The Taipei City Animal Protection Office showcased five healthy meals for dogs made by pet-friendly restaurants in an effort to promote the capital as a pet-friendly city.
One of the meals that caught the most attention at a news conference organized by the office on Thursday was a steak dish presented in bite-size pieces with a side of tomatoes and baby corn.
The dish, which was made by the Always Sunshine cafe, is served with steamed rice and dog biscuits in separate plates.
The vegetables and meat are boiled, which are good for dogs’ kidneys, Always Sunshine manager Yang Hui-chi (楊惠琪) said.
“We encourage dogs to eat at the same table with their owners,” she said. “With the weather being so hot these days, we have also worked with a veterinarian to develop an ice cream that includes probiotics for dogs.”
Another dish was an unseasoned burger patty on a bed of cauliflower and broccoli made by the Aloft Taipei Beitou hotel.
The dish is one of three choices that the hotel provides free for pets when they stay overnight at the hotel with their owners, Aloft Taipei Beitou marcom supervisor Hailey Chen (陳怡樺) said.
The other three meals showcased by the office were a vegetable and chicken risotto made by Yoh Italian Trattoria; chicken meatballs served with diced vegetables made by Pao Ma Mi Ke Ssu cafe; and a steak rice dish tossed with vegetables and egg made by PS Bubu restaurant.
Animal Protection Office Director Sung Nien-chieh (宋念潔) said that the office conducts inspections of restaurants seeking qualification as pet-friendly places.
“After an application has been made, we will send personnel to check if any ingredients they use are harmful to dogs,” she said. “We will also check if the premises have specially designed services for dogs, such as meals, seating, or areas where owners can hook up leashes.”
Taipei has 123 pet-friendly premises, of which 78, or 63.4 percent, are eateries, Department of Economic Development Commissioner Lin Chung-chieh (林崇傑) said.
“We want to make Taipei a pet-friendly city so that pet owners can go to more places with their pets,” he said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the