For Taipei's office workers, a new place for a quick after-work drink and some tasty late-night snacks is always welcome. The drinks are too expensive in a lounge bar. But if you go to the night market, the food may be good but the environment is not upmarket.
Located on the corner of Renai Road and Guangfu South Road, Jiang-tzi BBQ House is a small cozy stand that is ideal for eating and drinking, as it's cheap and tasty. There are also open-air tables for people-watching.
PHOTO COURTESY OF OWNER
A plate of Xinjiang-style lamb kebab with a bottle of Heineken beer appears to be a strong attraction for Taipei's middle class in the area. Every day, after 4pm, the fragrance of cumin seeds and other spices, as well as the charcoal fire, scent the air.
The place is always full, which is not surprising, given that it has only four tables and a tiny bar area. But the owner, Jack Cheng (鄭
QQ lamb kebab (NT$40), QQ beef (NT$50) and grilled chicken hearts (NT$40) are the three most popular dishes. Jack Cheng is proud of the taste of his BBQ dishes. He said his kebab cooking skills come from two years spent working in China. Originally a trade executive for a computer company, Cheng was fascinated with Xinjiang barbecue and became an apprentice of a BBQ house in Shanghai.
Cheng chooses lamb rib to make the QQ Lamb Kebab while using fillet for another lamb dish -- the House Kebab. "The rib tastes chewy and contains more juice in the meat, while fillet tastes softer and tender but is less juicy," Cheng said.
The 10 kinds of spices and sauces in the marinating process is a secret weapon in Cheng's tasty kebabs. The only thing he is willing to reveal is that "no soy sauce is used in the recipe." After placing the ribs on the BBQ rack, cumin seed powder and chili powder is added.
There are other choices such as lamb chops, beef ribs, grilled chicken wings and shrimp. To cut through the grease in the meats, try the Korean kimchi or Hakka-style onion pickles.
Apart from Heineken beer, there are choices of Smirnoff Ice, small bottles of JP Chenet Cabernet red wine and Macallan 12-year-old whisky, all at reasonable prices.
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
The latest Formosa poll released at the end of last month shows confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) plunged 8.1 percent, while satisfaction with the Lai administration fared worse with a drop of 8.5 percent. Those lacking confidence in Lai jumped by 6 percent and dissatisfaction in his administration spiked up 6.7 percent. Confidence in Lai is still strong at 48.6 percent, compared to 43 percent lacking confidence — but this is his worst result overall since he took office. For the first time, dissatisfaction with his administration surpassed satisfaction, 47.3 to 47.1 percent. Though statistically a tie, for most
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once