The last time we reviewed Papa Giovanni's was in April of 2000 when there were rumors that Papa and family had opened a bakery adjacent the restaurant.
We returned this time on rumors that the bakery has closed and on more troubling reports of disgruntled patrons.
Because the Taipei Times has praised Papa and staff in past reviews, the news of unhappy clientele was ? well, news. Forumosa.com, an Internet site popular with Taiwan's expatriate community, has dozens of postings regarding Papa Giovanni's under its "restaurants, bars and clubs" forum.
PHOTO: DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES
The postings almost unanimously decry the restaurant's poor service, high prices and Papa's "attitude." One post said he left the restaurant with "the distinct impression that it could only have been due to direst economic necessity that the owner stooped to allow me into his establishment."
But on my visit there Tuesday night I watched members of the Giovanni family walk most every patron to the door to say goodnight. I saw the wait staff attentively filling water glasses and clearing plates. Papa himself took my order and ended every sentence with "sir."
As far as I could determine during this single visit -- which was unannounced -- the rumors of Papa's despise are greatly exaggerated. Of the complaints I've read or been told, I share only one: the prices are too high. My order of a small caesar salad, king prawns in bourbon sauce, a glass of house white wine and tiramisu cost over NT$1,500. The small caesar alone -- which I ordered on Papa's suggestion -- cost NT$320. It had no romaine lettuce, no croutons, very little parmesan and not the slightest hint of anchovy.
The king prawns were indeed kingly and the bourbon sauce was delicious, but at NT$680 for four you'd have to be a king to order them a second time. You can find equally large and fresh prawns in most of Taipei's night markets for half the price -- with the caveat being that they're covered in mayonnaise, not bourbon sauce. No whines regarding the house white wine (NT$180); I should have had a second glass instead of the tiramisu (NT$180).
Talking with Papa on my way out, I asked what became of the bakery. He explained that he closed it because, as everything was baked after hours, he couldn't control the quality. He also hinted that there may not have been a market for his European-styled products. "Chinese people, they like soft breads," he said.
As for the complaints about him and his restaurant, he said he was unaware of the online postings and didn't seem overly concerned. "People sometimes don't like something."
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
President William Lai (賴清德) has championed Taiwan as an “AI Island” — an artificial intelligence (AI) hub powering the global tech economy. But without major shifts in talent, funding and strategic direction, this vision risks becoming a static fortress: indispensable, yet immobile and vulnerable. It’s time to reframe Taiwan’s ambition. Time to move from a resource-rich AI island to an AI Armada. Why change metaphors? Because choosing the right metaphor shapes both understanding and strategy. The “AI Island” frames our national ambition as a static fortress that, while valuable, is still vulnerable and reactive. Shifting our metaphor to an “AI Armada”
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