When you've had enough of soy milk or cereal breakfasts and want something warm and substantial to set you up for the day, a visit to the Pot Pie Cafe, a sympathetic little joint that opened two months ago near the Technology Building metro station is just the ticket.
The restaurant boasts a "British" menu of potpies, fish and chips and a "full British breakfast."
The "full British breakfast" includes two eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, sauteed mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, fried sliced bread and coffee or tea (NT$380). If all that is a bit too much, almost any variation of this selection is available, and regular toast can be substituted for those who fear the artery-clogging fried slice.
PHOTO COURTESY OF POT PIE CAFE
"We are a small restaurant, and are very flexible in meeting our customers' needs," said Simon Lin (林清華), the owner.
The breakfast is available all day, but the real highlight for this reviewer was the variety of potpies, after which the establishment is named. The shepherd's pie (NT$180) is made of finely chopped lamb topped with feathery light mashed potato. Served with a lightly dressed salad, it's considerably better than anything you could get in Britain for anything near the same price. The use of chopped lamb rather than mince, along with the rich herbal seasonings, made the simple dish stand out.
"We made a few modifications of our own," said Maggie Liu (廖憶嘉), the culinary consultant behind the menu who owns Le Bistro de l'Olivier on Anhe Road. Her touch may account for the hint of Continental elegance in the British staples. The chicken and mushroom potpie (NT$150) is lightly flavored, but also delicious. Eaten in the restaurant, the pies are served in ramekins, but are also available for take-out in a light, flaky suet pastry shell (NT$120 for shepherd's pie; NT$100 for chicken and mushroom).
The fish and chips err on the side of sophistication. The fillets are more tender and the batter lighter than you'd get from many a greasy spoon back in Blighty. The potato wedges served with malt vinegar show that Pot Pie Cafe understands its spuds.
To finish off, the homemade apple and walnut crumble (NT$150) is lovingly put together and served piping hot.
The general feel of the food and the place is homey, the flavors fresh, the atmosphere relaxed. Whether you're going for a meal with friends or just a coffee and crumble with a good book, Pot Pie Cafe is an excellent option.
In the next few months tough decisions will need to be made by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and their pan-blue allies in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). It will reveal just how real their alliance is with actual power at stake. Party founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) faced these tough questions, which we explored in part one of this series, “Ko Wen-je, the KMT’s prickly ally,” (Aug. 16, page 12). Ko was open to cooperation, but on his terms. He openly fretted about being “swallowed up” by the KMT, and was keenly aware of the experience of the People’s First Party
Aug. 25 to Aug. 31 Although Mr. Lin (林) had been married to his Japanese wife for a decade, their union was never legally recognized — and even their daughter was officially deemed illegitimate. During the first half of Japanese rule in Taiwan, only marriages between Japanese men and Taiwanese women were valid, unless the Taiwanese husband formally joined a Japanese household. In 1920, Lin took his frustrations directly to the Ministry of Home Affairs: “Since Japan took possession of Taiwan, we have obeyed the government’s directives and committed ourselves to breaking old Qing-era customs. Yet ... our marriages remain unrecognized,
During the Metal Ages, prior to the arrival of the Dutch and Chinese, a great shift took place in indigenous material culture. Glass and agate beads, introduced after 400BC, completely replaced Taiwanese nephrite (jade) as the ornamental materials of choice, anthropologist Liu Jiun-Yu (劉俊昱) of the University of Washington wrote in a 2023 article. He added of the island’s modern indigenous peoples: “They are the descendants of prehistoric Formosans but have no nephrite-using cultures.” Moderns squint at that dynamic era of trade and cultural change through the mutually supporting lenses of later settler-colonialism and imperial power, which treated the indigenous as
Standing on top of a small mountain, Kim Seung-ho gazes out over an expanse of paddy fields glowing in their autumn gold, the ripening grains swaying gently in the wind. In the distance, North Korea stretches beyond the horizon. “It’s so peaceful,” says the director of the DMZ Ecology Research Institute. “Over there, it used to be an artillery range, but since they stopped firing, the nature has become so beautiful.” The land before him is the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, a strip of land that runs across the Korean peninsula, dividing North and South Korea roughly along the 38th parallel north. This
RSS