Fine Japanese dining is easy to find in Taipei, but Shanhua Cuisine Japonaise (山花) stands a cut above the rest. The restaurant, which sports a facade that looks as if it was plucked straight out of an alleyway in Kyoto, offers simplicity and elegance with a warm, homey touch.
The same might be said of the Japanese-style multi-course meals, or kaiseki, served by restaurateur Lin Kun-tian (林昆田). The 50-year-old Kaohsiung native and life-long chef says he takes a strictly traditionalist approach in preparing meals.
Lin says the key to his meals are fresh ingredients, some locally sourced, most imported from Japan. He stays away from fancy sauces and sticks to simple garnishes, whether it’s a light soy sauce or freshly grated wasabi.
Photo by David Chen
A lunchtime visit left me impressed with Lin’s penchant for the basics. I went for the set of eight “mini-courses” (NT$1,000), which was full of subtle surprises and delights.
The meal started with a cube of sesame tofu topped with a glutinous soy sauce to whet the appetite, and then a platter of sashimi served on a bed of ice in a ceramic cup with a floral design. The petit cucumber with a flower growing out of the end was both a tasty and beautiful garnish.
The tuna and yellowtail slices were as fresh as could be and of high quality, but it was the raw shrimp that bowled me over. The coldness made it sing, and there was a buttery flavor that Lin says comes from a light squeeze of fresh lemon, a flavor I hadn’t noticed. In any case, shrimp will never be the same for me again, at least until my next visit.
Photo by David Chen
The raw delights continued with a serving of calamari (also melt-in-your-mouth delicious), followed by a delicate cut of eel meat served in a light broth.
The next platter offered a bit of exotica: a slice of blowfish skin, which looked like and tasted a bit like jellied ham, and a tofu cube-sized block of monkfish liver, which I enjoyed for its savory, nutty flavor and buttery texture.
The main courses were grilled fish, which had firm but tender white meat similar to grouper, and a soul-satisfying bowl of steamed egg full of stringy mushrooms and chunks of yams. Just in case you aren’t full by this point, the “mini-course” meal ends with a bowl of rice with pickled vegetables and miso soup.
Photo by David Chen
The food and the interior are refined and minimalist, but the vibe is down-to-earth and welcoming. Billie Holliday played in the background as I sat at the solid wood bar in front of a stylish open-air kitchen, where Lin and his team of four chefs multi-tasked with ease. They sliced fish, grated wasabi root and manned the grill, all while engaging in friendly banter with customers, many of whom are middle-aged regulars and business-types.
There is no menu, as diners simply choose how much they want to pay: NT$1,000, NT$1,500 or NT$2,500 for lunch; NT$3,000, NT$4,000 or NT$5,000 for dinner. Higher prices get you more in quantity and quality of ingredients.
Shanhua, which is just a five-minute walk from Liuzhangli MRT Station (六張犁捷運站), is situated in the corner of an old concrete building in a nondescript neighborhood. The restaurant looks out of place with its clean, natural-hued exterior and sliding wooden doors, almost as if it were put there by mistake. Once inside, the food and the atmosphere will indeed transport you to another place.
When nature calls, Masana Izawa has followed the same routine for more than 50 years: heading out to the woods in Japan, dropping his pants and doing as bears do. “We survive by eating other living things. But you can give faeces back to nature so that organisms in the soil can decompose them,” the 74-year-old said. “This means you are giving life back. What could be a more sublime act?” “Fundo-shi” (“poop-soil master”) Izawa is something of a celebrity in Japan, publishing books, delivering lectures and appearing in a documentary. People flock to his “Poopland” and centuries-old wooden “Fundo-an” (“poop-soil house”) in
Jan 13 to Jan 19 Yang Jen-huang (楊仁煌) recalls being slapped by his father when he asked about their Sakizaya heritage, telling him to never mention it otherwise they’ll be killed. “Only then did I start learning about the Karewan Incident,” he tells Mayaw Kilang in “The social culture and ethnic identification of the Sakizaya” (撒奇萊雅族的社會文化與民族認定). “Many of our elders are reluctant to call themselves Sakizaya, and are accustomed to living in Amis (Pangcah) society. Therefore, it’s up to the younger generation to push for official recognition, because there’s still a taboo with the older people.” Although the Sakizaya became Taiwan’s 13th
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong ship, Shunxin-39, was identified as the ship that had cut telecom cables on the seabed north of Keelung. The ship, owned out of Hong Kong and variously described as registered in Cameroon (as Shunxin-39) and Tanzania (as Xinshun-39), was originally People’s Republic of China (PRC)-flagged, but changed registries in 2024, according to Maritime Executive magazine. The Financial Times published tracking data for the ship showing it crossing a number of undersea cables off northern Taiwan over the course of several days. The intent was clear. Shunxin-39, which according to the Taiwan Coast Guard was crewed
China’s military launched a record number of warplane incursions around Taiwan last year as it builds its ability to launch full-scale invasion, something a former chief of Taiwan’s armed forces said Beijing could be capable of within a decade. Analysts said China’s relentless harassment had taken a toll on Taiwan’s resources, but had failed to convince them to capitulate, largely because the threat of invasion was still an empty one, for now. Xi Jinping’s (習近平) determination to annex Taiwan under what the president terms “reunification” is no secret. He has publicly and stridently promised to bring it under Communist party (CCP) control,
RSS