It is surprisingly difficult to get really good Cantonese food in Taipei, and the Grand Formosa Regent is attempting to step into the breach with the creation of its new Silks House (晶華軒) restaurant, which opened last month. It's taking over the premises of the Lan Ting (蘭亭) Shanghainese restaurant with very little modification to Hashimoto Yukie's calligraphy-inspired decor. The food, on the other hand, has made a considerable transition under the guidance of chef Wu Hong-chen (伍洪成), who's gained an international reputation as the chef of presidents, having been for many years the executive chef of choice to preside over state banquets.
One of Silks House's main attractions is the "dim sum" menu, those delightful Cantonese snacks most often served in a steaming basket and designed to be eaten with tea. These snacks can be coupled with one or two main dishes to make a meal that does not break the bank. For more lavish dinning, Silks House is not short of spectacular banquet dishes, either. Wu is renowned for his research into Cantonese cuisine's classic dishes and has added a number of rarely seen specialties to the menu.
Silks offers a wide range of high-quality teas priced between NT$60 and NT$120 per person, from the usual jasmine and pu'er to exotic, high-end brews for connoisseurs. The snacks, which range in price from NT$90 chicken's feet, in this instance jazzed up with XO sauce, to NT$280 for baked egg tarts with bird's nest (燕窩烤蛋塔). Silks has made a concerted effort to make its snacks exotic with the addition of high-priced ingredients, and while this works in some cases - the pan-fried turnip cake with dried scallop (瑤柱蘿蔔糕, NT$100) is refreshingly light and the scallops give it a really surprising taste - in other cases, as with the egg tarts, the benefits were negligible.
PHOTO COURTESY OF GRAND FORMOSA REGENT
Main dishes start at around NT$400 and feature a mixture of traditional favorites excellently made, such as stir-fried grouper with yellow chives (韭黃炒龍膽魚球, NT$480), to variations of tradition such as the roast duck Grand Formosa style (晶華片皮鴨, NT$2,000), which is sliced at table, served with unique oat pancakes, wrapped with an unusual mixture of sweet peppers and young ginger, and includes a soup made from the bones of the duck.
There is more than enough variety to keep even the most ardent foodie busy. The Silks brand will also be expanding, with the new Silks Palace scheduled to open in the grounds of the National Palace Museum mid-May.
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
Even by the standards of Ukraine’s International Legion, which comprises volunteers from over 55 countries, Han has an unusual backstory. Born in Taichung, he grew up in Costa Rica — then one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — where a relative worked for the embassy. After attending an American international high school in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, Han — who prefers to use only his given name for OPSEC (operations security) reasons — moved to the US in his teens. He attended Penn State University before returning to Taiwan to work in the semiconductor industry in Kaohsiung, where he
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
Perched on Thailand’s border with Myanmar, Arunothai is a dusty crossroads town, a nowheresville that could be the setting of some Southeast Asian spaghetti Western. Its main street is the final, dead-end section of the two-lane highway from Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city 120kms south, and the heart of the kingdom’s mountainous north. At the town boundary, a Chinese-style arch capped with dragons also bears Thai script declaring fealty to Bangkok’s royal family: “Long live the King!” Further on, Chinese lanterns line the main street, and on the hillsides, courtyard homes sit among warrens of narrow, winding alleyways and
RSS