Dozo is as good as any contemporary izakaya ("Japanese beer hall") in Tokyo. It is a great place for a meal or light snack and offers similar fare.
Before opening the restaurant in January, the owners spent time researching Japan's bars and eateries, and the decor wasn't the only thing they imported -- the chef was also brought over to ensure authenticity.
The restaurant's genuineness is proven by the number of Japanese patrons who frequent the establishment -- enough to warrant the staff learning Japanese.
PHOTO: DIANA FREUNDL, TAIPEI TIMES
The extensive menu includes all the traditional snack foods one would expect at an izakaya in addition to dishes like omogoieyyuo, often found only at specialty restaurants.
The only disappointment was the missing eda mame (boiled soya beans with salt), which is standard at most Japanese bars.
There are many grilled, deep fried and barbeque meat options as well as the popular sashimi, which can be ordered in small sizes or in assorted combos (NT$260 up to NT$980). The charcoal grilled beef with garlic sauce and the seafood and avocado salad are highly recommended by a few regular customers.
There is also a good selection of vegetable and tofu dishes to satisfy vegetarian and vegan restrictions. The tofu and seaweed salad is made with fresh, soft tofu and served over a bed of greens and savory homemade sesame dressing. It's too good to share.
The okonomiyaki (potato or rice-based pancake) filled with cabbage, carrots, onion and its namesake cream sauce is as tasty as those made in Hiroshima.
The portions are surprisingly large given the reasonable prices. A tofu salad, soba noodles and okonomiyaki was more than enough for two people and under NT$500, leaving extra money for drinks.
There is a separate beverage menu with a range of cocktail concoctions made with green tea or fresh fruit. Economically, beer is the better option with choice of bottled Asahi or pints of Orion draft. A word to the wise: the samurai -- a lethal cocktail -- packs a punch and may make you want to commit ritual suicide the next day.
Operated by the same group that owns TU and Brown Sugar, Dozo's lively atmosphere is more like a trendy Taipei lounge bar than a restaurant.
June 9 to June 15 A photo of two men riding trendy high-wheel Penny-Farthing bicycles past a Qing Dynasty gate aptly captures the essence of Taipei in 1897 — a newly colonized city on the cusp of great change. The Japanese began making significant modifications to the cityscape in 1899, tearing down Qing-era structures, widening boulevards and installing Western-style infrastructure and buildings. The photographer, Minosuke Imamura, only spent a year in Taiwan as a cartographer for the governor-general’s office, but he left behind a treasure trove of 130 images showing life at the onset of Japanese rule, spanning July 1897 to
One of the most important gripes that Taiwanese have about the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is that it has failed to deliver concretely on higher wages, housing prices and other bread-and-butter issues. The parallel complaint is that the DPP cares only about glamor issues, such as removing markers of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) colonialism by renaming them, or what the KMT codes as “de-Sinification.” Once again, as a critical election looms, the DPP is presenting evidence for that charge. The KMT was quick to jump on the recent proposal of the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) to rename roads that symbolize
On the evening of June 1, Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) apologized and resigned in disgrace. His crime was instructing his driver to use a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon. The Control Yuan is the government branch that investigates, audits and impeaches government officials for, among other things, misuse of government funds, so his misuse of a government vehicle was highly inappropriate. If this story were told to anyone living in the golden era of swaggering gangsters, flashy nouveau riche businessmen, and corrupt “black gold” politics of the 1980s and 1990s, they would have laughed.
Imagine being able to visit a museum and examine up close thousand-year-old pottery, revel alone in jewelry from centuries past, or peer inside a Versace bag. Now London’s V&A has launched a revolutionary new exhibition space, where visitors can choose from some 250,000 objects, order something they want to spend time looking at and have it delivered to a room for a private viewing. Most museums have thousands of precious and historic items hidden away in their stores, which the public never gets to see or enjoy. But the V&A Storehouse, which opened on May 31 in a converted warehouse, has come up
RSS