Put your bibs on because there are no plates at The Shrimp Daddy — and things can get pretty messy. The recently opened bayou-style seafood restaurant offers an appealing US Deep South dining experience.
The Shrimp Daddy’s decor is clean and minimal — similar to the rustic vibe of many traditional Taiwanese seafood restaurants. Concrete floors complement white walls, and there is a stack of wooden seafood crates in one corner that will eventually adorn one of them. An oversized chalkboard displays specials along another. The tables are topped with Napkin dispensers and paper tablecloths. You don’t need much more, except an accessible sink, located at the back, since you are encouraged to eat with your hands. Plastic gloves are available if you’re worried about your manicure.
Appetizers, most of which are fried, come delivered in brightly-colored plastic baskets lined with paper. The fish (NT$250), soft-shell crab (NT$290) and fried oysters (NT$290) were particularly memorable because of the different batters, and the dipping sauces that accompanied them: basil, kaffir, and lime aioli, honey wasabi, Sriracha aioli and more. The animal-shaped fries (NT$160) came topped with large portions of caramelized onions, cheese sauce, gravy and big chunks of soft and succulent pork belly. They tasted out of this world.
Photo: Olivia Wycech
The gumbo (NT$180) is a must, but if go on a day when lobster bisque (NT$180) is on special, then opt for this rich and creamy soup. There are wings, too, and they come either in a spicy sauce or a miso/honey/togarashi blend and then sprinkled with bonito flakes (NT$230).
The heart of the meal was the southern boil (NT$1380 to NT$7088). We ordered the lobster, which was large, meaty and moist. The waiter arrived with a steaming bag of shellfish and we went to work. It’s a hands-on approach to digging, cracking, peeling and then eating a melange of crustaceans and shellfish, as well as chunks of corn on the cob, sausages and potatoes.
There are other options besides lobster to base your boil on, like Alaskan king crab or Vannamei shrimp. You can also choose your seasoning. We went with the “daddy’s shebang.” It was a little bit buttery, a little bit garlicky, with lots of Cajun zing — big clumps of creole-style herbs were studded throughout. We went easy on the spiciness, so there was almost zero firepower. I wouldn’t hesitate to try the medium or even spicy.
Photo: Olivia Wycech
One small quibble was that it lacked the kind of citrus punch I like, a problem solved with the addition of fresh lemon wedges.
I highly recommend The Shrimp Daddy to anyone except those who might have a corporate meeting afterwards. You leave smelling like the south — and very full. If you still have room, however, there is a limited selection of desserts. The Shrimp Daddy, whose mantra playfully reads Who’s YOUR Daddy, is just as much about the food as it is about the experience, and it wins on both counts.
Photo: Olivia Wycech
Photo: Olivia Wycech
June 2 to June 8 Taiwan’s woodcutters believe that if they see even one speck of red in their cooked rice, no matter how small, an accident is going to happen. Peng Chin-tian (彭錦田) swears that this has proven to be true at every stop during his decades-long career in the logging industry. Along with mining, timber harvesting was once considered the most dangerous profession in Taiwan. Not only were mishaps common during all stages of processing, it was difficult to transport the injured to get medical treatment. Many died during the arduous journey. Peng recounts some of his accidents in
What does the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in the Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) era stand for? What sets it apart from their allies, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)? With some shifts in tone and emphasis, the KMT’s stances have not changed significantly since the late 2000s and the era of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) current platform formed in the mid-2010s under the guidance of Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and current President William Lai (賴清德) campaigned on continuity. Though their ideological stances may be a bit stale, they have the advantage of being broadly understood by the voters.
Artifacts found at archeological sites in France and Spain along the Bay of Biscay shoreline show that humans have been crafting tools from whale bones since more than 20,000 years ago, illustrating anew the resourcefulness of prehistoric people. The tools, primarily hunting implements such as projectile points, were fashioned from the bones of at least five species of large whales, the researchers said. Bones from sperm whales were the most abundant, followed by fin whales, gray whales, right or bowhead whales — two species indistinguishable with the analytical method used in the study — and blue whales. With seafaring capabilities by humans
In a high-rise office building in Taipei’s government district, the primary agency for maintaining links to Thailand’s 108 Yunnan villages — which are home to a population of around 200,000 descendants of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) armies stranded in Thailand following the Chinese Civil War — is the Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC). Established in China in 1926, the OCAC was born of a mandate to support Chinese education, culture and economic development in far flung Chinese diaspora communities, which, especially in southeast Asia, had underwritten the military insurgencies against the Qing Dynasty that led to the founding of
RSS