Located across from Breeze Center (微風廣場), the interior of Home’s Thai (香米泰國料理) is as trendy as you’d expect from a popular restaurant in this neighborhood. It’s dimly lit and appointed with sleek tables and chairs. A glimmering ceiling-to-floor crystal curtain sets off the staircase to the restaurant’s second floor.
But despite its coolly modern interior, Home’s offers comfortingly familiar and piquant Thai classics.
The restaurant’s menu is extensive — almost overwhelmingly so. Appetizers are divided into two sections, one that features exclusively fried items like shrimp cakes and battered and deep-fried frogs legs. For a healthier option, try the Thai-style raw shrimp (NT$350). The dish is a Thai restaurant staple, but the version at Home’s Thai is notable for the freshness of its firm, plump shrimp, which are butterflied and covered in a big heap of diced garlic and chili peppers.
As with any menu the size of Home’s, there are bound to be a few lackluster dishes. The Thai tapo (NT$280) is ground chicken, beef or pork (we chose pork) stir-fried with chili peppers and sauce. The dish is served with lettuce leaves for wrapping, but the oil made it somewhat difficult to get the meat successfully inside. The Thai spicy fried crab with lemon grass had a good balance of flavors, but like the Thai tapo was also distractingly greasy. At NT$680, it was also one of the most expensive items on the menu.
Home’s Thai’s version of another classic, chicken satay (NT$280), is much better, with big, juicy pieces of meat on skewers and two delicious dipping sauces, a thick peanut butter sauce and a lighter sweet-and-sour option. For something more unusual, order the Thai-style grilled lamb chop with spicy sauce (NT$460), which is cooked just as skillfully as the chicken satay and more robust in taste.
Two seafood dishes, the spicy fried seafood (NT$300) and Thai sauce squid blend (NT$300), are both excellent, flavored with just enough chili and garlic. The spicy fried seafood, which is actually stir-fried, is especially good, with plump mussels, shrimp, squid and crab leg meat. The squid blend is served cold as a salad and topped with thin stalks of crunchy celery that complement the firm but tender slices of seafood.
We lay transfixed under our blankets as the silhouettes of manta rays temporarily eclipsed the moon above us, and flickers of shadow at our feet revealed smaller fish darting in and out of the shelter of the sunken ship. Unwilling to close our eyes against this magnificent spectacle, we continued to watch, oohing and aahing, until the darkness and the exhaustion of the day’s events finally caught up with us and we fell into a deep slumber. Falling asleep under 1.5 million gallons of seawater in relative comfort was undoubtedly the highlight of the weekend, but the rest of the tour
Youngdoung Tenzin is living history of modern Tibet. The Chinese government on Dec. 22 last year sanctioned him along with 19 other Canadians who were associated with the Canada Tibet Committee and the Uighur Rights Advocacy Project. A former political chair of the Canadian Tibetan Association of Ontario and community outreach manager for the Canada Tibet Committee, he is now a lecturer and researcher in Environmental Chemistry at the University of Toronto. “I was born into a nomadic Tibetan family in Tibet,” he says. “I came to India in 1999, when I was 11. I even met [His Holiness] the 14th the Dalai
Following the rollercoaster ride of 2025, next year is already shaping up to be dramatic. The ongoing constitutional crises and the nine-in-one local elections are already dominating the landscape. The constitutional crises are the ones to lose sleep over. Though much business is still being conducted, crucial items such as next year’s budget, civil servant pensions and the proposed eight-year NT$1.25 trillion (approx US$40 billion) special defense budget are still being contested. There are, however, two glimmers of hope. One is that the legally contested move by five of the eight grand justices on the Constitutional Court’s ad hoc move
Stepping off the busy through-road at Yongan Market Station, lights flashing, horns honking, I turn down a small side street and into the warm embrace of my favorite hole-in-the-wall gem, the Hoi An Banh Mi shop (越南會安麵包), red flags and yellow lanterns waving outside. “Little sister, we were wondering where you’ve been, we haven’t seen you in ages!” the owners call out with a smile. It’s been seven days. The restaurant is run by Huang Jin-chuan (黃錦泉), who is married to a local, and her little sister Eva, who helps out on weekends, having also moved to New Taipei
RSS