Over the past six months, Max Tseng (
A veteran of the kitchens of Haoyang (
PHOTO: GAVIN PHIPPS, TAIPEI TIMES
And with the summer weather settling in, the simple and well-ventilated dinning area is a real treat. Max's design includes a huge glass facade, which, when fully open, gives the already spacious joint an even greater sense of space.
The dining environment is a major draw, but the food certainly cannot be ignored. A combination of Italian and Spanish with a bit of French, the dishes on the menu might not be as numerous as other European-styled joints, but for presentation and taste, Forchetta outclasses many, if not all, its rivals.
Forchetta's range of tapas include Spanish-style bread (NT$100), asparagus wrapped with Parma ham and Dijon pommary (NT$150), and roasted foie gras with fig sauce (NT$380). While a bit costlier than the average starter, Forchetta's Bufalo mozzarella with tomatoes (NT$360) is well worth the extra cost, especially when you consider that Max imports the cheese especially for this dish.
At present, Forchetta's pasta dishes are somewhat limited, with most of the half-dozen choices topped with seafood. These include linguini with crab and mushroom sauce (NT$260), penne with anchovies and olives (NT$260) and linguini with clam and white wine sauce (NT$260). According to Max, the pasta menu is set to change some time in the coming weeks when he plans to add new dishes to the pasta menu.
While the tapas and pasta dishes are faultless, it's Max's mouth-watering pizzas that have tongues wagging. The secret to Max's pizza is the crust. Not greasy, not soggy, and certainly not chewy.
Forchetta's pizza combinations include the absolutely fantastic spinach, salami, gorgonzola and mozzarella (NT$380) and the equally tasty, yet saucily spicy sausage, mushroom and mozzarella (NT$320). For cheese lovers, the gorgonzola, brie, ricotta and mozzarella (NT$380) comes highly recommended.
For those out to wine as well as dine, Forchetta offers a variety of both Old and New World wines, all of which are reasonably priced at between NT$700 and NT$1,500 as well as a good choice of bottled European beers at NT$170 a pop.
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday delivered an address marking the first anniversary of his presidency. In the speech, Lai affirmed Taiwan’s global role in technology, trade and security. He announced economic and national security initiatives, and emphasized democratic values and cross-party cooperation. The following is the full text of his speech: Yesterday, outside of Beida Elementary School in New Taipei City’s Sanxia District (三峽), there was a major traffic accident that, sadly, claimed several lives and resulted in multiple injuries. The Executive Yuan immediately formed a task force, and last night I personally visited the victims in hospital. Central government agencies and the
Australia’s ABC last week published a piece on the recall campaign. The article emphasized the divisions in Taiwanese society and blamed the recall for worsening them. It quotes a supporter of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) as saying “I’m 43 years old, born and raised here, and I’ve never seen the country this divided in my entire life.” Apparently, as an adult, she slept through the post-election violence in 2000 and 2004 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the veiled coup threats by the military when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) became president, the 2006 Red Shirt protests against him ginned up by
As with most of northern Thailand’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) settlements, the village of Arunothai was only given a Thai name once the Thai government began in the 1970s to assert control over the border region and initiate a decades-long process of political integration. The village’s original name, bestowed by its Yunnanese founders when they first settled the valley in the late 1960s, was a Chinese name, Dagudi (大谷地), which literally translates as “a place for threshing rice.” At that time, these village founders did not know how permanent their settlement would be. Most of Arunothai’s first generation were soldiers
Among Thailand’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) villages, a certain rivalry exists between Arunothai, the largest of these villages, and Mae Salong, which is currently the most prosperous. Historically, the rivalry stems from a split in KMT military factions in the early 1960s, which divided command and opium territories after Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) cut off open support in 1961 due to international pressure (see part two, “The KMT opium lords of the Golden Triangle,” on May 20). But today this rivalry manifests as a different kind of split, with Arunothai leading a pro-China faction and Mae Salong staunchly aligned to Taiwan.
RSS