One of the better restaurants in town, Shintori (Cuisine Japonaise) has an ornamental bamboo grove outside and oozes class inside, with its attention to design and stripped-down neo-industrial look. The ambience of the place, fortunately, is matched by the service and food.
Comprising a main seating area -- which is set off from the sashimi bar by a large etched plate-glass window -- there is an open kitchen, tunnel-like corridors and faux bridges or water-themed decorative elements. The restaurant also has many private booths that cater to groups of friends, families or a romantic tete-a-tete, that are set up like small sitting rooms, with simple wooden tables, a decorative highlight or freshly cut flowers.
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
Dinner began with tea and not just any old cha -- a light and fragrant oolong, or clean-tasting green tea -- before moving on to starters that were inventive and genuinely appetizing. "Cubic appetizers" was a nine-box assortment of sushi and sashimi in little black-and-white colored boxes. Rock 'n' roll salad sounded intriguing but I plumped for the rice and salmon flakes in tea soup, which was tasty and powerfully fishy with the addition of small, orange globes of roe.
Main course choices included a sashimi salad with an amazing confection of varied green leaves and hearts of lettuces, along with radishes, baby corns and raw fish, sprinkled with in an elegant dressing. I chose the grilled XXL chicken on a skewer, which arrived with dried chili and cracked pepper, over the promising beef hot pot, grilled black bass filet with buckwheat, and assorted tempura platter. The chicken was good, with extra points for the subtle lemon grass flavoring.
The owners have clearly gone for "zen-style cooking," which they claim has evolved from food served in temples and "the simple diet of Buddhist priests ... into a creative and interesting cuisine." It works, I think, because of good management. There are four Shintori company restaurants in Taipei (which include the People bar and fusion restaurant further down Anhe Road that has become popular with media and business types), with three more in Shanghai. Attention to detail makes the restaurant chain stand out.
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
On April 17, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) launched a bold campaign to revive and revitalize the KMT base by calling for an impromptu rally at the Taipei prosecutor’s offices to protest recent arrests of KMT recall campaigners over allegations of forgery and fraud involving signatures of dead voters. The protest had no time to apply for permits and was illegal, but that played into the sense of opposition grievance at alleged weaponization of the judiciary by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to “annihilate” the opposition parties. Blamed for faltering recall campaigns and faced with a KMT chair
Article 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) stipulates that upon a vote of no confidence in the premier, the president can dissolve the legislature within 10 days. If the legislature is dissolved, a new legislative election must be held within 60 days, and the legislators’ terms will then be reckoned from that election. Two weeks ago Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed that the legislature hold a vote of no confidence in the premier and dare the president to dissolve the legislature. The legislature is currently controlled
RSS