For many in Taipei, Tien Hsiang Lo is a synonym for Hangchow cuisine, which, to many gourmands, is also a synonym for unique and exquisite delicacies. The original Tien Hsiang Lo restaurant in Hangchow dates back more than 100 years.
After the Chinese Civil War, in 1949, the main chefs of this famed restaurant fled to Hong Kong where they established the equally famous Hong Kong Tien Hsiang Lo. Thirteen years ago Stanley Yen (嚴長壽), president of Taipei's five-star Ritz Landis, dispatched chefs to Hong Kong with a mission to learn classic Hangchow cuisine from the chefs of the original Tien Hsiang Lo. Under a cooperative agreement, they returned to set up their own Tien Hsiang Lo in Taipei. The two restaurants are widely recognized as offering the best Hangchow cuisine in the world.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF RITZ LANDIS,TAIPEI
Hangchow cuisine can be summed up with the phrase "southern ingredients, northern style" (南菜北烹). This means that the varieties of fish, shrimp, and other crustaceans in Hangchow's much-celebrated historic West Lake are prepared in northern-style, sweet and sour-based flavors. Hangchow cuisine can be traced to 800 years ago, when the Sung dynasty moved its capital from the north to Hangchow, fleeing foreign invaders. The royal chefs, who had been accustomed to northern cuisine, had to make use of local materials. Hangchow style is, therefore, a kind of ancient imperial cuisine.
Sauted shrimp with long-ching tea leaves (龍井蝦仁) is a delightful representative Hangchow dish. Instead of using vegetables, the chefs saute the shrimp with freshly pickled long-ching tea leaves. The shrimp come out white and tender, while the tea leaves add an elegant presentation and delicate taste.
Madame Sung's fish soup (宋嫂魚湯) is a typical "southern ingredients, northern style" dish, according to Yang Kuang-tsung (楊光宗), sous chef of the hotel. This southern version of sour and spicy soup adds more vegetables and has abundant boneless fresh-water fish, mushrooms, egg yolk, bamboo shoots and a dash of Shaoshing wine.
One distinct plus about Tien Hsiang Lo is that dishes are presented in individual portions, which allows diners to sample a variety of flavors without having to order more food than one person can eat.
Autumn is also the best season to feast on giant fresh-water crabs, another Hangchow delicacy.
US President Donald Trump may have hoped for an impromptu talk with his old friend Kim Jong-un during a recent trip to Asia, but analysts say the increasingly emboldened North Korean despot had few good reasons to join the photo-op. Trump sent repeated overtures to Kim during his barnstorming tour of Asia, saying he was “100 percent” open to a meeting and even bucking decades of US policy by conceding that North Korea was “sort of a nuclear power.” But Pyongyang kept mum on the invitation, instead firing off missiles and sending its foreign minister to Russia and Belarus, with whom it
When Taiwan was battered by storms this summer, the only crumb of comfort I could take was knowing that some advice I’d drafted several weeks earlier had been correct. Regarding the Southern Cross-Island Highway (南橫公路), a spectacular high-elevation route connecting Taiwan’s southwest with the country’s southeast, I’d written: “The precarious existence of this road cannot be overstated; those hoping to drive or ride all the way across should have a backup plan.” As this article was going to press, the middle section of the highway, between Meishankou (梅山口) in Kaohsiung and Siangyang (向陽) in Taitung County, was still closed to outsiders
Many people noticed the flood of pro-China propaganda across a number of venues in recent weeks that looks like a coordinated assault on US Taiwan policy. It does look like an effort intended to influence the US before the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping (習近平) over the weekend. Jennifer Kavanagh’s piece in the New York Times in September appears to be the opening strike of the current campaign. She followed up last week in the Lowy Interpreter, blaming the US for causing the PRC to escalate in the Philippines and Taiwan, saying that as
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a dystopian, radical and dangerous conception of itself. Few are aware of this very fundamental difference between how they view power and how the rest of the world does. Even those of us who have lived in China sometimes fall back into the trap of viewing it through the lens of the power relationships common throughout the rest of the world, instead of understanding the CCP as it conceives of itself. Broadly speaking, the concepts of the people, race, culture, civilization, nation, government and religion are separate, though often overlapping and intertwined. A government
RSS