VIEW THIS PAGE It’s noon in Taipei, 5am in Paris and midnight in New York as I take my seat in economy class. The seatbelt and no smoking lights have been switched on and the monitor on the wall shows a plane taking off. A “stewardess” comes over to take my order.
Taipei has seen its fair share of theme restaurants over the years. The Jail (惡魔島) shackled diners with handcuffs and crossed the limits of cultural sensitivity by hanging photos of Nazi concentration camps on its prison-like walls. DS Music Restaurant played on a hospital theme, complete with IV drips for drinks, wait staff dressed as nurses and hospital beds for tables.
A380 In-Flight Kitchen is named after the largest passenger airliner in the world. The restaurant looks and functions much like the Airbus it’s named after — though it only has one floor. “Passengers” sit in “first class,” “business class,” or, like this flyer, “economy class.” I was assigned seat 10A. Large comfortable blue chairs with headrests covered with white headrest covers emblazoned with the “airline’s” logo ensure optimum comfort for those long-haul meals. Stewardesses are dressed neatly in uniforms and dash back and forth with trays of “airplane food” or beverages on metal trolleys. A line of oval-shaped windows run along one side and look out onto a white “sky.”
The a la carte and set menus include foie gras filet mignon, vanilla lamb, dory and German pig knuckle (NT$480 for the set menu, NT$420 for a la carte), as well as chicken and pasta. There is also chicken spaghetti (NT$220) and stewed beef in red wine (NT$220) — both set meals and served in the same plastic trays found on airplanes. I went with the grilled US steak set menu (NT$480 set menu, NT$420 a la carte).
The iceberg lettuce salad came with some withered sprouts, chunks of moistureless cucumbers and an out-of-place wedge of sliced boiled ham. The miso dressing didn’t do much to enliven this salad, half of which I left in the bowl. The corn chowder soup wasn’t much of an improvement. It was tasteless and seemed to have come from a packet.
The steak was adequate and came with a dollop of mashed potatoes, a few green beans and baby corn. Cooked to my specifications — medium rare — it was served with a gravy-like sauce, the only purpose of which, aside from complementing the mashed potatoes, was to hide the generous marbling (dare I say gristle) of the beef. Dessert — coffee and sponge cake — was as memorable as the appetizer.
Although the decor is creative and the service prompt, the food will certainly not make me a “frequent flyer” in this mid-range family restaurant.VIEW THIS PAGE
Rachid Hami didn’t think he’d have one more chance to bring his younger brother back to life. Especially in Taiwan, where Jallal, who died during an initiation ritual at France’s prestigious Saint-Cyr Military Academy, spent a brief part of his life as a National Taiwan University student. The Algerian-French director’s feature film For My Country, which is based on the tragedy, was partially shot in Taiwan and made its Asia premiere at the Golden Horse Film Festival last week. But through the new Taiwan Pitch initiative, he was able to further explore his brother’s journey by creating Aissa (Jallal’s fictional name),
Surrounding Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) there are a multitude of activities suitable for all the family that can be enjoyed on a day or weekend trip. On a recent visit, I hiked to a peak, rode a ferry across its emerald waters and a visited a pagoda with outstanding views. Located in Nantou County’s Yuchi Township (魚池) at 748m above sea level, Sun Moon Lake it is an excellent destination in summer or winter with a year-round moderate temperature. The lake is the largest body of water in Taiwan with a circumference of 27 kilometers. The east side of the
Nov. 28 to Dec. 4 Samuel Noordhoff was in the final year of his medical residency when his colleague showed him a life-changing letter from a faraway land. Clarence Holleman, then-director of Taipei’s Mackay Memorial Hospital, was looking for a medical missionary to join him in Taiwan. Although Samuel and his wife Lucy were devout Christians, they never considered overseas mission work, writes Liang Yu-fang (梁玉芳) in Noordhoff’s 2000 biography. The family had been living frugally for years as Noordhoff completed his training, and was looking forward to a more comfortable life. Holleman was already
After Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895 the government of Japan, always interested in proposals to increase its economic independence, began exploring the possibility of growing tropical drug plants on Taiwan. The leader in such experiments was Hoshi pharmaceuticals, founded in the second decade of the 20th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, Hoshi was a leader in cinchona cultivation in Taiwan, and of cocaine, then used as an anesthetic. TAIWAN’S COCAINE PRODUCTION Hoshi’s cocaine production grew quite large, and after better anesthetics were invented in the 1920s, Japan’s problem became disposing of all its production. Taiwan’s production was particularly useful. The
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