Hui Lui is a distinctive restaurant by any standard; excellent cuisine, an atmosphere of earthy elegance and doting service. That it is strictly vegetarian makes it even more distinctive.
Nestled adjacent to the park on Yungkang Street, the restaurant is located in an attractive building with an interior that has undergone extensive improvements over the past few years. The restaurant sports a collection of pottery all of which is for sale, even the plate from which you eat. Hui Liu also sells pre-packaged herbs and spices that they use in their dishes. Recreating them at home, however, might be a daunting task.
Hui Liu's fried vege loaf (NT$320) is meat loaf in vegetable form and does a good job at recreating not only the consistency of ground beef, but an equally intense flavor as well. It is served with cabbage and accompanied by soup, salad and organic rice. Their Marco Polo Jiao Zi set (NT$350) serves up bottle gourd and ricotta cheese dumplings in a fresh tomato sauce and is accompanied by salad and homemade bread. On alternate weeks the "chef goes to market" set (NT$300) consists either of southern American stir-fried vegetables or sauteed vegetables with roasted asparagus and almonds, also served with salad and organic rice.
PHOTO: DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES
During lunch hours, the menu is pared down to set meals and the prices reduced. The pancake vegetable stack (NT$250) is a must-try. Layers of raw and cooked vegetables and pancakes (think crepes) are topped with yogurt raita and accompanied by soup and salad. Another dish that will have you smacking your lips through the afternoon is the sesame sauce noodle set (NT$220) which has a layer of vegetables and sprouts over a bed of sesame-flavored noodles, also served with salad.
Hui Liu serves up excellent teas that are kept hot over a bed of charcoal briquettes brought to your table. All of Hui Liu's oolong teas are organically grown in central Taiwan. Hui Liu's salads, it should be said, are among the best items on the menu. Fresh garden greens and sprouts share the bowl with various diced fruits and are topped by a lively vinaigrette.
Perhaps most distinctive about Hui Liu is the noticeable lack of grease in their dishes. Die-hard meat-eaters be warned: If you're idea of a good meal is something that has been stewed in its own fat, look elsewhere.
While Americans face the upcoming second Donald Trump presidency with bright optimism/existential dread in Taiwan there are also varying opinions on what the impact will be here. Regardless of what one thinks of Trump personally and his first administration, US-Taiwan relations blossomed. Relative to the previous Obama administration, arms sales rocketed from US$14 billion during Obama’s eight years to US$18 billion in four years under Trump. High-profile visits by administration officials, bipartisan Congressional delegations, more and higher-level government-to-government direct contacts were all increased under Trump, setting the stage and example for the Biden administration to follow. However, Trump administration secretary
In mid-1949 George Kennan, the famed geopolitical thinker and analyst, wrote a memorandum on US policy towards Taiwan and Penghu, then known as, respectively, Formosa and the Pescadores. In it he argued that Formosa and Pescadores would be lost to the Chine communists in a few years, or even months, because of the deteriorating situation on the islands, defeating the US goal of keeping them out of Communist Chinese hands. Kennan contended that “the only reasonably sure chance of denying Formosa and the Pescadores to the Communists” would be to remove the current Chinese administration, establish a neutral administration and
A “meta” detective series in which a struggling Asian waiter becomes the unlikely hero of a police procedural-style criminal conspiracy, Interior Chinatown satirizes Hollywood’s stereotypical treatment of minorities — while also nodding to the progress the industry has belatedly made. The new show, out on Disney-owned Hulu next Tuesday, is based on the critically adored novel by US author Charles Yu (游朝凱), who is of Taiwanese descent. Yu’s 2020 bestseller delivered a humorous takedown of racism in US society through the adventures of Willis Wu, a Hollywood extra reduced to playing roles like “Background Oriental Male” but who dreams of one day
Burnt-out love-seekers are shunning dating apps in their millions, but the apps are trying to woo them back with a counter offer: If you don’t want a lover, perhaps you just need a friend? The giants of the industry — Bumble and Match, which owns Tinder — have both created apps catering to friendly meetups, joining countless smaller platforms that have already entered the friend zone. Bumble For Friends launched in July last year and by the third quarter of this year had around 730,000 monthly active users, according to figures from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Bumble has also acquired the
RSS