Taipei is thick with hot pot establishments. The range in price and quality is enormous, from the generic NT$299 all-you-can-eat joints with their long lines of students and families, to places that boast unique blends of hot pot stock and top-of-the-range ingredients.
Taihodien Restaurant (太和殿) is one of the latter. The establishment boasts that it hasn’t closed for a single day since opening in 1994, and its commitment to creating a memorable hot pot experience has made it a favorite with visiting Hong Kong celebrities.
The restaurant is easy to miss, especially with the MRT construction work taking place along Xinyi Road. There is nothing about the facade that makes it stand out, except perhaps the black-clad waitress standing at the door busily checking bookings. Some customers are taken to the main dining area, while others are led down an alley to the two additional areas in the next block. The interiors are similar, with a predominantly red and black color scheme, muted by clouds of steam. While there are tables for two or four, large tables predominate, and given that the restaurant is usually crowded, the noise level is high. Service has a no-nonsense efficiency: Orders are taken and delivered rapidly and the hot pots are topped up without the need to call for assistance.
Photo: Ian Bartholomew, Taipei Times
Taihodien has built a reputation on the flavor of its chili broth and high-quality ingredients. A pot of chili broth is NT$300, with an additional NT$70 per person. The broth includes an unlimited supply of duck blood jelly (a particular highlight for connoisseurs of this delicacy) and melt-in-the-mouth stewed tofu. The broth itself, which is a dark, lustrous red, focuses more on richness of flavor than on a powerful chili hit, and with some care a “medium hot” (中辣) pot can be enjoyed even by those not usually partial to spicy food. That said, if you ask for a “very hot” (大辣) broth, you’ll get exactly what you ordered. A white broth is also available for those who don’t want anything to do with the spicy broth. A pot that has half chili broth and half white broth (鴛鴦鍋) is NT$350, and this is a popular option that allows diners to fine tune the flavor.
The range of ingredients for the pot is relatively small, but also quite select. Three qualities of beef are available, ranging from prime beef (霜降牛肉) at NT$600 a plate, short rib (特級肥牛) for NT$500 a plate and regular beef at NT$280. Although the regular beef is served in frozen shavings (the two prime varieties are chilled, not frozen) similar to those at cheaper establishments, the meat is well marbled. It can be recommended for those who like a more pronounced meat flavor and more robust texture; the prime cuts offer more nuanced flavors. Two qualities of pork, distinguished by fat content (NT$300 and NT$250, the fattier meat being the more expensive), as well as lamb and a variety of well-prepared offal are also available (the ox tongue at NT$300 is notable for its delicate flavor).
Seafood ranges from Japanese Hokkaido crab claw (NT$1,000) to fish fillets (NT$200) and fish dumplings (NT$100). While there are many premium options, the cheap dishes can be as exciting as the pricier ones. A particular favorite are the dough sticks (老油條, NT$60) — deep-fried dough that has been allowed to dry out — which are ideal for dunking in the chili broth. Animated discussions about the best time to remove the sticks are a common occurrence, with some people preferring to allow the dough to soak through until soft, while others favor maintaining varying levels of crunch. But the enjoyment of this dish is ultimately down to the quality of the broth, which although rich and spicy, does not contain quick and easy flavorings such as shacha barbecue sauce (沙茶醬) or soy, which tend to make less laboriously prepared broth cloying.
While not a particularly cheap hot pot option, Taihodien is equally enjoyable for a couple (one plate of premium meat and a few other dishes easily meets the minimum table charge of NT$1,000) or for a large group, and its hours (open until 3am) and boisterous atmosphere make it ideal for late night revelers.
The canonical shot of an East Asian city is a night skyline studded with towering apartment and office buildings, bright with neon and plastic signage, a landscape of energy and modernity. Another classic image is the same city seen from above, in which identical apartment towers march across the city, spilling out over nearby geography, like stylized soldiers colonizing new territory in a board game. Densely populated dynamic conurbations of money, technological innovation and convenience, it is hard to see the cities of East Asia as what they truly are: necropolises. Why is this? The East Asian development model, with
June 16 to June 22 The following flyer appeared on the streets of Hsinchu on June 12, 1895: “Taipei has already fallen to the Japanese barbarians, who have brought great misery to our land and people. We heard that the Japanese occupiers will tax our gardens, our houses, our bodies, and even our chickens, dogs, cows and pigs. They wear their hair wild, carve their teeth, tattoo their foreheads, wear strange clothes and speak a strange language. How can we be ruled by such people?” Posted by civilian militia leader Wu Tang-hsing (吳湯興), it was a call to arms to retake
This is a deeply unsettling period in Taiwan. Uncertainties are everywhere while everyone waits for a small army of other shoes to drop on nearly every front. During challenging times, interesting political changes can happen, yet all three major political parties are beset with scandals, strife and self-inflicted wounds. As the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is held accountable for not only the challenges to the party, but also the nation. Taiwan is geopolitically and economically under threat. Domestically, the administration is under siege by the opposition-controlled legislature and growing discontent with what opponents characterize as arrogant, autocratic
When Lisa, 20, laces into her ultra-high heels for her shift at a strip club in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, she knows that aside from dancing, she will have to comfort traumatized soldiers. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, exhausted troops are the main clientele of the Flash Dancers club in the center of the northeastern city, just 20 kilometers from Russian forces. For some customers, it provides an “escape” from the war, said Valerya Zavatska — a 25-year-old law graduate who runs the club with her mother, an ex-dancer. But many are not there just for the show. They “want to talk about what hurts,” she
RSS