I’ve wandered past Mr Onion’s Zhongshan (中山) location several times and have always wondered about the groups of people mingling out front. The family restaurant must be doing something right, I thought. Intrigued, I decided to give it a try. Curiosity, however, soon turned into perplexity.
The eatery follows the popular Taipei tradition of set meals. Patrons choose an entree of chicken, beef, pasta or fish at the front of the menu and then flip towards the back where they choose a salad, appetizer, soup, dessert and drink. There is nothing wrong with this kind of operation, if it is done right. The Palace, for example, does a more than adequate job of serving homemade fare that is fresh and good value.
Mr Onion’s interior is perhaps one reason for its popularity. The stained glass and candelabra chandeliers hanging from the ceiling cast an ambient glow over heavy wooden tables covered with floral-patterned tablecloths in earthy tones. Wainscoting on the wheat-colored walls and wooden laminate flooring round out the feeling that one is dining somewhere in 19th-century rural America rather central Taipei.
I ordered the grilled New York steak (NT$600), which came with two slices of abalone, a salad, appetizer (from a list of six), soup (from a list of five), dessert (from a list of nine) and drink.
The garden salad of iceberg lettuce, cherry tomatoes and yellow pepper was fresh but the lemony dressing came with too much Parmesan cheese. Much less could have been used — the surplus would have come in handy to enliven the escargot that came next. Served with a slice of bread dripping with garlic butter, the rubbery snails were buried under a dollop of blackened coagulated butter
and garlic. I left half of them on the plate.
While I was wondering if I was going to leave the restaurant hungry, the seafood soup arrived. One of the meal’s two highlights, it came loaded with clams, crab, prawn and cuttlefish, and the light tomato broth allowed the individual flavors of the seafood to shine through. As with the escargot, however, the rubbery texture of the seafood suggested it came from a packet.
After going through the appetizers, my expectation of receiving a steak of even mediocre quality had largely vanished. But I was surprised. The 7oz slab was grilled to my specifications — medium rare — and free of gristle. But avoid the pepper sauce. It tasted like the packaged variety that you can buy at any supermarket.
Fortunately, I only added a little sauce on the side so it didn’t interfere too much
with the robust flavor of the
juicy meat.
The chocolate brownie,
like the escargot, was
basically an afterthought that I
barely touched.
At NT$600, Mr Onion
certainly wasn’t worth what I paid — especially considering that Palace offers considerably better fare at two-thirds the price.
Mr Onion has four other locations throughout Taipei, which can be found at
www.cafeonion.com.tw.
Next week, candidates will officially register to run for chair of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). By the end of Friday, we will know who has registered for the Oct. 18 election. The number of declared candidates has been fluctuating daily. Some candidates registering may be disqualified, so the final list may be in flux for weeks. The list of likely candidates ranges from deep blue to deeper blue to deepest blue, bordering on red (pro-Chinese Communist Party, CCP). Unless current Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) can be convinced to run for re-election, the party looks likely to shift towards more hardline
Sept. 15 to Sept. 21 A Bhutanese princess caught at Taoyuan Airport with 22 rhino horns — worth about NT$31 million today — might have been just another curious front-page story. But the Sept. 17, 1993 incident came at a sensitive moment. Taiwan, dubbed “Die-wan” by the British conservationist group Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), was under international fire for being a major hub for rhino horn. Just 10 days earlier, US secretary of the interior Bruce Babbitt had recommended sanctions against Taiwan for its “failure to end its participation in rhinoceros horn trade.” Even though Taiwan had restricted imports since 1985 and enacted
Enter the Dragon 13 will bring Taiwan’s first taste of Dirty Boxing Sunday at Taipei Gymnasium, one highlight of a mixed-rules card blending new formats with traditional MMA. The undercard starts at 10:30am, with the main card beginning at 4pm. Tickets are NT$1,200. Dirty Boxing is a US-born ruleset popularized by fighters Mike Perry and Jon Jones as an alternative to boxing. The format has gained traction overseas, with its inaugural championship streamed free to millions on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Taiwan’s version allows punches and elbows with clinch striking, but bans kicks, knees and takedowns. The rules are stricter than the
“Far from being a rock or island … it turns out that the best metaphor to describe the human body is ‘sponge.’ We’re permeable,” write Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie in their book Slow Death By Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things. While the permeability of our cells is key to being alive, it also means we absorb more potentially harmful substances than we realize. Studies have found a number of chemical residues in human breast milk, urine and water systems. Many of them are endocrine disruptors, which can interfere with the body’s natural hormones. “They can mimic, block
RSS