With its extensive menu offering Chaozhou-style cuisine and Cantonese dim sum, Chao Pin Chi (潮品集) at San Want Hotel is a place for serious foodies to enjoy Chinese banquet meals in a sophisticated setting.
Originating in China’s Guangdong Province, Chaozhou cuisine is renowned for its seafood dishes, meticulous preparation and emphasis on flavors that are light and fresh. Under the adept hand of Hong Kong native and head chef He Ping-mu (何炳木), Chao Pin Chi is well known for its line of traditional Chaozhou specialties.
One of Chao Pin Chi’s signature dishes is its marinated goose slices (滷水鵝肉片, NT$420). Unlike Taiwanese marinated dishes, which tend to be strongly flavored, the goose has only a hint of seasoning and comes with a small plate of vinegar to ameliorate the gamey tang.
Seasoned gastronomes come for Chao Pin Chi’s marinated goose feet, wings, liver, gizzard, intestine and congealed blood, which can be selected to make a combination platter.
Preserved Chinese kale, or “cabbage” as it’s called on the restaurant’s menu, is another signature element used to add aroma to various Chaozhou dishes, as in the stir-fried green beans with preserved cabbage and minced pork (欖菜四季豆, NT$420), which on a recent visit were too oily.
Though offensive to marine conservationists and animal rights activists, shark’s fin soup is the restaurant’s most popular specialty and shows just how deep diners’ pockets are. Braised, boiled or stir-fired with shark’s belly, chicken or crab meat, the politically incorrect delicacy can fetch up to NT$2,980 per bowl. Other burn-a-hole-in-your-pocket options include braised abalone and shark’s belly with oyster sauce (花膠鮮禾鮑, NT$1,980 per person) and double-boiled bird’s nest soup with crab meat (蟹肉燉官燕, NT$1,800 per person).
A wide selection of dim sum tidbits can be found on the more wallet-friendly side of the menu. Chaozhou style steamed dumpling (潮州蒸粉粿, NT$98) contains peanuts, minced pork, chives and dried shrimp wrapped in glutinous rice and served with a small plate of chili oil.
Must-tries include the steamed shrimp rice roll (蝦仁蒸粉腸, NT$108) and steamed prawn and spinach dumpling (鮮蝦菠菜餃, NT$108).
Other non-shrimp morsels are equally above par. Among the dozen dim sum dishes my dining partners and I have tried, the only disappointment was the sauteed rice roll with XO chili sauce (XO醬煎腸粉, NT$138), which was filling but boring.
Chao Pin Chi can comfortably accommodate 200 or so diners. Food is served at a surprisingly swift pace, and every few minutes, staff members return to take away empty plates and refill teacups. The only problem with the efficient service is that diners who take longer than five minutes to peruse the menu may feel pressured to order.
The restaurant has lunch sets that cost NT$980 to NT$1,280 per person, while dinner set menus are NT$1,780 to NT$3,980. Premium meals feature fancy dishes such as shark’s fin soup and bird’s nest soup. Chao Pin Chi is also currently offering an all-you-can-eat dim-sum menu with some 40 dishes to choose from (NT$599 for lunch on weekdays, NT$699 for dinner and on weekends). Reservations are required this promotion, which runs through Oct. 31.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In the aftermath of the 2020 general elections the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was demoralized. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had crushed them in a second landslide in a row, with their presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) winning more votes than any in Taiwan’s history. The KMT did pick up three legislative seats, but the DPP retained an outright majority. To take responsibility for that catastrophic loss, as is customary, party chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) resigned. This would mark the end of an era of how the party operated and the beginning of a new effort at reform, first under