Unlike Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, Singaporean food has never really caught on in Taipei. Maybe that's because the cuisine is an amalgam of Malaysian, Chinese, southern Indian, Indonesian, and Western styles - all of which are available in a multitude of varieties here.
The Merlion, a restaurant on Heping East Road directly across the street from the Technology Building (科技大樓), won't by itself change this situation. Not that it's bad. It's a decent place for lunch if you're in the neighborhood and want something a bit different, polite and attentive service, and a quiet atmosphere. But I was expecting something more.
If I had ordered one of the several fish entrees on the menu (NT$180 to NT$280), I might have formed a different opinion. That's what I saw staff eating both times I ate at the Merlion. Instead, on my first visit I chose the laksa soup noodles in a coconut curry gravy with shrimp, egg and chicken (招牌星式叻炒麵). The Merlion's version adds dougan (豆乾), or dried bean curd, and pink-and-white artificial crab meat. At NT$150 for a big bowl, it could be a lunch for one moderately hungry person. The curried coconut broth was sweet and not too spicy, the shrimp fresh and the boiled egg, surprisingly, one of the tastiest items in the mix. On the downside, there were only two shrimp, the soup was mostly broth, and the dougan and artificial crab both detracted from the flavor.
PHOTO: NOAH BUCHAN, TAIPEI TIMES
My second meal was better. I went with a friend and we shared chicken rice (雞飯, NT$20), spring rolls (春捲, NT$80), double chicken (雙拼雞肉, NT$160) and something called the Malaysian feng guang (馬來風光, NT$100), which was actually just kongxincai (空心菜). The spring rolls were unremarkable; they had a thick pastry skin, like store-bought egg rolls. But everything else was good. I recommend the double chicken, a combination Hainanese chicken (海南雞肉) and Singapore-style smoked chicken (星式燒雞). The meat - dark meat for the Singaporean chicken and white for the Hainanese - was served in two rows over sliced cucumbers, smothered in a dark soy sauce, and served with a tangy chili-and-garlic sauce for dipping. The kongxincai was crispy and not overcooked. Sliced red chili transformed this pan-Asian staple into something a bit more flavorful.
If you were wondering, the merlion is a mythical half-fish, half-lion - "mer" is Latin for "sea" - and the emblem of Singapore. The beast represents the story of the legendary Malay prince Sang Nila Utama, who thought he saw a lion while hunting on the island of Temasek, where he founded ancient Singapura, the Lion City.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had