Tree Cafe is a truly multicultural restaurant that draws on the skills of the traditional cuisines of various artists that frequent the area. With its motto: "0 People, 10 Countries, 10 Cuisines," it has been promoting good food and cultural harmony in the neighborhood for over six years.
This small brick restaurant is nestled in the heart of the Dream Community, a local organization dedicated to the spread of art appreciation and cultural exchanges in Taiwan. Festivals and other events occur here throughout the year, aided by an international artist exchange program.
The Tree Cafe was founded in 1999 by the restaurant manager Amy Tsai. Many of the artists who come to Taiwan borrow the Tree Cafe's kitchen to cook specialties from their native countries, adding their own distinctive flavors to the menu. The result is one of the most diverse selections of international dishes in Taipei.
PHOTO: SEAN LIN, TAIPEI TIMES
The Tree Cafe is built to feel like a homely European coffee shop, where patrons can come for a hot meal and a talk with friends after a long day in the city.
Charles and Deep, waiters from Nigeria and Nepal, warmly welcome you as you enter the restaurant. The cafe hires no professional chefs, instead relying on old-fashioned home cooking. Before ordering, be sure to take a look at the back of the menu, where the 10 international cooks are introduced along with recipes for some of the dishes.
The buttery vegetable soup that preceded our meal tasted fresh with its juicy bell peppers and carrots. The accompanying olive focaccia had an aromatic flavor and genuine crusty texture that is nearly impossible to find in Taiwanese bakeries. The Nigerian pork fillet, recommended by Charles, was a little overcooked but infused with a delicious spiced tomato flavor. The marinated Tandoori salmon, Deep's recommendation, was tender, juicy and packed with the flavor of spices and creamy butter. The zesty Marseille spicy seafood spaghetti and the creamy Alaskan smoked salmon spaghetti are highly recommended and good value.
The Tree Cafe's fruit tarts provided a light, refreshing end to the meal. In the past, the bakers used canned and imported fruits from the artists' home countries. However, they found that using locally grown fruit could retain the natural freshness of the dishes. Various breads are also for sale at the cafe counter, made freshly from the community's nearby bakery. The red wine bread we bought was so enticing that we ate one loaf as soon as we stepped out of the 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.
In an interview posted online by United Daily News (UDN) on May 26, current Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) was asked about Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) replacing him as party chair. Though not yet officially running, by the customs of Taiwan politics, Lu has been signalling she is both running for party chair and to be the party’s 2028 presidential candidate. She told an international media outlet that she was considering a run. She also gave a speech in Keelung on national priorities and foreign affairs. For details, see the May 23 edition of this column,
RSS