You can pluck as many mushrooms as you like in Puli nowadays. Traditional mushroom-growing farms there are turning themselves into recreational theme parks, with the emphasis on do-it-yourself, from picking them by hand to cooking them in microwave ovens.
To double your fun, Rich Year Farm offers classes to group visitors on how to prepare "outer-space bags" -- small packs of earth and nutrients that you can take home and use to grow your own mushrooms.
Nearly every farm has its own specialty dishes featuring different kinds of mushrooms. One that wins over all visitors at Rich Year Farm is prepared with oyster mushrooms, which release a butter-like flavor when they are baked in an oven or lightly sauteed.
Mushroom sashimi is one of the most unusual, yet popular, dishes at the Lu-Yao Mushroom Garden (
The nearby Herb Villa (香草叢林農莊) is a marvelous-looking restaurant with a relaxing atmosphere. It has a magnificent view overlooking Nankang Stream (南港溪), a valley and a herb garden on the hill. Restaurant owner Lin Kuo-tai (林國泰), who is in his 20s, majored in home gardening and built the garden restaurant all by himself. He is proud of his mushroom dishes and his hors d'oeuvre -- baked Chinese mushrooms with a rosemary-and-cheese topping -- is exceptional.
Before you race down to Nantou to sample for yourselves the best mushrooms Taiwan has to offer, do make an appointment. Most farms provide a lunch service only.
The Portuguese never established a presence on Taiwan, but they must have traded with the indigenous people because later traders reported that the locals referred to parts of deer using Portuguese words. What goods might the Portuguese have offered their indigenous trade partners? Among them must have been slaves, for the Portuguese dealt slaves across Asia. Though we often speak of “Portuguese” ships, imagining them as picturesque vessels manned by pointy-bearded Iberians, in Asia Portuguese shipping between local destinations was crewed by Asian seamen, with a handful of white or Eurasian officers. “Even the great carracks of 1,000-2,000 tons which plied
It’s only half the size of its more famous counterpart in Taipei, but the Botanical Garden of the National Museum of Nature Science (NMNS, 國立自然科學博物館植物園) is surely one of urban Taiwan’s most inviting green spaces. Covering 4.5 hectares immediately northeast of the government-run museum in Taichung’s North District (北區), the garden features more than 700 plant species, many of which are labeled in Chinese but not in English. Since its establishment in 1999, the site’s managers have done their best to replicate a number of native ecosystems, dividing the site into eight areas. The name of the Coral Atoll Zone might
On Monday morning, in quick succession, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) released statements announcing “that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and General Secretary Xi Jinping (習近平) have invited KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) to lead a delegation on a visit to the mainland” as the KMT’s press release worded it. The KMT’s press release added “Chairwoman Cheng expressed her gratitude for the invitation and has gladly accepted it.” Beijing’s official Xinhua news release described Song Tao (宋濤), head of the Taiwan Work Office of the CCP Central Committee, as
Nuclear power is getting a second look in Southeast Asia as countries prepare to meet surging energy demand as they vie for artificial intelligence-focused data centers. Several Southeast Asian nations are reviving mothballed nuclear plans and setting ambitious targets and nearly half of the region could, if they pursue those goals, have nuclear energy in the 2030s. Even countries without current plans have signaled their interest. Southeast Asia has never produced a single watt of nuclear energy, despite long-held atomic ambitions. But that may soon change as pressure mounts to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change, while meeting growing power needs. The
RSS