Taipei residents hankering for traditional Japanese sushi (raw or cooked fish served up on a mound of seasoned rice) have an abundance of restaurants to choose from. Uncommon, however, are fusion-style sushi restaurants popularized in California during the 1970s that build on the traditional formula by adding fruit, fresh vegetables and sauces to the lonely sushi and wrapping the combination in nori, or dried seaweed.
New York Sushi is one of the first genuine sushi restaurants in Taipei that applies the California sushi roll ethos. Jackson Chen (陳柏睿) opened the restaurant in an alley behind Sogo Department store eight months ago. Trained as a sushi chef at a restaurant called Chiu’s Sushi in Baltimore, Chen returned to Taiwan and brought with him a head full of recipes and a mission to provide fusion cuisine at affordable prices. He’s succeeded on both counts.
New York Sushi’s interior is rectangular with tables running along both walls three quarters of the way to the back, where an L-shaped sushi bar with 12 chairs is located.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF NEW YORK SUSHI
I visited on a Tuesday afternoon earlier this week after hearing positive reviews from friends. New York Sushi offers four business lunch specials ranging from NT$119 to NT$189, each served with a garden salad and miso soup. I ordered the sushi roll lunch special (NT$159), which comes with a choice of two rolls from a selection of seven, of which I chose the Alaska salmon and shrimp. The cup of miso soup with seaweed and soft tofu was savory and rich, but the uninspiring iceberg-lettuce salad suffered from a far too generous smothering of dressing. Worse still, it was the Thousand Island variety.
My disappointment, however, was quickly alleviated with the arrival of the eight-piece salmon, which were rolled with avocado and cucumber, and the six-piece shrimp, which came wrapped in thin slices of cooked egg. Both were enclosed in seasoned rice topped with sesame seeds. The sushi was fresh, tasty and, like all of Chen’s creations, arrived beautifully arranged on a thick ceramic dish with a hillock of pickled pink ginger and a generous portion of wasabi.
New York Sushi’s listing of rolls — there are more than 40 varieties — is daunting, and making decisions can be difficult. But Chen can explain the menu to the finest detail in both English and Chinese. As I’d never tasted deep-fried spring rolls (I’m a traditionalist when it comes to sushi), he recommended the creatively titled Godzilla (NT$240). The roll’s mild yellowtail tuna, velvety avocado and zingy sauce came wrapped in rice and encased in tempura batter. The crispy exterior blended nicely with the rice, fish and small dollop of hot sauce.
Also on the menu: udon noodles (NT$120 to NT$150), a six-piece vegetarian combo (NT$240), grilled snacks (NT$120 to NT$160) — all items I will certainly try when I visit and revisit New York Sushi in the future.
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
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