Indian cuisine has struggled to find its place in Taiwan’s international food scene. Not rare enough to be cast among the “exotic” types that have but a handful of representative restaurants in Taipei (think Peruvian, Russian or even Turkish), nor popular enough to join the mainstream giants (Italian, Thai, Korean), it occupies a culinary no man’s land where most restaurants stick to the predictable Taj Mahal formula to get noticed.
My passion for the condiments of the subcontinent began back in college, cooking with my Indian roommate. Years spent bonding over the rituals of onion chopping and roti tossing, we not only forged a lasting friendship, but also fine-honed a string of curries that have been the talk of countless dinner parties I’ve hosted since. I’m the kind of person who has a list of favorite Indian restaurants, and I’m always looking to add to it.
And so it was with high hopes that my wife and I came to Saathiya (莎堤亞), located on a second floor on Xinyi Road (信義路), just above Dongmen MRT Station (東門). You’d miss it if it weren’t for the orange, green and white menu stand at the bottom of the stairwell. Nothing, (except perhaps the Taj Mahal), says Indian restaurant quite like the country’s trademark tricolor.
.jpg)
Photo: Liam Gibson
We sit by a large window at the far end of the space which overlooks Xinyi Road. Its low-key for a Saturday night. The place is almost empty except for a couple of tables. The walls of the place are lined with abstract paintings of a remarkably consistent style, courtesy of the owner’s friend and long-term Taiwan resident, artist Sagar Telekar. The paintings are aesthetically pleasing, but stand in jarring contrast next to the flat-screen monitor playing an MTV-like stream of Bollywood dance scenes. The seats are Ikea-chic: simple, black and covered with a nice padding that upon second squeeze feels like one of those thick, cushy mouse pads that gamers use.
We are served by a young Mongolian waiter/waitress duo. Neither can speak Chinese, (nor Hindi for that matter), “Only English,” they say. My wife lets me order.
Flavoring a curry’s gravy with methi (fenugreek seed powder) takes experience. Believed to have special medicinal properties, it’s something of an acquired taste, even in India. I’ve ruined plenty of curries crossing the threshold where stimulating acidic bite becomes bittery awfulness. Saathiya’s methi malai paneer (NT$350) past the test. The methi flavor is subtle, but noticeable, just as it should be.
Photo: Liam Gibson
A plain lassi (NT$100) is a must if you’re sampling multiple curries in one sitting. Its tangy/salty sharpness helps bring your palate back to ground zero in a quick neutralizing gulp. This one delivered the palate-purging hit and a satisfying mouthful of yoghurt-milky frothy goodness.
The aloo paratha (NT$125) was a major disappointment. Undercooked, damp, oily and served on ugly pieces of paper towel.
One critical test for any restaurant, but especially so for Indian ones, is whether or not they can tailor the spice level to your specifications. Saathiya needs to work on this. I asked for the Hyderabadi special chicken curry (NT$380) to be very spicy and it was medium, at best. If they can’t get it right using their preferred English, I can’t imagine how they’d fare in Mandarin.
Photo: Liam Gibson
The spinach-based gravy of the palak paneer (NT$320) was smooth, thick and just a little pulpy. Unfortunately, that was all this dish got right. The paneer was sliced into cubic pieces, chewy but bland. Lightly frying paneer with jeera (cumin seeds) really transforms its flavor. But it seems they’d rather skimp on the seeds here, and so its aromatic potential was left unrealized. Inch-sized onion slices were an unpleasant surprise. This faux pas would have been permissible if it were accompanied by other veggies such as bell peppers, (as is usual in dishes like paneer tikka masala), but as it was the only vegetable in the gravy, it was hard to overlook.
For desert, we ordered rasgulla (NT$90) as gulab jamun wasn’t available. Two white balls come soaked in a little pool of syrup. To really relish the heady-sensation it offers, rasgulla, like gulab jamun, should be taken in one bite. One bite of heavenly bliss. The ball’s sponginess resists the weight of your jaws as they slowly clamp down, letting the syrup slowly ooze and flow out over your teeth and tongue. The sponge becomes firmer as you push into the core before finally splitting and filling your cavity with a sugary mouthful of sinful proportions.
I wish the rest of the meal had delivered similar levels of sensory satisfaction, but all in all, it was hit and miss. At just over a year old, Saathiya is a new arrival on Taipei’s indistinct Indian scene, and like a toddler, still trying to find its feet. Above the MRT, it’s very accessible and a stroll around the pretty backstreets of Dongmen is nice after dinner. Yet I wouldn’t go out of my way to come back to Saathiya.
Photo: Liam Gibson
Photo: Liam Gibson
The depressing numbers continue to pile up, like casualty lists after a lost battle. This week, after the government announced the 19th straight month of population decline, the Ministry of the Interior said that Taiwan is expected to lose 6.67 million workers in two waves of retirement over the next 15 years. According to the Ministry of Labor (MOL), Taiwan has a workforce of 11.6 million (as of July). The over-15 population was 20.244 million last year. EARLY RETIREMENT Early retirement is going to make these waves a tsunami. According to the Directorate General of Budget Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), the
Many will be surprised to discover that the electoral voting numbers in recent elections do not entirely line up with what the actual voting results show. Swing voters decide elections, but in recent elections, the results offer a different and surprisingly consistent message. And there is one overarching theme: a very democratic preference for balance. SOME CAVEATS Putting a number on the number of swing voters is surprisingly slippery. Because swing voters favor different parties depending on the type of election, it is hard to separate die-hard voters leaning towards one party or the other. Complicating matters is that some voters are
Sept 22 to Sept 28 Hsu Hsih (許石) never forgot the international student gathering he attended in Japan, where participants were asked to sing a folk song from their homeland. When it came to the Taiwanese students, they looked at each other, unable to recall a single tune. Taiwan doesn’t have folk songs, they said. Their classmates were incredulous: “How can that be? How can a place have no folk songs?” The experience deeply embarrassed Hsu, who was studying music. After returning to Taiwan in 1946, he set out to collect the island’s forgotten tunes, from Hoklo (Taiwanese) epics to operatic
Five years ago, on the verge of the first COVID lockdown, I wrote an article asking what seemed to be an extremely niche question: why do some people invert their controls when playing 3D games? A majority of players push down on the controller to make their onscreen character look down, and up to make them look up. But there is a sizable minority who do the opposite, controlling their avatars like a pilot controls a plane, pulling back to go up. For most modern games, this requires going into the settings and reconfiguring the default controls. Why do they
RSS