As one of the few places that serve fresh imported oysters in Taipei, Oyster Bar (tel: (02) 8729-2731) in the food court of Bellavita has proven popular among the capital’s food bloggers. Google the bar and you’ll find pages of reviews, coupled with lovingly snapped photos. It’s no wonder: Oyster Bar’s offerings (which also include smoked salmon and caviar) are beautifully plated. The prices also add extra incentive to make your culinary memory last. Oysters (most flown in from France) range from NT$180 to NT$400 each.
Considering the individual bivalves’ cost, Oyster Bar’s signature deluxe seafood platter seems like a value buy in comparison. NT$3,680 gets you a lovingly arranged pile of freshly steamed Boston lobster, prawns, whelks, scallops, clams, cuttlefish and two each of three oyster varieties. All of the latter had robust and complex flavors; European flat oysters (called Belon oysters on the menu), the briniest, also left a slight metallic aftertaste. The freshly steamed lobster was also excellent, but my companion and I began to feel overwhelmed by the time we’d worked our way through the rest of the platter, which can easily serve three people. Oyster Bar’s drink menu is limited, but you can order a glass or bottle from the neighboring A3 wine store.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
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In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and