A Taiwanese eatery famed for its dumplings was crowned Asia’s best restaurant, while restaurants in Beijing claimed the lion’s share of spots in the top 10 of a new survey of the food-obsessed region’s best dining.
Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐) in Taipei was ranked No. 1 in the inaugural “101 Best Restaurants in Asia” list, released yesterday by US-based food Web site The Daily Meal, which conducts similar polls in the US and Europe.
“Ultimately we chose ... a place best-known for doing one thing absolutely perfectly,” said Colman Andrews, editorial director of The Daily Meal, adding that they were aware that their choosing the restaurant, which has spun off into an international chain, would be controversial.
Photo: CNA
Half of the top 10 restaurants were in Beijing, with Duck de Chine — noted for its Peking duck — in second place and the Chinese-style nouvelle cuisine Green T. House in third.
“Our feeling is that Shanghai has had a good reputation as a restaurant city for some time, due both to a strong regional cuisine and the early incursions of Western celebrity chefs ... but that Beijing is definitely catching up,” Andrews said. “It’s an imperfect analogy, but in a way the culinary contrast between the two mirrors that between New York City and Washington DC. The former is more famous as a food city, but Washington increasingly offers serious competition — usually just with a little less fanfare.”
Food critics, writers and long-term foreign residents in Asia, among others, voted on a list of restaurants pulled together over a six-month nomination period — considering cuisine, style, value and overall buzz — to select the top 101.
Beijing’s Temple Restaurant came in fourth, while Capital M, a modern Australian restaurant overlooking Tiananmen Square, was fifth. Another Beijing establishment, Dali Court, hit seventh.
Varq, in the Indian capital, New Delhi, came in sixth.
The top 10 were rounded out by Hong Kong’s venerable Lung King Heen and Michel Bras TOYA, Japon, a Michelin three-star restaurant on Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido.
Andrews said that Asia’s flourishing restaurant scene was developing some interesting new trends. Five Indian restaurants made the list, including one in Bangalore.
“India, indeed, will continue to develop in restaurant terms — and I hope not entirely through the efforts of the top hotel chains — but I also think South Korea shows great promise and frankly I’m surprised that more of its top restaurants didn’t place on our list,” he said.
The top South Korean restaurant was The Byeokje Galbi in Seoul, which came in at 30.
The list included restaurants in Taiwan, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, South Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam and can be found on: www.thedailymeal.com/101-best-restaurants-asia.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
RSS