Indian Fans and its predictably kitsch wall hangings and assorted nick-knacks related to India first appeared on Taipei's fashionable Yungkang food-street two years ago. It opened a second outlet a stone's throw from the more up-market Dinghao shopping neighborhood last summer.
The place must be doing something right in order to open its second branch, but what that is leaves this reviewer perplexed. Like all too many locally owned restaurants that attempt to pass themselves off as foreign eateries and fall flat, if not so low that the gutter is the best place for them, Indian Fans is a sham.
While some bright spark had the affront to boast "best Indian curry in Taipei" on a flyer advertising the place at the recent Computex in Taipei, the truth is very different. Indian Fans serves up some of the worst curry to be found in Taipei. Sure, the decor and design are pleasant enough, but this is an eatery not a museum piece.
PHOTO: GAVIN PHIPPS, TAIPEI TIMES
The menu includes such fancy sounding fare as Kashmir chicken curry, Madras beef curry, Rajasthan mutton curry and Punjab mixed vegetable curry, but there's not a naan bread in sight. Each dish is served with a plate of rice -- the local sticky variety as opposed to the fluffy Indian type -- an odd assortment of vegetables, and comes with a complementary salad bar.
This reviewer sat down for what he thought would be a lamb pulao (NT$249), but was instead served a wok-fried plate of lamb fried rice filled with frozen carrots, peas and, of course, the ubiquitous corn. While I attempted to wade through the fried rice and accompanying grease and at the same time discern its flavor, a waitress was kind enough to pop a side dish of garlic bread made from a single slice of white toasted bread on the table.
Sadly the food's flavorlessness and the limp slice of garlic bread proved all too much and I was forced to beat an early retreat from Indian Fans with my meal left unfinished.
I opted for my complementary beverage to go, but should have declined the cup of iced Indian Masala tea as it proved as bad as the meal. Traditionally drunk as a pick-me-up, the bastardized version of this otherwise great brew served up at Indian Fans had the reverse effect. Instead of leaving me refreshed it left a rancid taste in my mouth.
The bottom line for Indian Fans is simple: If you're familiar with and enjoy Indian fare then don't go anywhere near the place!
The canonical shot of an East Asian city is a night skyline studded with towering apartment and office buildings, bright with neon and plastic signage, a landscape of energy and modernity. Another classic image is the same city seen from above, in which identical apartment towers march across the city, spilling out over nearby geography, like stylized soldiers colonizing new territory in a board game. Densely populated dynamic conurbations of money, technological innovation and convenience, it is hard to see the cities of East Asia as what they truly are: necropolises. Why is this? The East Asian development model, with
June 16 to June 22 The following flyer appeared on the streets of Hsinchu on June 12, 1895: “Taipei has already fallen to the Japanese barbarians, who have brought great misery to our land and people. We heard that the Japanese occupiers will tax our gardens, our houses, our bodies, and even our chickens, dogs, cows and pigs. They wear their hair wild, carve their teeth, tattoo their foreheads, wear strange clothes and speak a strange language. How can we be ruled by such people?” Posted by civilian militia leader Wu Tang-hsing (吳湯興), it was a call to arms to retake
Desperate dads meet in car parks to exchange packets; exhausted parents slip it into their kids’ drinks; families wait months for prescriptions buy it “off label.” But is it worth the risk? “The first time I gave him a gummy, I thought, ‘Oh my God, have I killed him?’ He just passed out in front of the TV. That never happens.” Jen remembers giving her son, David, six, melatonin to help him sleep. She got them from a friend, a pediatrician who gave them to her own child. “It was sort of hilarious. She had half a tub of gummies,
There is an old British curse, “may you live in interesting times,” passed off as ancient Chinese wisdom to make it sound more exotic and profound. We are living in interesting times. From US President Donald Trump’s decision on American tariffs, to how the recalls will play out, to uncertainty about how events are evolving in China, we can do nothing more than wait with bated breath. At the cusp of potentially momentous change, it is a good time to take stock of the current state of Taiwan’s political parties. As things stand, all three major parties are struggling. For our examination of the
RSS