An intense smell evoking a dark, musty Chinese apothecary hits patrons immediately upon entering Full Green, an organic hot pot restaurant that serves medicinal herbs as well as meat and seafood.
But inside, the dining room is well-lit and filled with blonde wood furnishings and the pleasant, mild din of chatter from diners. Full Green serves organic medicinal plants grown in the Yuan Sen Applied Botanical Garden in Taitung (台東原生應用植物園). The restaurant promotes the Slow Food culture and an ecologically sound lifestyle through its signature hot pot of herbs, each possessing specific medicinal properties.
On my first visit I ordered the surf and turf set meal hot pot (海陸鍋, NT$550), which includes a choice of meat — I chose beef — and a seafood platter.
The large bowl of raw medicinal herbs was served first. It included centella asiatica (雷公根) a mildly anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and anti-viral leaf that herbalists believe promotes youthfulness, angelica keiskei (明日葉) a plant that contains a powerful antioxidant, and cinnamomum osmophloeum (土肉桂), a medicinal herb native to Taiwan. The leaves were each a different shade of emerald and I felt healthier just looking at them.
The placemat advises diners to first cook the medicinal herbs and then drink the soup to absorb as much of the nutrients as possible before moving on to cooking the meat and seafood.
There are photos of each herb and a detailed description of their tastes and nutritional values. However, the pictures are thumb-sized and it is difficult to match an herb with its corresponding description.
A fern-like leaf that vaguely resembled the blurry photo of Japanese prickly-ash (紅刺葱) tasted like a quality shiitake mushroom, but was slippery and slightly chewy.
The herbs on their own do not make for the most exciting gastronomic experience. So on my next visit I decided to ignore the restaurant’s instructions. I first cooked all the other ingredients to flavor the soup, and popped in the herbs last.
The squash and mushrooms that come with the set meal went into the pot first, as they take longer to cook. The frozen beef slices went next, cooked in seconds and paired well with the salty-sweet toon dipping sauce.
The it was the seafood platter, which includes a small basket of baby oysters, two prawns, and a handful of scallops and fish slices, all fresh and plump.
Finally the herbs. The taste of the different herbs — sometimes bitter, sometimes tart, sometimes woodsy — foiled the soup, which had absorbed the flavors of meat, seafood and vegetables. With a dash of dipping sauce and a drop of chili oil, the medicinal herbs made a veritable feast.
War in the Taiwan Strait is currently a sexy topic, but it is not the only potential Chinese target. Taking the Russian Far East would alleviate or even solve a lot of China’s problems, including critical dependencies on fuel, key minerals, food, and most crucially, water. In a previous column (“Targeting Russian Asia,” Dec. 28, 2024, page 12) I noted that having following this topic for years, I consistently came to this conclusion: “It would simply be easier to buy what they need from the Russians, who also are nuclear-armed and useful partners in helping destabilize the American-led world order.
Last Thursday, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) detected 41 sorties of Chinese aircraft and nine navy vessels around Taiwan over a 24-hour period. “Thirty out of 41 sorties crossed the median line and entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern ADIZ (air defense identification zones),” it reported. Local media noted that the exercises coincided with the annual Han Kuang military exercises in Taiwan. During the visit of then-US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in August 2022, the largest number of sorties was on Aug. 5, “involving a total of 47 fighter aircraft and two supporting reconnaissance/patrol aircraft.
July 7 to July 13 Even though the Japanese colonizers declared Taiwan “pacified” on Nov. 18, 1895, unrest was still brewing in Pingtung County. The Japanese had completed their march of conquest down the west coast of Taiwan, stamping out local resistance. But in their haste to conquer the Republic of Formosa’s last stronghold of Tainan, they largely ignored the highly-militarized Liudui (六堆, six garrisons) Hakka living by the foothills in Kaohsiung and Pingtung. They were organized as their name suggested, and commanders such as Chiu Feng-hsiang (邱鳳祥) and Chung Fa-chun (鍾發春) still wanted to fight. Clashes broke out in today’s
Xu Pengcheng looks over his shoulder and, after confirming the coast is clear, helps his crew of urban adventurers climb through the broken window of an abandoned building. Long popular in the West, urban exploration, or “urbex” for short, sees city-dwelling thrill-seekers explore dilapidated, closed-off buildings and areas — often skirting the law in the process. And it is growing in popularity in China, where a years-long property sector crisis has left many cities dotted with empty buildings. Xu, a 29-year-old tech worker from the eastern city of Qingdao, has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers for his photos of rundown schools and
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