For over five years, German national, Michael Wendel and his Wendel Backerei and Cafe have been a household name in the Tianmu area. The unadorned, small and cozy eatery served up a smorgasbord of some of the finest and most authentic European breads, cakes, pies, pastries and pretzels to be found anywhere in Taipei.
While Wendel is still baking up a storm, for the past two months he's been doing so from a much more eye-catching location. A revamped and renovated factory that once produced vinyl records a stone's throw away from the original store now houses his newly opened and renamed eatery, Wendel's German Bakery and Bistro.
Set in its own grounds, the new location has a more spacious interior, which makes for less cramped dining, and Wendel's new joint also has a pleasant patio/beer garden, where diners unfazed by the scorching summer heat can enjoy a cold German lager or two.
PHOTO: GAVIN PHIPPS, TAIPEI TIMES
The venue and decor may have changed, but the restaurant's selection of fine German and European-style fare remains, thankfully, unaltered. It still offers early birds and night owls a good choice of reasonably priced sweet and savory foods.
For the morning crowd, Wendel's serves up a pretty good and moderately filling range of breakfasts from NT$100 upwards.
The lunchtime crowd can choose from a selection of a seven dishes, which are changed on a weekly basis and range in price from NT$200 to NT$400. These meals include staples such as varying varieties of pastas and German sausages and come with the option of a salad bar and bottomless refills of soft drinks and teas and coffees.
In the evening Wendel's opens up its appetizer and a-la-carte menus, from which diners can choose a wide selection of European cuisine. Some of the more popular dishes include pan-fried breaded pork schnitzel (NT$320) and bratwurst with wheat beer sauce (N$280).
Genuine lovers of German chow are treated to a special feed on the third Thursday of every month, when Wendel closes his kitchen and only cooks up his traditional German pork knuckle -- Haxen (NT$480). Taking a minimum of three hours to prepare and not available anywhere else in Taiwan, the monthly meal has already proven to be a huge hit. Reservations are now needed and diners have been known to come from as far away as Taichung just to sample to the dish.
Since the restaurant also serves as a bakery, diners who don't fancy anything from the menu can always order fresh breads, cakes and pastries from the bakery adjacent to the restaurant's garden.
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
This is a deeply unsettling period in Taiwan. Uncertainties are everywhere while everyone waits for a small army of other shoes to drop on nearly every front. During challenging times, interesting political changes can happen, yet all three major political parties are beset with scandals, strife and self-inflicted wounds. As the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is held accountable for not only the challenges to the party, but also the nation. Taiwan is geopolitically and economically under threat. Domestically, the administration is under siege by the opposition-controlled legislature and growing discontent with what opponents characterize as arrogant, autocratic
When Lisa, 20, laces into her ultra-high heels for her shift at a strip club in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, she knows that aside from dancing, she will have to comfort traumatized soldiers. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, exhausted troops are the main clientele of the Flash Dancers club in the center of the northeastern city, just 20 kilometers from Russian forces. For some customers, it provides an “escape” from the war, said Valerya Zavatska — a 25-year-old law graduate who runs the club with her mother, an ex-dancer. But many are not there just for the show. They “want to talk about what hurts,” she
RSS