London-based Taiwanese chef Chang Er-chen (張爾宬) has had a year to remember. As well as being named one of the coolest female chefs in the British capital by Time Out magazine, her new restaurant, Xu (許儒華苑), has earned rave reviews in the national press, while diners have been lining up around the block to get into her award-winning concept restaurant Bao.
Not bad for someone whose culinary skills are largely self-taught and whose burgeoning group of eateries, set up with, respectively, brother and sister Chung Shing-tat (鍾承達) and Chung Wai-ting (鍾慧婷), began with a pop up selling guabao (Taiwanese pork belly buns, 割包) in a street market.
Chang, who hails from Taipei, arrived in the UK aged 14 to attend boarding school before studying at the Slade School of Fine Art. A trip home with co-chef Shing-tat, who is now her husband, provided the inspiration for their culinary adventure.
Photo courtesy of Chang Er-chen
“After university we went back to Taiwan to travel and fell in love with guabao,” Chang says. “After we came back we began testing bao recipes and started doing pop ups. We just really wanted to bring this amazing Taiwanese food to London and share our love of it.”
The transition from art student to chef was not as drastic as one might think, as the Chungs’ Hong Kong-born parents were restaurateurs in Nottingham in central England.
“Shing and Ting grew up living above their family restaurants. They have always had dreams of owning their own place. I grew up in Taipei in a family where food was an important part of life,” Chang says.
Photo courtesy of Chang Er-chen
Her art studies were put to good use when the trio opened their first stall, and have subsequently played an important part in the design of their more ambitious recent projects.
“When we first started we made everything — from the food, to the stand, to the aprons and light box, similar to what we used to do in art school,” Chang says. “It is the materializing of a street food stand, a restaurant, that excites us and that’s not too dissimilar to creating art.”
In 2015 Chang and the Chungs launched Bao in Soho, the heart of London’s bar and restaurant scene. Its simple but stylish interior and short guabao-based menu has proved so successful that there is now another branch as well as a host of imitators.
Photo courtesy of Chang Er-chen
“Taiwanese food was certainly not known at that time but now everybody knows what bao is, which I’m very happy with,” Chang says. “I want to push more Taiwanese culture through food and restaurants.”
She’s done a good job so far — no mean feat in a country with a relatively small Taiwanese expat community and only a handful of Taiwanese restaurants.
Googling her name reveals a host of articles extolling the joys of the likes of oyster congee and taro root, not only in London’s press but in the main quality national newspapers, as well as specialty food and catering publications.
Photo courtesy of Chang Er-chen
Her latest venture, Xu, is a more sophisticated venue and offers Londoners a uniquely Taiwanese dining experience. Billed as a “cinematic reinterpretation of 1930s Taipei” Xu describes itself as “theatrical yet relaxed” and incorporates a tea room, dining room and mahjong rooms.
Chang’s artistic background is evident in the restaurant’s interior, featuring hand-painted murals, wooden ceiling fans and a marble bar with pink leather seats. As well as Michelin-star quality local produce, tea imported from Taiwan features prominently on the menu. Xu has a dedicated tea kiosk and its own tea master, something else that helps it to stand apart from its neighbors in London’s Chinatown.
Chang has tried to keep dishes as authentic as possible, with the likes of pig’s blood cake and century egg featured on the menu. Even stinky tofu could be set for an appearance.
Photo courtesy of Chang Er-chen
“I think stinky tofu will be very popular in London, to be honest,” Chang says. “Londoners are so open to different regional food at the moment. People are waiting for new excitements all the time. We just need a big enough space to make it.”
Testament to Chang’s success in creating an authentic dining experience at both Bao and Xu comes from the high number of Taiwanese expat customers and their positive feedback.
Her success has had one downside, however, as Chang now has less time for trips home to Taiwan.
“I used to go back once or twice a year but now with three restaurants I’m finding less and less time to go,” she says.
“But I have my family in Taiwan and have many Taiwanese chefs or front of house staff that go to Taiwan frequently, so I do continue to source and get amazing Taiwanese produce such as aged white soy, aged pomelo tea, sesame oil and tea tree oil.”
It’s always a pleasure to see something one has long advocated slowly become reality. The late August visit of a delegation to the Philippines led by Deputy Minister of Agriculture Huang Chao-ching (黃昭欽), Chair of Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association Joseph Lyu (呂桔誠) and US-Taiwan Business Council vice president, Lotta Danielsson, was yet another example of how the two nations are drawing closer together. The security threat from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), along with their complementary economies, is finally fostering growth in ties. Interestingly, officials from both sides often refer to a shared Austronesian heritage when arguing for
Nov.10 to Nov.16 As he moved a large stone that had fallen from a truck near his field, 65-year-old Lin Yuan (林淵) felt a sudden urge. He fetched his tools and began to carve. The recently retired farmer had been feeling restless after a lifetime of hard labor in Yuchi Township (魚池), Nantou County. His first piece, Stone Fairy Maiden (石仙姑), completed in 1977, was reportedly a representation of his late wife. This version of how Lin began his late-life art career is recorded in Nantou County historian Teng Hsiang-yang’s (鄧相揚) 2009 biography of him. His expressive work eventually caught the attention
Late last month the Executive Yuan approved a proposal from the Ministry of Labor to allow the hospitality industry to recruit mid-level migrant workers. The industry, surveys said, was short 6,600 laborers. In reality, it is already heavily using illegal foreign workers — foreign wives of foreign residents who cannot work, runaways and illegally moonlighting factory workers. The proposal thus merely legalizes what already exists. The government could generate a similar legal labor supply simply by legalizing moonlighting and permitting spouses of legal residents to work legally on their current visa. But after 30 years of advocating for that reform,
The Nuremberg trials have inspired filmmakers before, from Stanley Kramer’s 1961 drama to the 2000 television miniseries with Alec Baldwin and Brian Cox. But for the latest take, Nuremberg, writer-director James Vanderbilt focuses on a lesser-known figure: The US Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, who after the war was assigned to supervise and evaluate captured Nazi leaders to ensure they were fit for trial (and also keep them alive). But his is a name that had been largely forgotten: He wasn’t even a character in the miniseries. Kelley, portrayed in the film by Rami Malek, was an ambitious sort who saw in
RSS