One of the irritations of eating international cuisine in Taipei is that it generally has the same underlying flavor as local foods. The oil used in the preparation of the dish doesn't seem to vary, the ingredients are all local and the cooks, though capable, create a meal that is labeled differently but may as well have come from the same kitchen.
It was therefore something of an "ah-ha experience" when I sampled the nasi goreng at Pondok Mutiara Restaurant. Not unlike Proust and his madeleine, I was transported back in time and a couple of thousand of kilometers away to Indonesia, where I first enjoyed the dish. It had an authentic taste. It may have been just refried rice, onion, garlic, chili and soy sauce, with the addition of shrimp paste, a lightly fried egg, some cucumber slices and prawn crackers on top -- but it didn't taste like Chinese food.
It obviously helps that Diana Lu Chang (張盧鵬英) was originally from Indonesia (albeit 45 years ago) and still has ties with the country. She started her family-run restaurant 27 years ago and it has been at its present address on Fuxing North Road for over 10 years. Chang has become something of a celebrity and is often invited to demonstrate her culinary skills on Formosa TV.
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
We sampled one of the set meals and added some dishes, which gave us a range of flavors: from the coconut curried chicken; to the Holland spring rolls of chicken, butter and mustard, wrapped in a thin wheat flour pastry; to the uniquely Indonesian shrimp paste-flavored vegetables; and the condensed milk, ice and sweets confection that came at the end. Chang recommended the curry fish heads, for the brave, and rendang sapi, a spicy beef dish in coconut and chili sauce.
We were full but a meal would not be complete, she said, without sampling the homemade thousand-layer cake and some Javanese coffee. She was right. The coffee was strong, dark and full of character. The cake was delicious, light, honeyed and satisfying. We were told that there were, in fact, only 18 layers. Further research found that it is quite an art to contrive a genuine thousand-layer cake (it is made of flour, yeast, sugar, lard and red dates, steamed, rolled and folded) and that it was originally a Chinese recipe. Boxes of the cake are sold on the premises as the "authentic taste of the Dutch royal family."
Some restaurant critics would take issue with the decor. They might say the place had an antiquated feel, that the lighting and general appearance were uncoordinated. Such comments put style before substance and are incidental to the food and the enjoyment of "authentic" cuisine.
Selamat Makan (enjoy your meal).
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s