Simplicity comes first at Faust Pizza Lounge (明月光). Opened last month on Renai Road (仁愛路), across from Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (國父紀念館), the pizzeria sells only two things: pizza and beer. The restaurant’s laid-back, charming ambiance and its reasonable prices stand in stark contrast to its competition in the upscale Xinyi neighborhood, where ritzy shopping complexes loom nearby.
Between an indoor dining area and outdoor seating lies an open kitchen where the chef tosses circles of dough up in the air and into the large brick oven, allowing the aroma of baking pies to emanate throughout the establishment.
The interior design is casual and minimalist. Who needs fancy cutlery and hip design with unpretentious, hearty fare that’s this good?
At Faust Pizza Lounge, meals come in the form of nine types of thin-crust, 12 inch pizzas and four flavors of German brew Faust.
My dining group has already visited the establishment a few times and tried almost every available option on the menu.
“Light” and “grease-free” are the words that pop up in conversations about the restaurant’s pizza. Those hoping for a heart-attack inducing
grease-pit of a pizza may be disappointed.
But fans of stone-oven baked pizza will be pleased to know that the thin crust of the pizza is always done just right — satisfyingly crispy on the sides and slightly charred on the bottom.
Diners looking for something more savory can try the Roma (salami, onion, mushroom and olives, NT$220) or the Frankfurter Sausage (sausage, bacon and basil, NT$220). Pizza staples such as the Margarita (NT$180) and Hawaiian (NT$220) are popular items
as well, while vegetarian
options include the Funghi
(king oyster mushrooms, tomato, Italian capers and chilies, NT$260) and the Veggie (tomato, mushroom, olives and green pepper, NT$220).
The three fresh-out-of-college proprietors act as the restaurant’s chefs and handle their business with aplomb.
Any review of Faust Pizza Lounge would be remiss not to mention the public relation work carried out by the owners’ five-year-old poodle, impeccably groomed and well-mannered, who never fails to elicit remarks of admiration from patrons.
Faust offers takeaway but no delivery service. Make sure to give the chef plenty of time to make your pies since the pizzeria is usually packed on both weekends and weekday evenings.
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,
It was on his honeymoon in Kuala Lumpur, looking out of his hotel window at the silvery points of the world’s tallest twin skyscrapers, that Frank decided it was time to become taller. He had recently confessed to his new wife how much his height had bothered him since he was a teenager. As a man dedicated to self-improvement, Frank wanted to take action. He picked up the phone, called a clinic in Turkey that specializes in leg lengthening surgery — and made a booking. “I had a lot of second thoughts — at the end of the day, someone’s going
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
Standing on top of a small mountain, Kim Seung-ho gazes out over an expanse of paddy fields glowing in their autumn gold, the ripening grains swaying gently in the wind. In the distance, North Korea stretches beyond the horizon. “It’s so peaceful,” says the director of the DMZ Ecology Research Institute. “Over there, it used to be an artillery range, but since they stopped firing, the nature has become so beautiful.” The land before him is the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, a strip of land that runs across the Korean peninsula, dividing North and South Korea roughly along the 38th parallel north. This