With its antique-looking armchairs and slightly worn wooden armrests, crimson-colored walls set against black-and-golden carpeting, and original sculptures and other artworks in the dining room, a nostalgic sense of faded grandeur pervades Jimmy’s Kitchen, one of Taipei City’s oldest steak houses.
Hidden in a basement close to the roundabout on Renai Road (仁愛路), Jimmy’s Kitchen is said to have a history dating back to the foreign concessions in Shanghai. The owner fled to Taiwan with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) after the Chinese civil war and restarted the business, which was taken over by the current management two decades ago.
Bearing such a history in mind, it is not surprising that the restaurant has retained a look reminiscent of bygone days when suits and gowns were de rigueur. The interior design cleverly turns the lack of natural lighting to work in its favor, with candles on each table exuding a look of old-school romanticism that is given an aural dimension by a resident pianist.
As for the food itself, it lives up to all the rave reviews Jimmy’s has accumulated over the years. On a recent Friday night the restaurant was packed (fortunately, we had made reservations a few days ahead). My dining partner and I ordered the tenderloin with fresh goose liver (NT$1,100) and filet mignon (NT$1,120), both of which were recommended by the gray-haired staff. The tenderloin was a savory fusion of steak and slightly fried foie gras, with the latter being a bit of crunchy on the outside and buttery on the inside. The filet mignon was one of the best I had ever tasted.
According to other recent reviews, the pig knuckles (NT$820) are also a must-try. The more premium seafood dishes have also received fair reviews, but these are said to pale in comparison to the steak menu.
Apart from its legendary past and lauded menu, Jimmy’s most famed asset is its seasoned wait staff, who seem to take pride in their trade rather than merely seeing it as a way to make a living. Impeccably dressed in suits, they attend to patrons with great care and respect, observing quietly what diners need and offering their services without being intrusive.
At Jimmy’s, salads and desserts are served buffet-style, and there are a decent range of choices. The advice is to stay away from the cakes and stick with the fruit. One of the very few weaknesses this restaurant suffers from is its mediocre selection of pastries and cakes.
Wedged between beef noodle soup joints and cobwebbed Chinese medicine stores, we find organic kombucha vendors and surfers sipping coconut milk lattes. Weaving through alleyways of orange-roofed temples, I pass an elderly man downing Taiwan beers road side. Opposite, a backpacker beer garden hosts sunburned foreigners sampling locally brewed IPA. The unusual juxtaposition reflects a decade-long change slowly crawling upon Waiao (外澳), a sleepy beach town in Yilan County. The locale is jostling between becoming the next surfers’ paradise and its traditional farming and fishing roots. Hospitality is second nature here; my elderly taxi driver describes how the tight-knit rural
More people close to Ko Wen-je and his party are being implicated in the ongoing corruption scandal The past few weeks have seen crisis upon crisis hit the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), raising questions about the party’s future viability. It is also a wild, unpredictable story that is fascinating in a train wreck sort of way. Much of it has not been covered, or only briefly covered, in the English language press. Indeed, so much has happened that my previous column (“Donovan’s Deep Dives: The TPP careening towards catastrophe”) was almost entirely about the period of Aug. 8 through Aug. 12. The first big piece of bad news goes back to July 26, when Hsinchu Mayor Ann
Taiwan might be a land of scooters, but Joshua Dyer arrives via van to the cafe where we’ve we scheduled to meet. “I have my surf board,” he says, “there are waves today.” Dyer packs a lot into life. As well as a passion for surfing and music — he plays guitar, and previously had a job scouting folk musicians from Yunnan for US tours — Dyer works full time at Taipei-based literature agency Grayhawk. “I’m employed by the agency but most of the work I do is for the Ministry of Culture,” he says of his role as the editor-in-chief of
Last week this paper published a translated editorial from its parent the Liberty Times calling for reconsideration of Taiwan’s nuclear-free stance (“The Liberty Times Editorial: Re-examine the nuclear-free stance”, Aug. 20, 2024). The editorial pointed out that fossil fuels still account for over 80 percent of energy production, renewables have been slow in coming and nuclear power may well be necessary. That same week Taipower received permission to begin work on a dry storage facility in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) for the spent nuclear fuel from Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant. The spent fuel rods will be removed in