This is the third week in a row that pies have featured in the Taipei Times’ restaurant review section. Too much of a good thing? Given that prior to March there was a dearth of decent, tasty handmade Western-style pies sold at reasonable prices, perhaps not.
The latest offering is Pie Boy, tucked in an alley off Zhongxiao East Road. The small restaurant is an intimate affair, with Venetian red walls, black wood paneling, two four-seater tables and one two-seater table inside, and a two-seat table on the narrow deck outside. Paper cutouts of two tiki, Maori symbols, and a New Zealand fern leaf adorn the back wall.
David Bernhartt, who was born in the UK but grew up in New Zealand, opened Pie Boy on March 15 as an alternative to the ubiquitous burgers and pasta served in typical ersatz Western joints. The menu is reassuringly simple: steak and cheese (NT$95), chicken and vegetable (NT$90), mince beef (NT$90), vegetarian (mushroom, broccoli and cheese, NT$90) and breakfast pie (NT$90).
PHOTO: STEVE PRICE, TAIPEI TIMES
The pies’ bases and sides are made of shortcrust pastry and flaky pastry is used for the tops, which provides a subtle combination of textures. Combos are available. But be warned: the steak and cheese pie and wedges (NT$135), which are hand cut and sprinkled with a piquant seasoning and served with either aioli or salsa, is a belly-busting meal deal.
Although a far cry from the purist’s version, Pie Boy’s Caesar salad (NT$100), which uses iceberg lettuce, three slices of boiled egg, green olives, cherry tomatoes, onion, croutons, green pepper, cucumber and grated Parmesan, is a meal in itself and can be ordered with a pie in a combo deal (add NT$70 to the pie’s price for a salad and drink). Compared to Subway’s vegetable salad, which costs NT$95 plus NT$10 for dressing, Pie Boy’s salad comes out on top for value and taste, especially as the fast-food chain recently reduced the amount of processed cheese slices it uses.
The breakfast pie, essentially an omelet in a pastry shell, is a drier alternative to the gravy-filled versions and is, therefore, easier to cut into segments and transport. The vegetables used in the filling — green pepper, onion and tomato — are crunchy and contrast nicely with the velvety texture of the cooked egg.
To get there from the junction of Zhongxiao East and Fuxing South roads, walk westward along the north side of Zhongxiao East Road and turn right at the first traffic lights. Pie Boy is two blocks up the alley on the right. —STEVE PRICE
A recent report from the Environmental Management Administration of the Ministry of Environment highlights a perennial problem: illegal dumping of construction waste. In Taoyuan’s Yangmei District (楊梅) and Hsinchu’s Longtan District (龍潭) criminals leased 10,000 square meters of farmland, saying they were going to engage in horticulture. They then accepted between 40,000 and 50,000 cubic meters of construction waste from sites in northern Taiwan, charging less than the going rate for disposal, and dumped the waste concrete, tile, metal and glass onto the leased land. Taoyuan District prosecutors charged 33 individuals from seven companies with numerous violations of the law. This
As mega K-pop group BTS returns to the stage after a hiatus of more than three years, one major market is conspicuously missing from its 12-month world tour: China. The omission of one of the group’s biggest fan bases comes as no surprise. In fact, just the opposite would have been huge news. China has blocked most South Korean entertainment since 2016 under an unofficial ban that also restricts movies and the country’s popular TV dramas. For some Chinese, that means flying to Seoul to see their favorite groups perform — as many were expected to do for three shows opening
What is the importance within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of the meeting between Xi Jinping (習近平), the leader Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), the leader of the KMT? Local media is an excellent guide to determine how important — or unimportant — a news event is to the public. Taiwan has a vast online media ecosystem, and if a news item is gaining traction among readers, editors shift resources in near real time to boost coverage to meet the demand and drive up traffic. Cheng’s China trip is among the top headlines, but by no means
Apr. 13 to Apr. 19 From 17th-century royalty and Presbyterian missionaries to White Terror victims, cultural figures and industrialists, Nanshan Public Cemetery (南山公墓) sprawls across 95 hectares, guarding four centuries of Taiwan’s history. Current estimates show more than 60,000 graves, the earliest dating to 1642. Besides individual tombs, there are also hundreds of family plots, one of which is said to contain around 1,000 remains. As the cemetery occupies valuable land in the heart of Tainan, the government in 2018 began asking families to relocate the graves to make way for development. That
RSS