscale places serving spicy hot pot (麻辣火鍋) in Taipei's East District (東區), Mala Yuanyang has a relaxing, lounge-bar vibe.
The restaurant has only two rules: There is a two-hour time limit and the meat, which is unlimited, must be ordered.
All food except the meat - including Black Angus beef, mutton, chicken and sirloin steak - is located at the all-you-can-eat section.
Mala Yuanyang serves its hot pot in a pan divided in two. There are four kinds of broth to choose from: spicy, which boasts 38 Chinese medicinal herbs, vegetable, pickled cabbage and another made of fish skin, tendons, sea cucumbers and kelp.
The spicy half won praise for its flavorful, but not painful, kick. The meat was fresher and of much higher quality than usually served at other restaurants in the same price range.
The buffet section stands out for both quantity and quality of the food. The spread includes the basics plus less traditional selections like frog legs, lotus root, shark skin, marinated chicken hearts and claws, scallops, shrimps, crabs, clams and sailfish.
Organic sweet potatoes can be heated on the pot handles for a healthy desert, but we couldn't resist the Haagen-Dazs ice cream, of which the restaurant serves eight flavors.
The servers are in general attentive. Special care is taken to cover bags and jackets with black bags so the hot pot odor doesn't sully them.
Late last month Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Theresa Lazaro told the Philippine Senate that the nation has sufficient funds to evacuate the nearly 170,000 Filipino residents in Taiwan, 84 percent of whom are migrant workers, in the event of war. Agencies have been exploring evacuation scenarios since early this year, she said. She also observed that since the Philippines has only limited ships, the government is consulting security agencies for alternatives. Filipinos are a distant third in overall migrant worker population. Indonesia has over 248,000 workers, followed by roughly 240,000 Vietnamese. It should be noted that there are another 170,000
Enter the Dragon 13 will bring Taiwan’s first taste of Dirty Boxing Sunday at Taipei Gymnasium, one highlight of a mixed-rules card blending new formats with traditional MMA. The undercard starts at 10:30am, with the main card beginning at 4pm. Tickets are NT$1,200. Dirty Boxing is a US-born ruleset popularized by fighters Mike Perry and Jon Jones as an alternative to boxing. The format has gained traction overseas, with its inaugural championship streamed free to millions on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Taiwan’s version allows punches and elbows with clinch striking, but bans kicks, knees and takedowns. The rules are stricter than the
“Far from being a rock or island … it turns out that the best metaphor to describe the human body is ‘sponge.’ We’re permeable,” write Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie in their book Slow Death By Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things. While the permeability of our cells is key to being alive, it also means we absorb more potentially harmful substances than we realize. Studies have found a number of chemical residues in human breast milk, urine and water systems. Many of them are endocrine disruptors, which can interfere with the body’s natural hormones. “They can mimic, block
Pratas Island, or Dongsha (東沙群島) had lain off the southern coast of China for thousands of years with no one claiming it until 1908, when a Japanese merchant set up a facility there to harvest guano. The Americans, then overlords of the Philippines, disturbed to learn of Japanese expansion so close to their colony, alerted the Manchu (Qing) government. That same year the British government asked the Manchus who owned the island, which prompted the Manchu government to make a claim, according to South China Sea expert Bill Hayton. In 1909 the government of Guangdong finally got around to sending
RSS