Long John Silver's took some flak from the blogosphere when the quick-service US seafood chain opened its first Taipei branch late last year. One poster on Forumosa.com wrote, "Even foreigners will not eat there more than once." Another: "I wouldn't go back if it were free." But I decided to check it out anyway. I had happy memories of eating there when I was a small child. It couldn't be that bad, could it?
My initial reaction was positive. Located catty-corner from the Nanjing East Road MRT station, this Long John Silver's looked like a slightly upscale version of KFC, which operates a branch two doors down. Inside, the undulating ceilings, fanciful fish designs and ornamental touches like ersatz ship's windows, gave the interior a vaguely underwater feel.
I placed my order - a Golden Yellow (金黃) number one set meal (NT$155), which came with a salad, drink, two battered and fried shrimp, one battered and fried fish fillet and one fried chicken strip - and was further impressed that Long John Silver's, at least this one, was doing its bit for the environment by using silverware and reusable glasses and plates.
PHOTO: RON BROWNLOW, TAIPEI TIMES
Things went downhill from there. This wasn't entirely the restaurant's fault. In a nod to local tastes, the tartar sauce was heavily seasoned with black pepper. There was no vinegar. Instead of hush puppies, the fried breaded cornballs that are a staple at Long John Silvers in the US, there were seafood crackers, like the kind served in Thai restaurants. And the salad was not coleslaw but a mixture of lettuce and pineapple, with red cabbage shavings and a fruity dressing.
The main courses, however, were basically the same, and left much to be desired. The fish, a perfect trapezoid was definitely processed. That's no surprise, but the meat was dense and overly breaded. The shrimp looked real - they had tails - but you never know. The meal left a distinctly dry, peppery aftertaste.
To be sure, this was a fast-food restaurant, where speed, uniformity and cheap ingredients are more important than taste. But a Long John Silver's meal costs around NT$180 with a side order of french fries. This isn't much cheaper than JB's, Bongo's, On Tap or any of the other Western pubs and restaurants that serve much better fare. Even accounting for the concessions made to suit the Taiwanese palette, the quality of the food had declined considerably since the last time I ate at a Long John Silver's, which was just before the chain was bought and reorganized by Yum! Brands, the company that owns Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC.
Long John Silver's used to be a better alternative to McDonald's. Now it's only attraction is that it is an alternative to McDonald's.
Taiwan has next to no political engagement in Myanmar, either with the ruling military junta nor the dozens of armed groups who’ve in the last five years taken over around two-thirds of the nation’s territory in a sprawling, patchwork civil war. But early last month, the leader of one relatively minor Burmese revolutionary faction, General Nerdah Bomya, who is also an alleged war criminal, made a low key visit to Taipei, where he met with a member of President William Lai’s (賴清德) staff, a retired Taiwanese military official and several academics. “I feel like Taiwan is a good example of
March 2 to March 8 Gunfire rang out along the shore of the frontline island of Lieyu (烈嶼) on a foggy afternoon on March 7, 1987. By the time it was over, about 20 unarmed Vietnamese refugees — men, women, elderly and children — were dead. They were hastily buried, followed by decades of silence. Months later, opposition politicians and journalists tried to uncover what had happened, but conflicting accounts only deepened the confusion. One version suggested that government troops had mistakenly killed their own operatives attempting to return home from Vietnam. The military maintained that the
Before the last section of the round-the-island railway was electrified, one old blue train still chugged back and forth between Pingtung County’s Fangliao (枋寮) and Taitung (台東) stations once a day. It was so slow, was so hot (it had no air conditioning) and covered such a short distance, that the low fare still failed to attract many riders. This relic of the past was finally retired when the South Link Line was fully electrified on Dec. 23, 2020. A wave of nostalgia surrounded the termination of the Ordinary Train service, as these train carriages had been in use for decades
Lori Sepich smoked for years and sometimes skipped taking her blood pressure medicine. But she never thought she’d have a heart attack. The possibility “just wasn’t registering with me,” said the 64-year-old from Memphis, Tennessee, who suffered two of them 13 years apart. She’s far from alone. More than 60 million women in the US live with cardiovascular disease, which includes heart disease as well as stroke, heart failure and atrial fibrillation. And despite the myth that heart attacks mostly strike men, women are vulnerable too. Overall in the US, 1 in 5 women dies of cardiovascular disease each year, 37,000 of them
RSS