Like just about every other metropolis with pretensions of being an international leader, Taipei has recently been styling itself as "the city that never sleeps."
This hyperbole (Discover Taipei) is based on the existence of a few night clubs and markets, some vendors selling snacks, a handful of all-night eateries on Fuxing South Road offering congee and a couple of Hong Kong-style dim sum joints.
Joining the 24-seven club is Tr, which opened three months ago in the East Side shopping district and takes aim at sleepless twenty-somethings who seek a watering hole with WiFi access.
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
Locally owned but borrowing heavily from Japan for its look and from Hong Kong with its chef, Tr provides a mix of food and drinks ranging from full-course meals to custard tarts.
Reasonably popular already with the lunchtime and evening meal shopping crowd that packs Zhongxiao East Road, Tr is bright and white with black accents.
The first floor comfortably accommodates around 100 people. There is a diverting widescreen TV and a selection of papers and magazines to while away the time. The mostly bass and treble sound system pours out pop music at a volume low enough not to be irritating.
The food at Tr emphasizes convenience over substance, in that it provides reasonable quality control and cost, but will never make the fine-dining list. It's not a first-date eatery.
The staple dish is curry, which is sweet rather than authentic Indian. From NT$160 for chicken, up to NT$200 for fresh fish, it arrives in a large bowl of mostly potatoes and braised onions. On a separate plate is a scoop of rice, a serving of cabbage and slice of French bread. It all washes down well with a pineapple crushed ice (NT$100).
Wait staff recommendations included the Fujian fried rice and there are a couple of "special dishes" on the menu from 11am to 2pm and 5pm to 10pm, including a whole chicken baked in dongjiang sauce for NT$600. Baked shrimps in cheese, satay and a respectable range of sandwiches around the NT$100 mark are other options.
For the record New York is the original city that never sleeps and was so called by the Fort Wayne (Indiana) News after the world's biggest gas and electric plants were built there in 1912 -- "and as a result is soon to add to its title of the city that never sleeps that of the city that never grows dark."
Taiwan’s English education system is being pulled apart by three opposing forces. Bilingual Nation 2030 pulls students toward English and global communication. Artificial Intelligence (AI) readiness pulls them toward digital judgment, verification and AI-mediated work. But Taiwan’s old exam culture pulls them back toward memorization, grammar drills, timed reading and correct answers. If the education system keeps using old exams to define success, it risks producing graduates who are neither genuinely bilingual nor genuinely AI-ready, but trained for tasks machines can already perform. The first force is Bilingual Nation 2030. Launched in 2018, the policy aimed to “help Taiwan’s workforce connect
It seems every few days one bumps into one of those “real man” comments in which Taiwan is urged to “face reality” or similar, and “make a deal,” with the speaker implying that soon it will be too late. “Deal” advocates always present themselves as having a superior grip on reality, and the manly ability to make the “hard choice.” Their testosterone-laden language often echoes that of Taiwan sellout advocates. Note that such commentary always specifies a process (“make a deal, work with, make progress”), never the end state of what occupation by a violent authoritarian colonialist state will entail. In
There are shadowy cabals plotting to sell out Taiwan to be annexed by China, by invasion if necessary. Fortunately, they are buffoons. In 2019, former Bamboo Union gangster and founder of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), Chang An-le (張安樂, colorfully known as “White Wolf”), led a protest at the Legislative Yuan against comments made by then-premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that in the event of an attack by China, he would never surrender, but would protect the nation by fighting to the end, even if he only had a broom. Chang had party members bring a wooden casket that they
June 1 to June 7 "If all Taiwanese were as afraid of dying as you, then what would happen?” Physician Shih Chiang-nan (施江南) reportedly said this to his wife Chen Chiao-tung (陳焦桐) after she urged him to stop intervening on behalf of Taiwanese soldiers stranded overseas after serving in the Japanese Army during World War II. Shih had clashed with high-ranking officials over the issue, engaged in several heated arguments with Taiwan governor-general Chen Yi (陳儀) and allegedly shouted at general Ko Yuan-fen (柯遠芬), chief of staff of the Taiwan Garrison Command, over
RSS