With a celebrity owner (singer and TV host Pauline Lan, 藍心湄) and a prime location in Taipei’s East District (東區), Kiki Restaurant is one of the best-known spots for Sichuan cooking in Taipei. Reservations are a must: On a Friday visit, one of our six-member party was reduced to sitting on a stool when the restaurant ran out of chairs even though we had called ahead for a table. The waiting time last Sunday night for walk-ins was an hour.
The long lines, slightly snooty service (we were curtly informed on the phone that reservations are held for only 10 minutes) and less-than-comfy seating (chairs are made of the same hard plastic as the stools) are made up for by the sheer deliciousness of the food. Kiki rates the spiciness of its dishes from one to four stars, with the latter being for diners with iron tongues. On our first visit, we seared our taste buds with the Sichuan-style spicy braised bean curd (麻婆豆腐, NT$200) and stir-fried minced pork with Chinese chives and fermented black beans (蒼蠅頭, NT$220) — and those two dishes rated only three stars. Slightly gentler courses include the very good four seasons beans with minced pork and Chinese spices (干扁四季豆, NT$210) and “the pan fried eggs until they are golden brown and then stir-fried with ground chili peppers” (回鍋蛋, NT$180). The menu’s detailed description of the latter dish doesn’t capture its sheer awesomeness. Hard-boiled eggs are sliced and then stir-fried with a variety of tasty spices and minced chili peppers. The resulting combination of flavors and textures — the sharp and savory spices against the firm egg white and soft yolk — will make your tongue happy, even if it is still recovering from the mapo tofu. The Sichuan-style stir-fried chicken with chili peppers (宮保雞丁, NT$280) was also very good, if a tad salty, with large chunks of meat mixed with peanuts and slices of chili peppers.
On a second visit, my companion and I ordered braised oysters with fermented black beans (豆豉青蚵, NT$290). The fermented beans added just the right amount of kick and contrast to the plump and juicy shellfish. Throwing caution to the wind, we taunted our arteries with salted grilled pork slices (鹽豬肉, NT$270), which probably consisted of the fattest cuts the butcher could find on the pig. As a counterpoint to the strong flavors of the braised oysters and pork, we selected the very mild braised silk melon with clams (絲瓜炒蛤蜊, NT$270). Each slice of melon was indeed silky and smooth and the clams were fat, but a little tough. Salty dried shrimp kept the dish from becoming bland.
Tables for two are available, but you’ll get the most out of Kiki if you go in a larger group. For one thing, the portions are somewhat skimpy, and expensive. Drinks include Kiki’s special plum juice (鳥梅汁, NT$140 per carton or NT$45 per glass), which is supposed to help soothe chili-addled mouths. Red and white wines are available by the bottle (NT$1,000); the former is pleasantly dry but not particularly memorable. A small selection of cocktails, Taiwan beer, and teas are also available; the most incongruous option on the beverage menu is probably
the iced Oreo smoothie (Oreo
冰沙, NT$200).
Go to www.kiki1991.com for information on other Kiki franchises.
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,
Not long into Mistress Dispeller, a quietly jaw-dropping new documentary from director Elizabeth Lo, the film’s eponymous character lays out her thesis for ridding marriages of troublesome extra lovers. “When someone becomes a mistress,” she says, “it’s because they feel they don’t deserve complete love. She’s the one who needs our help the most.” Wang Zhenxi, a mistress dispeller based in north-central China’s Henan province, is one of a growing number of self-styled professionals who earn a living by intervening in people’s marriages — to “dispel” them of intruders. “I was looking for a love story set in China,” says Lo,
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
RSS