Last year there were two restaurants called Wasabi on the fourth floor esplanade in Taipei 101. One, an all-you-can-eat buffet, still goes by that name. The other, a sushi bar and restaurant, has reinvented itself as Mihan 101, after the Mihan Honken restaurant in the Grand Formosa Regent hotel. The sushi bar remains, as do many a la carte selections such as tempura, but the focus now lies on food cooked at the table: shabu shabu, sukiyaki and steamers.
The latter option is being promoted until Aug. 31 with Mihan 101's "Summer Steamer Trio" (NT$1,880), a set menu for two with three steamed presentations and a variety of smaller dishes. The executive chef of Mihan 101, Tomi Wang (王祥富), explained that each of his steamed courses showcases a summer flavor: grapefruit, seaweed and perilla. Also served at appropriate intervals were fresh tofu with sesame and seafood, an appetizer trio of salmon, maguro (tuna) and prawn sashimi, soup, and fruit sorbet for dessert. Everything was simple and light, the kind of food you want on a hot summer day. The salmon and maguro, though common varieties of sashimi, impressed me as being among the freshest I've had in Taipei.
Each time the waitress placed a wooden steamer on the range in the middle of my table, Wang lifted the top and invited me to smell the fragrance that emerged as the food gently cooked. "This is grapefruit," he explained as he uncovered the first steamer, prime US rib-eye steak, cabbage and greens. "Can you smell the seaweed?" he asked as he cracked the lid on the second, shrimp and slices of fish. "This is perilla," he said, referring to the leaf that infuses the third steamer, Japanese salt-water eel sliced over rice, with a tinge of mint.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF MIHAN 101
Local ingredients were the stars of this meal. The perilla, which is often wrapped around sashimi, is grown in Yangmingshan. The fish and shrimp come from Turtle Island near Dahsi (大溪) in Ilan County, arriving an hour and a half after being loaded onto trucks at the port thanks to the recently completed Hsuehshan Tunnel. I especially liked the second course with its sweet red shrimp (胭脂蝦) and dolphin fish (鬼頭刀), which is perfect for steaming because it explodes on the palette and would be ruined in a stir-fry or soup. My only reservation was the final steamer: the slices of eel on rice seemed like a let down after the steak and fresh seafood.
Last week saw a momentary spark in the election season, when Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hou You-yi (侯友宜) and Taiwan People’s Party Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) attempted to form a joint ticket, ostensibly to defeat the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its candidate Vice President William Lai (賴清德). This mating of massive egos was arranged by longtime KMT stalwart and former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). The deal predictably fell apart, though as of this writing — Thursday — there was still a chance for an 11th hour recovery. (Editor’s note: it didn’t happen.) Many people
On a dark November afternoon at Southampton’s City Farm, the animals are going about their business. They are all rescues. Penny the pig, a clutch of former battery farm chickens, three pygmy goats and Salvatore the cane snake, so orange and shiny he looks as though he is glowing from within as he twines around my arm in loving, even sensual embrace. All little miracles in their own right. But none so strange as the dull-looking brown shells in the glass tank in the corner. “Who’s that in there?” I ask Hannah, in whose charge they lie. “They’re African land snails”,
In the heart of Taipei at Legacy — a venue renowned for hosting diverse musical acts — Alvvays, a Grammy-nominated ensemble from Canada, delivered a compelling performance last week. With a fusion of indie-dream pop and shoegaze influences, Alvvays enthralled the audience with their catchy, introspective melodies and refined stage presence. Legacy, brimming with subdued anticipation, served as the ideal setting for Alvvays’ show. Almost reaching its full capacity, the venue buzzed with excitement as the band took the stage. Off Time Production, the local organizers, infused a unique touch by having a hipster pizzeria, Under The Bridge, cater the event.
Leading British universities have been influenced by Chinese agents, with diplomatic and unofficial pressure resulting in censorship on campus, according to a Channel 4 documentary. The Dispatches documentary, Secrets and Power: China in the UK, alleges that the University of Nottingham closed its School of Contemporary Chinese Studies in 2016 in response to pressure from Beijing. The former head of the institute, Steve Tsang, has openly criticized the Chinese Communist party (CCP) on several occasions, but said that university management asked him not to speak to the media during Xi Jinping’s (習近平) visit to the UK in 2015. The saga at the
RSS