Behind the glitzy BMW motorbike showroom at the junction of Jenai and Chinshan South roads sits a rare slice of old Taipei. Situated in what was once a domestic residence, Ah Tsai's (
Filled with old tables and shelves piled high with an extraordinarily assortment of household goods and with its walls bedecked with posters and kitsch art dating from the 1950s, there's no modern swankiness about Ah Tsai's. Instead it looks more like the home of some eccentric hoarder than a restaurant.
According to owner Ah Hua (
PHOTO: GAVIN PHIPPS, TAIPEI TIMES
The food is equally as unpretentious. There are two distinct trends in Ah Tsai's food -- spicy hot and meaty rich. Dishes such as Ah Tsai's special tofu (
Being a Taiwanese restaurant every usable part of every animal appears somewhere on the menu and means carnivores will be in their element. The numerous beef and pork dishes range in price from NT$180 to NT$300, and the mouth-watering beef tendon with vegetables (NT$220) is highly recommended. For those looking for something a bit different, then Ah Tsai's wild boar (
While there is no English menu, the sight of foreigners staring forlornly at the menu is something the staff have become used to over the years and are always more than willing to help out.
An added bonus is the chance to drink a glass, or two, with the establishment's jovial owner. Ah Hua can be spotted coming a mile away, usually toting a bottle of Taiwan Beer. He will, without invitation, take a seat and raise a glass to the table's occupants.
On Facebook a friend posted a dashcam video of a vehicle driving through the ash-colored wasteland of what was once Taroko Gorge. A crane appears in the video, and suddenly it becomes clear: the video is in color, not black and white. The magnitude 7.2 earthquake’s destruction on April 3 around and above Taroko and its reverberations across an area heavily dependent on tourism have largely vanished from the international press discussions as the news cycle moves on, but local residents still live with its consequences every day. For example, with the damage to the road corridors between Yilan and
May 13 to May 19 While Taiwanese were eligible to take the Qing Dynasty imperial exams starting from 1686, it took more than a century for a locally-registered scholar to pass the highest levels and become a jinshi (進士). In 1823, Hsinchu City resident Cheng Yung-hsi (鄭用錫) traveled to Beijing and accomplished the feat, returning home in great glory. There were technically three Taiwan residents who did it before Cheng, but two were born in China and remained registered in their birthplaces, while historians generally discount the third as he changed his residency back to Fujian Province right after the exams.
Few scenes are more representative of rural Taiwan than a mountain slope covered in row upon row of carefully manicured tea plants. Like staring at the raked sand in a Zen garden, seeing these natural features in an unnaturally perfect arrangement of parallel lines has a certain calming effect. Snapping photos of the tea plantations blanketing Taiwan’s mountain is a favorite activity among tourists but, unfortunately, the experience is often rather superficial. As these tea fields are part of working farms, it’s not usually possible to walk amongst them or sample the teas they are producing, much less understand how the
With William Lai’s (賴清德) presidential inauguration coming up on May 20, both sides of the Taiwan Strait have been signaling each other, possibly about re-opening lines of communication. For that to happen, there are two ways this could happen, one very difficult to achieve and the other dangerous. During his presidential campaign and since Lai has repeatedly expressed his hope to re-establish communication based on equality and mutual respect, and even said he hoped to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) over beef noodles and bubble tea. More dramatically, as explored in the May 2 edition of this column,