Forget New York, Taipei is the city that never sleeps. But it can be a challenge to find any kind of Chinese cuisine at a sit-down restaurant after 8:30pm. The dim sum at Citystar 24HR HK Style Restaurant (京星港式飲茶) on Zhongxiao East Road and its affiliates across the city, Luckstar and Naturestar, offer an alternative to night markets for people with offbeat feeding schedules.
Citystar’s offerings won’t exactly make your taste buds quaver in awe, but the restaurant’s selection, which covers two menus, is huge, and the prices are reasonable. We ordered pork and shrimp dumplings with fish roe (魚子燒賣星, NT$85), poached whole prawns (白灼生中蝦, NT$300), Szechuan stir-fried chicken (川椒爆雞球, NT$260), steamed shrimp wrapped in rice noodles (鮮蝦仁腸粉, NT$110) and mantou filled with sweet sesame paste (流沙麻茸包, NT$90).
Out of our two selections that had been made or flavored with shrimp, the pork and shrimp dumplings were, interestingly enough, the shrimpiest in taste. The pork’s own flavor was barely evident, which wasn’t a bad thing. Meanwhile, the number of whole shrimp in the rice noodles was a pleasant surprise — each bite that we took of the tender white sheets of pasta had a plump crustacean or two waiting in it, which made the NT$110 price seem extremely reasonable.
The poached whole prawns and Szechuan stir-fried chicken were both selected from Citystar’s second menu, which lists roast meats, casseroles and other non-dim sum dishes. The Chinese name for the chicken literally translates as “Szechuan pepper exploding chicken balls,” but it was a complete misnomer, as the chicken was neither shaped into balls nor exploding with peppery flavor. The meat was liberally coated in brown sauce, but despite the presence of four or five pieces of chopped chili pepper, the dish was not spicy at all. The poached whole prawns, however, were cooked just right: the heads were still filled with juicy prawn goodness, which was a delight to suck out. On the other hand, the NT$300 price seemed excessive for the portion that we got, especially considering how inexpensive other seafood dishes on Citystar’s menu are.
Our favorite dish was the delicious mantou stuffed with luxuriously gooey sesame paste. The mantou was soft and warm, a perfect contrast to the very sweet, nutty, golden sesame filling inside. I was dreaming of the mantou for hours afterwards and it would have made a wonderful end to our meal, but we also decided to order a mango pudding (香芒果布丁, NT$85), the traditional dim sum dessert. The custard-like pudding was liberally drizzled in condensed milk, which drowned most of whatever mango flavor there was. The dessert’s blandness, however, meant that it worked well as a palate cleanser after our shrimp and prawns.
China’s military launched a record number of warplane incursions around Taiwan last year as it builds its ability to launch full-scale invasion, something a former chief of Taiwan’s armed forces said Beijing could be capable of within a decade. Analysts said China’s relentless harassment had taken a toll on Taiwan’s resources, but had failed to convince them to capitulate, largely because the threat of invasion was still an empty one, for now. Xi Jinping’s (習近平) determination to annex Taiwan under what the president terms “reunification” is no secret. He has publicly and stridently promised to bring it under Communist party (CCP) control,
In Taiwan’s politics the party chair is an extremely influential position. Typically this person is the presumed presidential candidate or serving president. In the last presidential election, two of the three candidates were also leaders of their party. Only one party chair race had been planned for this year, but with the Jan. 1 resignation by the currently indicted Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) two parties are now in play. If a challenger to acting Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) appears we will examine that race in more depth. Currently their election is set for Feb. 15. EXTREMELY
They increasingly own everything from access to space to how we get news on Earth and now outgoing President Joe Biden warns America’s new breed of Donald Trump-allied oligarchs could gobble up US democracy itself. Biden used his farewell speech to the nation to deliver a shockingly dark message: that a nation which has always revered its entrepreneurs may now be at their mercy. “An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms,” Biden said. He named no names, but his targets were clear: men like Elon Musk
On Sept. 27 last year, three climate activists were arrested for throwing soup over Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh at London’s National Gallery. The Just Stop Oil protest landed on international front pages. But will the action help further the activists’ cause to end fossil fuels? Scientists are beginning to find answers to this question. The number of protests more than tripled between 2006 and 2020 and researchers are working out which tactics are most likely to change public opinion, influence voting behavior, change policy or even overthrow political regimes. “We are experiencing the largest wave of protests in documented history,” says
RSS