A distinctive feature of Taiwan’s culinary landscape, the rechao (熱炒, literally “hot-fry”) joint is a perennial favorite with its fresh seafood, bargain prices and unpretentious atmosphere. I usually avoid such places, however, for several reasons, not least of which are the sometimes dirty surroundings, questionable hygiene standards, and inebriated men playing drinking games at a deafening volume while smoking like chimneys.
Located in the heart of Taipei’s East District (東區), Xanadu (鮮納肚) has restored my faith in rechao restaurants. Though boasting the typical trappings, including beer girls, it is an updated and much tidier version.
The interior is orderly and brightly lit; the utensils look clean. There is no fishy smell and smoking is not allowed until 9pm at the earliest, according to the restaurant’s very sociable proprietor.
Photo: Ho Yi, Taipei Times
Many of Xanadu’s dishes are made from offal. Popular dishes include sauteed pork liver (香煎豬肝, NT$100), which is delectably tender and doesn’t leave a metallic taste in the mouth like other restaurants’ versions do.
The extensive seafood menu includes sashimi platters of salmon, tuna, swordfish and squid that cost between NT$100 and NT$190 per dish.
The dragon balls (鹹酥龍珠, NT$150), or octopus mouths fried with scallion, chili and peanuts, come recommended, though they could be habit-forming.
Photo: Ho Yi, Taipei Times
Xanadu’s shuizhu pork slices (水煮肉片), boiled strips of pork and vegetables served with oil and spices, is a localized version of a Sichuan specialty. By localized, I mean the dish lacks the numbing quality of the Sichuan peppercorn. The dish comes in three sizes, with the smallest (NT$300) enough for a group of three.
The open seafood display offers options that are often not on the menu. Ask the waitstaff for recommendations, but treat the response with a healthy dose of skepticism. On a recent visit, my dining partners and I ordered a crab that cost NT$1,000 on the recommendation of our server. It turned out to be very disappointing.
The primaries for this year’s nine-in-one local elections in November began early in this election cycle, starting last autumn. The local press has been full of tales of intrigue, betrayal, infighting and drama going back to the summer of 2024. This is not widely covered in the English-language press, and the nine-in-one elections are not well understood. The nine-in-one elections refer to the nine levels of local governments that go to the ballot, from the neighborhood and village borough chief level on up to the city mayor and county commissioner level. The main focus is on the 22 special municipality
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) invaded Vietnam in 1979, following a year of increasingly tense relations between the two states. Beijing viewed Vietnam’s close relations with Soviet Russia as a threat. One of the pretexts it used was the alleged mistreatment of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam. Tension between the ethnic Chinese and governments in Vietnam had been ongoing for decades. The French used to play off the Vietnamese against the Chinese as a divide-and-rule strategy. The Saigon government in 1956 compelled all Vietnam-born Chinese to adopt Vietnamese citizenship. It also banned them from 11 trades they had previously
In the 2010s, the Communist Party of China (CCP) began cracking down on Christian churches. Media reports said at the time that various versions of Protestant Christianity were likely the fastest growing religions in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The crackdown was part of a campaign that in turn was part of a larger movement to bring religion under party control. For the Protestant churches, “the government’s aim has been to force all churches into the state-controlled organization,” according to a 2023 article in Christianity Today. That piece was centered on Wang Yi (王怡), the fiery, charismatic pastor of the
Hsu Pu-liao (許不了) never lived to see the premiere of his most successful film, The Clown and the Swan (小丑與天鵝, 1985). The movie, which starred Hsu, the “Taiwanese Charlie Chaplin,” outgrossed Jackie Chan’s Heart of Dragon (龍的心), earning NT$9.2 million at the local box office. Forty years after its premiere, the film has become the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute’s (TFAI) 100th restoration. “It is the only one of Hsu’s films whose original negative survived,” says director Kevin Chu (朱延平), one of Taiwan’s most commercially successful
RSS