Many places serve low-priced northern Chinese cuisine in Taipei, but Yuji Noodle House (餘記麵館) stands out. It hits that simple but elusive combination of good food, pleasant atmosphere and reasonable prices. At its old location on Siwei Road (四維路), Yuji ruled the roost — it was packed at both lunch and dinner nearly every day and had a comfortable outdoor seating area. Not quite the outdoor cafe in Melbourne, but it was a step up from the standard noodle shop.
Yuji moved down the street a few years ago so the outdoor area is gone, but fortunately the other changes are for the better. The new interior skips the old shop’s brick theme and goes with a modern, minimalist decor. Floor tiles are large squares in a dark-stone color, and small Chinese paper-cut pictures hang in black frames around the room. The tables and stools appear to be solid wood; in any case, they’re comfortable, so diners can concentrate on the food.
At many noodle and dumpling shops, cold dish appetizers (小菜) are an afterthought. Here they’re a must. The stuffed green peppers (青椒釀肉, NT$90), a Zhejiang (浙江) style dish, are roasted green chili peppers filled with pork. The peppers are hollowed out, which takes the edge off the spiciness. Other notable appetizers: deep-fried tofu skin wraps (腐皮捲, NT$40) and snow vegetable stir-fry with bean curd skin (雪菜百頁, NT$40). Menu choices accommodate both individuals and groups. One of my favorites is the fried-sauce noodles (炸醬麵, NT$60), dry noodles with sliced cucumber and bean sprouts topped with a sauce made of minced meat and dougan (豆乾). I was underwhelmed by the beef noodles (牛肉麵, NT$120): the broth is on the sweeter side and a little spicier than average. If you want spicy-hot, have the dan-dan noodles (擔擔麵, NT$60), thin noodles doused in chili and peanut sauce.
PHOTO: DAVID CHEN, TAIPEI TIMES
For dumplings, Yuji has the whole range: boiled, steamed, and fried. You can’t go wrong with any of them, but the beef pot stickers (牛肉鍋貼, NT$80) are definitely worth trying. They’re not too greasy, and the minced beef filling is not too chewy. The humble scallion pancakes (蔥油餅,NT$30) are fluffy and properly charred. Try them with the millet congee (小米粥 , NT$25) for a light meal.
To get to Yuji, walk on the left side of Dunhua South Road (敦化南路) from Heping East Road (和平東路). Turn at the second alley on your left, where you’ll see a small park, and then walk a half block. Yuji is on the left.
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
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
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would