Longtable, which has recently opened up in a leafy enclave hidden behind the stern office buildings along Songren Road at the eastern fringe of the Xinyi cinema and shopping district, provides something that is in very short supply in Taipei’s cost-conscious restaurant environment, namely a big, comfortable and airy space to eat and chat.
Walking through the door, this spaciousness is the first thing you notice, quickly followed by the warm tones imparted by an interior decorated mostly in natural wood tones. The high ceiling and the long bar are inviting, though on a fine day, the patio seating, looking onto a paved courtyard overhung with trees, is likely to be in high demand.
The ambiance is somewhere between a fashionable cafe and a bistro. This provides a welcome alternative to the predominantly American diner establishments that dominate in this area. The menu, instead of going for burgers and steaks, offers something a little more European. While aiming for a casual dining experience, Longtable also takes some trouble over providing elegance and refinement at the same time.
Photo courtesy of Longtable
According to restaurant proprietor Serdar Gayir, the menu aims to be inclusive, drawing in food from all along the Mediterranean coast. Italian, with a bit of generic European, dominate the menu at the present time, but Gayir said that once the restaurant is on track, he will begin including more exotic choices, including food from North Africa and even his native Turkey. Currently, his home country is represented by a rice pudding (NT$220). This has a luscious creaminess of homemade comfort food with lovely presentation, but lacks a little something to make it really distinctive.
Looking through the menu, one gets the feeling that Longtable wants to make a break from the drab, predictable fast foods that are the mainstay of establishments such as TGI Fridays and Chilis, but also desperately wants to remain family-friendly and inoffensive to even the most timid eater. The fried chicken wings (NT$290), the Caesar salad (NT$360), the spaghetti Bolognese (NT$370) and the grilled sirloin steak (NT$930) are all resolutely international staples, with no clear regional affiliation, and this gives the menu a slightly jejune air.
This is no reflection of the standard of the cooking, which is above average, and a simple dish like the pan-fried salmon fillet (NT$590) was attractive and tasty. The presentation was modern, but the portion generous, and the risotto on which the salmon was served was judged to perfection. The grilled lamb chops (NT$830), also served with risotto, also came in a generous portion, three thick chops very well trimmed, but flavor-wise again playing a little bit too safe for my taste. I regretted the lack of a bit of crispy fat and found the sauce, a tasty, red wine reduction, a bit too dominant, smothering the meaty flavor of the lamb.
Photo: Ian Bartholomew, Taipei Times
Longtable offers a selection of pizzas, and the pepperoni pizza (NT$430) I tried was well topped with a very thin crust dough, which sadly had not been crisped up quite enough.
Longtable aspires to be a place where people can come together to eat and drink at leisure and its solid menu of drinks, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic, are likely to make it a popular gathering place, both for weary office workers and for families on a weekend outing. Gayir said that Longtable is also planning on providing breakfast/brunch through the week, and a comprehensive offering of coffees and teas make it a great place to visit any time of day. For the festive season, Longtable offers a five-course set menu (with coffee or tea) for NT$1,390.
Photo: Ian Bartholomew, Taipei Times
Photo: Ian Bartholomew, Taipei Times
By global standards, the traffic congestion that afflicts Taiwan’s urban areas isn’t horrific. But nor is it something the country can be proud of. According to TomTom, a Dutch developer of location and navigation technologies, last year Taiwan was the sixth most congested country in Asia. Of the 492 towns and cities included in its rankings last year, Taipei was the 74th most congested. Taoyuan ranked 105th, while Hsinchu County (121st), Taichung (142nd), Tainan (173rd), New Taipei City (227th), Kaohsiung (241st) and Keelung (302nd) also featured on the list. Four Japanese cities have slower traffic than Taipei. (Seoul, which has some
Michael slides a sequin glove over the pop star’s tarnished legacy, shrouding Michael Jackson’s complications with a conventional biopic that, if you cover your ears, sounds great. Antoine Fuqua’s movie is sanctioned by Jackson’s estate and its producers include the estate’s executors. So it is, by its nature, a narrow, authorized perspective on Jackson. The film ends before the flood of allegations of sexual abuse of children, or Jackson’s own acknowledgment of sleeping alongside kids. Jackson and his estate have long maintained his innocence. In his only criminal trial, in 2005, Jackson was acquitted. Michael doesn’t even subtly nod to these facts.
Writing of the finds at the ancient iron-working site of Shihsanhang (十 三行) in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), archaeologist Tsang Cheng-hwa (臧振華) of the Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology observes: “One bronze bowl gilded with gold, together with copper coins and fragments of Tang and Song ceramics, were also found. These provide evidence for early contact between Taiwan aborigines and Chinese.” The Shihsanhang Web site from the Ministry of Culture says of the finds: “They were evidence that the residents of the area had a close trading relation with Chinese civilians, as the coins can be
During her 2015 trip to Taiwan, Sophia J. Chang (張詠慧) got fewer answers than she’d hoped for, but more revelations than she could have imagined. “That was the year I last saw my grandmother. She was in hospice care in Tainan, and it was painful to see her in bed, barely able to open her eyes,” says Los Angeles-born Chang. “The grandma I’d known, a fantastic cook and incredibly kind, was already gone.” After their visit, Chang and her grandfather went back to his apartment. There she asked him how he’d met her grandmother. “He hesitated, then started talking a bit.
RSS