Heritage Bakery & Cafe
Address: 73-2 Hankou St Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市漢口街一段73號之2)
Telephone: (02) 2311-1079
Photo: Dana Ter, Taipei Times
Open: Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
Average meal: NT$180 to NT$400
Details: Menu in English and Chinese
Photo: Dana Ter, Taipei Times
On the net: www.facebook.com/heritagetaipei
Located along western Taipei’s historic “camera street,” the five-story building that now houses Heritage Bakery & Cafe once belonged to owner Sally Song’s (宋友齡) grandfather. For decades, the lower two floors were rented out as a camera shop while Song’s family occupied the upper three levels.
The interior is designed by Song herself — a San Francisco native who recently moved to Taipei. There’s nothing cutesy or over-the-top about this bakery which boasts a rustic and spacious NorCal feel. The original red brick walls are left intact and interspersed throughout the cafe are some of the family’s antiques including cabinets, suitcases and old fans.
Photo: Dana Ter, Taipei Times
Patrons order downstairs from a wide range of North American-style pastries such as bacon and mushroom potato pie (NT$180) and blueberry cheese tart (NT$180). Song also likes to use local ingredients, especially fruits, in desserts such as the guava cake (NT$150) and pineapple pie (NT$180). Try the mulled cider (NT$140), which has been a big hit this season.
Mighty Quinn’s Barbeque
Address: 109 Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段109號)
Telephone: (02) 2772-6174
Open: Daily from 11:30am to 11pm
Average meal: NT$300 to NT$1,000
Details: Menu in English and Chinese, credit cards accepted
On the net: www.facebook.com/mightyquinnsbbq.tw
What started as a weekend stall serving good old-fashioned American Southern-style barbecue at Smorgasburg — the outdoor food market by the Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn, New York — soon grew into a thriving business in Manhattan’s East Village, with outposts around the world following suit.
The brisket (NT$360) and pulled pork (NT$320) at the Taipei outpost of Mighty Quinn’s Barbeque does not disappoint, though be warned: this place is not for the faint-hearted. Those with voracious appetites might want to try the brontosaurus rib (NT$1,200).
Choose your meat, sides and drinks — including locally brewed craft beer (NT$200 to NT$280) and a refreshing homemade ice tea (NT$60) — at the counter. All meats come with a bun, coleslaw and pickled vegetables. The meat is cooked Texan-style, charred and almost falling off the bone, which creates a distinct smoky flavor. Each table has a gigantic bottle of barbecue sauce — be sure to add copious amounts to your food.
Yucca Cafe
Address: 16, Aly 4, Ln 251, Zhongxiao E Rd Sec 3, Taipei City ( 台北市忠孝東路三段251巷4弄16號)
Telephone: (02) 2773-3678
Open: Sundays to Thursdays from 10am to 9pm, Fridays and Saturdays from 10am to 10pm
Average meal: NT$400 to NT$1,000
Details: Menu in English and Chinese, cash only, minimum charge is NT$120 per person
On the net: www.facebook.com/yuccataipei
Enjoy the flavors of the Brazilian Amazon at Yucca Cafe, Taipei’s newest health-conscious cafe. Co-owners Fabio Grangeon and Tordan Ferreira met while studying at Ming Chuan University before launching Purple Passion, a freeze-dried powder imported from Brazil. This is used to make their signature drink, the Acai Jar (NT$310), which is topped with acai imported from the Amazon Rainforest.
Though acai is old news in North America, the craze has yet to hit Taiwan, and the menu at Yucca contains a lengthy description of the super fruit, from cultivation methods to the vitamins and antioxidants it contains.
Popular ingredients include chia seeds, homemade pesto, basil, nuts and tons of fruits. The Yucca Toast (NT$380) — a selection of three sweet and savory toasts — is highly recommended. In keeping with their holistic menu, ambiance is meditative, with plants in burlap sacks and ceiling lights and mirror frames carved from driftwood found on the beaches of Yilan by Grangeon himself.
Scott Saulters wasn’t sure if his film had just taken one of the two top prizes at a recent film competition. Although Saulters has been in Taiwan for 15 years and is proficient in Mandarin, the award ceremony for the inaugural “Bi Tian Iann” (眯電影) short film contest was conducted entirely in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), a language he can’t speak. “I thought I heard it, but I didn’t want to look too excited,” he says. Despite his limited command of the tongue, Saulter’s entry, Wu Yu Tzu (烏魚子, mullet roe), took first place in the amateur category of the
Since its launch in 2014, the Taiwan Season has increasingly become a “must-see” at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. So, when this year’s three-week Fringe became an early casualty of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, Chen Pin-chuan (陳斌全) was determined that the Taiwan Season must continue in some form. Chen, director of the Cultural Division of the Taipei Representative Office in the UK, says that he and Taiwan Season curator and producer Yeh Jih-wen (葉紀紋) had been thinking of ways of growing and adding value to the season anyway. The crisis and the cancellation of the live performances brought those ideas forward as
The Taiwan of yesteryear was dominated in whole or in part by the Dutch, Spanish, Qing Empire and Japanese. But is the Taiwanese name for a popular edible fish derived from the Portuguese language? Cheng Wei-chung (鄭維中), an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Taiwan History, says yes. The fish in question is the narrow-barred Spanish mackerel, which was listed in early 18th century Qing local gazetteers as Taiwanese specialities alongside milk fish and mullet, according to Cheng’s paper, “Mullet, narrow-barred Spanish mackerel and milkfish: Multiple contextual developments of three certified seafood specilaities in Taiwan, from the
I didn’t expect to spend more than three minutes out of my car, yet the sun was so brutal I put on my hat before approaching the seawall. Beimen (北門) is the flattest and most sun-baked part of Tainan. It lacks trees and people. In wintertime, the weather is often delightful. It wasn’t yet mid-morning in the hot season, however, and I felt like a leaf shriveling in the desert. Atop the seawall but facing inland, I could see dozens of the rectangular ponds which account for a significant percentage of Beimen’s “land” area. Some, no doubt, were dug to produce
RSS