Tidbits has some good news for Mexican food fans and bad news for burger lovers.
The bad news first: The Burger Stop, located at 26, Ln 137, Yanji St, Taipei City (台北市延吉街137巷26號), is closing. The restaurant, which serves ’50s-style hamburgers and milkshakes, is the closest thing that Taipei has to the popular American burger chain In-N-Out. The restaurant’s final day of business is Sunday.
Now for the good news: Burrito and taco lovers in Taipei have a new place to go. Macho Tacos, a favorite among expats for Baja-style Mexican (or “fresh Mex”), opened a new branch in the Shida (師大) neighborhood several weeks ago. The restaurant has added chimichangas to the menu, which can be ordered stuffed with beef steak for NT$165, chicken for NT$195, pork for NT$175 or tofu for NT$170. The new location is at 15 Pucheng Street (浦城街15號), tel. (02)2731-4489.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
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The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50