Established in 2013, Yang Shin Vegetarian Restaurant is the first vegetarian dim sum restaurant in Taipei. The name Yang Shin means “cultivating one’s heart.” With head chef Chan Sheng-lin’s (詹昇霖) excellent cooking skills and non-stop creativity, it has quickly gained popularity and was lauded last year as one of the top 10 vegetarian restaurants in Taiwan by DailyView Online Thermometer (網路溫度計), a “big data” research group.
Located next to Songjiang Nanjing MRT Station (松江南京站), Exit 8, the restaurant is on the second floor above Nozomi Bakery, which is also operated by the Yang Shin Group. Since business is always good, reservations are recommended. The overall environment is clean and cozy, and the waitstaff are polite and efficient. There is an exquisite semi-open kitchen decorated with cultured stone on one side of the hall, where chefs prepare dim sum behind a glass window.
For appetizers, the popular pine nuts and vegetable cheese rolls (松子起司鮮蔬卷, NT$180) are a pleasant surprise, featuring shredded cabbage and chopped blueberries wrapped in dried laver and egg rolls garnished with perilla leaves. The pine nuts and sauce consisting of cheese, mayonnaise and quat jam are an ideal accompaniment to the veggie rolls. The mixed salad of areca flowers and bell peppers (五彩涼拌檳榔花, NT$180) is light and fresh. The flowers’ texture is similar to that of bamboo shoots, and they are mixed harmoniously with the colorful sweet peppers and sesame.
Photo: Eddy Chang, Taipei Times
Yang Shin takes pride in its creative and mouthwatering dim sum, offering over 30 varieties priced between NT$68 and NT$128. And if customers use Facebook to “check in” to the restaurant, they can receive an order of “deep-fried spring rolls” (蟲草香芹炸春卷, NT$128) for free.
The crispy deep-fried pastries with shredded turnip (蘿蔔絲酥餅, NT$108) came to our table already sliced in half — somewhat of a disappointment for those of us who prefer the robust taste of the turnip juice inside the pastries and not on the plate. Still, they were tasty.
All the dim sum that we tried tasted as good as it looked. We had baked cheese cabbage (芝士焗白菜, NT$128), Cantonese BBQ veggie ham pastries (鬆化叉燒酥, NT$108), deep-fried wontons with basil and vegetables (塔香金雲吞, NT$108), steamed rice noodle rolls with loofah and lily bulbs (絲瓜百合腸, NT$98), pan-fried turnip cakes (香煎蘿蔔糕, NT$68) and deep-fried spiral buns (炸螺絲卷, NT$68).
Photo: Eddy Chang, Taipei Times
Instead of using pork, the 48-layer BBQ pastries are stuffed with veggie ham, tomato and minced mushroom in a sweet and savory vegetarian oyster sauce. The spiral buns, which are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, go well with the sweetened condensed milk dip. The buns were so delicious that we ordered them twice.
The restaurant also has an extensive menu offering over 80 meatless dishes, such as the popular stir-fried crispy mushrooms and green beans (柳松乾煸四季豆, NT$280) and sauteed edible burdock root on rice (養心牛蒡飯, NT$30). And finally, Chinese herbal hot pot (養身藥膳鍋, NT$380) is a perfect ending for this vegetarian adventure. The pot is filled with tofu, vegetables and mushrooms. Cooked with ginseng, angelica, Chinese red dates and wolfberries, the soup does not have too strong a Chinese herbal flavor and is healthy. Refills are unlimited.
The restaurant offers combo sets priced between NT$8,800 and NT$12,800 for 10 guests. But for afternoon tea, only dim sum items are available. Each guest also needs to pay NT$40 for tea. The big dinner of five people cost NT$2,204. Overall, Yang Shin was an exciting veggie experience. So if you like sophisticated vegetarian cuisine, this is the right place to go.
Photo: Eddy Chang, Taipei Times
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless