Feng Ya-min (馮亞敏) has an impressive track record in bringing high-end international labels to Taiwan; her highest profile success was the Camper label, which has shed its fashionista cachet and entered the high street.
She is also behind the outlet for hip Japanese designer Jun Takahashi, who is anything but mainstream.
Takahashi's Taipei Undercover outlet, just off Civil Boulevard, reflects counter-cultural fashion credentials while remaining accessible. The showroom includes an idiosyncratic noodle bar/lounge that combines seemingly incompatible elements in a memorable dining experience.
PHOTO: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
The eccentricity begins at the door, literally. The whole space, showroom and lounge, is paneled with old doors, some painted, some stripped, some sporting old clothes hooks. The effect is something like stepping into a scene from Alice in Wonderland, which is enhanced by black chandeliers, black turn-of-the century Shanghai furnishings, a bar made from old railway sleepers and the wafting aroma of high-quality scented candles.
The food menu is small: six noodle dishes and one rice side dish. These have been designed for TaipeiUC by DinTaiFung (鼎泰豐), Taipei's world-famous noodle and dumpling chain. Served on an 2.5cm-thick slab of black wood and with black crockery, the presentation has a Takahashi feel about it. The noodle dishes are simple, right out of the night market, but here a bowl of noodles with pickled mustard will set you back NT$160. In a set menu, with a drink (fruit cocktails designed by the trendy Barcode) and a dessert, the price is NT$320. A small bowl of beef noodles is NT$280 (NT$480 for a set). A little pricey, but TaipeiUC does deliver. The broth of both the above dishes is rich without being overpowering, and the beef noodles had two generous chunks of impeccably cooked beef tendon, cut so you got both gelatinous and crisp textures, as well as two tender pieces of meat. A side dish of lightly blanched asparagus was sweet and crunchy.
The fruit cocktails, with names taken from Takahashi's fashion collection, are unusual mixtures of fruit, each one freshly made when ordered. The signature Guru Guru, a blend of cranberry, kiwi and lime, available as a still or sparkling drink, is startlingly unusual, and almost worth the NT$160 charged for it. A small selection of alcoholic drinks is available, but TaipeiUC's focus is primarily on its juice cocktails and organic teas (NT$180 to NT$220). Service is casual yet efficient, and customers are given plenty of space to take in the ambiance.
The unexpected collapse of the recall campaigns is being viewed through many lenses, most of them skewed and self-absorbed. The international media unsurprisingly focuses on what they perceive as the message that Taiwanese voters were sending in the failure of the mass recall, especially to China, the US and to friendly Western nations. This made some sense prior to early last month. One of the main arguments used by recall campaigners for recalling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers was that they were too pro-China, and by extension not to be trusted with defending the nation. Also by extension, that argument could be
Aug. 4 to Aug. 10 When Coca-Cola finally pushed its way into Taiwan’s market in 1968, it allegedly vowed to wipe out its major domestic rival Hey Song within five years. But Hey Song, which began as a manual operation in a family cow shed in 1925, had proven its resilience, surviving numerous setbacks — including the loss of autonomy and nearly all its assets due to the Japanese colonial government’s wartime economic policy. By the 1960s, Hey Song had risen to the top of Taiwan’s beverage industry. This success was driven not only by president Chang Wen-chi’s
Last week, on the heels of the recall election that turned out so badly for Taiwan, came the news that US President Donald Trump had blocked the transit of President William Lai (賴清德) through the US on his way to Latin America. A few days later the international media reported that in June a scheduled visit by Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) for high level meetings was canceled by the US after China’s President Xi Jinping (習近平) asked Trump to curb US engagement with Taiwan during a June phone call. The cancellation of Lai’s transit was a gaudy
The centuries-old fiery Chinese spirit baijiu (白酒), long associated with business dinners, is being reshaped to appeal to younger generations as its makers adapt to changing times. Mostly distilled from sorghum, the clear but pungent liquor contains as much as 60 percent alcohol. It’s the usual choice for toasts of gan bei (乾杯), the Chinese expression for bottoms up, and raucous drinking games. “If you like to drink spirits and you’ve never had baijiu, it’s kind of like eating noodles but you’ve never had spaghetti,” said Jim Boyce, a Canadian writer and wine expert who founded World Baijiu Day a decade
RSS