A 14-legged giant isopod is the highlight of a new dish at a ramen restaurant in Taipei and it has people lining up — both for pictures and for a bite from this bowl of noodles.
Since “The Ramen Boy” launched the limited-edition noodle bowl on Monday last week, declaring in a social media post that it had “finally got this dream ingredient,” more than 100 people have joined a waiting list to dine at the restaurant.
“It is so attractive because of its appearance — it looks very cute,” said the 37-year-old owner of the restaurant, who wanted to be identified only as Hu, as he held up a giant isopod while customers took pictures.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
“As for the cooking method, we use the simplest way, steam, so there is no difficulty to process it,” Hu said.
The restaurant steams the isopod for 10 minutes before adding it to the top of a bowl of ramen with thick chicken and fish broth. Each bowl costs NT$1,480 (US$48).
A customer said the meat tastes like a cross between crab and lobster, with a dense texture and some chewiness.
Giant isopods — a distant cousin of crabs and prawns — are the largest among the thousands of species in the crustacean group, NOAA Ocean Exploration says on its Web site.
They are usually found about 170m to 2,140m deep in the ocean, with 80 percent of them living at a depth of 365m to 730m, Taiwan’s Animal Planet said in a Facebook page.
A Taiwanese expert identified the species as Bathynomus jamesi, discovered near the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙島) in the South China Sea. They are thought to be caught at between 300m to 500m.
Since the ramen launched, some academics have expressed concerns over the potential ecological impact of bottom trawling fishing tactics as well as possible health risks.
However, customers at the restaurant disagree.
“If it’s just a special menu, and the giant isopods were caught unintentionally like the restaurant owner says they were, everyone should try it if they get a chance,” said 34-year-old Digell Huang, who works as a genetic counselor.
“I am very honored to have this opportunity to taste it,” she added as she ate from a bowl of the isopod-topped noodles.
However, an academic warned against potential health risks, saying the largely unknown species might contain toxins or heavy metals such as mercury.
The Bathynomus jamesi species was recognized officially in Taiwan last year and there is not much data on it, said Huang Ming-chih (黃銘志), a biotechnology associate professor specializing in deep-sea invertebrates at the National University of Tainan.
“The best practice would be to do more research ... build a complete database and then allow people to eat, it would be better that way,” he added.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS