Sherwood Grill (西華飯店)
42F, Sherwood Taipei, 111 Minsheng E. Rd., Taipei (台北市民生東路三段111號); tel: 2718-1188 ext. 3002. 11:30am to 2:30pm; 6pm to 10pm. Average meal: NT$900 (lunch); NT$2,500 (dinner). Credit cards accepted. English menu.
PHOTO:CHANG JU-PING, TAIPEI TIMES
Hailing from the small southern French town of Castres, famous for its duck foie gras, chef Jean-Marc Cauquil is turning Taiwan's diners to the French culinary experience even as he absorbs Taiwanese elements in his cooking. And gauging by his two-year stay in Taiwan, the symbiosis is a success.
PHOTO: CHANG JU-PING, TAIPEI TIMES
Cauquil has traveled around the world, serving diners at major hotel chains in England and the Caribbean. For Taiwan he has brought the refined culinary traditions that characterize French food. Mousse of duck foie gras royale with ripe tomato confit dressing and orange segmenys (法國銀塔招牌鵝肝醬) is one of his teasing starters. As an aperitif, red wine granite (波爾多紅酒冰砂) is served in a small glass with lemon and mint. We recommend Cauquil's Perigord truffle glazed poussin, served with Provencal ratatouille, mousse of spinach and aubergine cooked in wine (松露烤春雞). The dishes are served with a two-month-old baby chicken of about 250gm. Imported from France, the rare and tender "spring chicken" is a popular dish. Other delicious platters are the Scottish smoked salmon or the ravioli, both of which benefit by a French twist.
YuYu Cafe Time (口幼 口幼 人文生活館)
PHOTO: CHANG JU-PING, TAIPEI TIMES
31, Chungching S. Rd., Sec. 2, Taipei (台北市重慶南路二段31號); tel: 2358-1568. 11am to 9pm. Closed Monday. Average meal: NT$250. Credit cards accepted. English menu.
Serving simple and elegant French food, this one-month old restaurant offers fine dining with country style French food at affordable prices.
Chef Chang Chih-hua (張啟華), from Kaohsiung, has nearly 20 years of experience in the hotel catering industry and is known for his French cuisine. He likes to try new recipes to add uniqueness to his dishes by using, for example, purple rice, wheat and grains.
There are four set meals and the menu rotates every month. Beef stew is a top choice, made with tender meat soaked in Bordeaux red wine.
Another specialty is Argentine chicken with pumpkin, a dish Chang says is actually European. The chicken is boiled for an hour in a broth that mixes pumpkin and other fruits, like apples and pears. The taste is fresh and not greasy, salty or oily.
Additional dishes that will rotate onto the menu this month include white wine chicken, in which carrots, mushroom and other vegetables are cooked in a wine sauce before being added to the chicken. Another dish soon to be available is pork fried with cheese, a Chang creation. The pork is marinated in red wine for two days before being stuffed with cheese and fried.
Le Bistro de L'Olivier (橄欖樹)
145 Anho Rd., Sec. 2, Taipei (台北市安和路2段145號); tel: 8732-3726. 11:30am to 11:30pm. Average meal: NT$700 (business lunch NT$250). Credit cards accepted. English and French menus.
Le Bistro de L'Olivier opened just last year but its chef, Maggie Liao (廖玉儀), came through with a rookie-of-the-year performance by winning the second prize in Taipei Walker's Best Chefs competition this year. The winning dish? Meringue shells with custard cream.
With her specialty rooted in home-made French style cuisine, particularly that of the southern French town of Nice, Liao runs a cozy restaurant with a cosmopolitan menu to match its decorations -- black and white photos of French lovers.
Liao has been a restaurateur for seven years and learned her skills while working in various kitchens in France. The menu at L'Olivier reflects her abundant experience. Of the seven main courses, the most popular items are beef and mozzarella stuffed tomatoes (主廚法式家鄉釀蕃茄) and rack of lamb chop with white wine sauce (迷迭香烤法式捲羊排), made with tender spring lamb imported from New Zealand and seasoned with rosemary.
For appetizers, among a selection of 20 items, Liao recommends the salade Nicoise (尼斯傳統沙拉), a large, healthy dish with authentic Nicoise dressing. The salad can serve as a main course for those with a smaller apetite. Baked garlic escargots (香料 火局 烤田螺), served by the half-dozen, are seasoned with eight kinds of herbs for an authentic Normand flavor. For dessert, Liao's prize winning meringue shells with custard cream is a must, but there are also 20 other desserts available on a rotating basis.
To accompany the food, Liao provides Chardonnay white or Bordeaux red wines. And for aspiring chefs, Liao is the person to talk to for tips. She has already written one book, Ma Cuisine Francaise, and is about to publish another one, Cooking with Olive Oil, which will teach people how to cook various European dishes using olive oil.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
RSS