Food Archive

Taiwan and Lithuania look to the long term on consumer goods trade

The following piece article appeared in the Taiwan Business TOPICS, the magazine of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan: What does Lithuania mean to Taiwan? Prior to 2021, perhaps only the presence of several of the country’s basketball players in the NBA. However, following donation in July and October last year of more than […]
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Taiwan’s free quarantine leaves little cause for complaint

The following article was published in today’s Taipei Times I’m writing this on a beachfront balcony with a spectacular ocean view. My hotel room is spotless, spacious and well-equipped. Meals are delivered to the door thrice daily, and my all-inclusive two-week stay is free. True, the beach remains tantalizingly inaccessible. But that’s the only downside […]
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Bursting the bubble: a taste of Taiwan in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter

The following piece appeared in today’s Taipei Times. When Jorge Cheng (陳賢文) set up shop in Barcelona in 2013, he had no idea he was riding a Taiwanese wave. “There were already eight drinks shops, which we didn’t know initially,” says Cheng, owner of Zenzoo, a Taiwan-style bubble tea drinks store just off Las Ramblas, […]
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The throat singer of Zhuzihu

Though the blooms will be around for some time yet, this weekend is the official end of the Calla Lily festival up in the Zhuzihu (竹子湖) area of Yangmingshan (陽明山). Although I’ve lived in Beitou District (北投區) for over a decade and ridden and hiked around Yangmingshan countless times, there are still quite a few […]
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In the shade: Exploring Taipei’s ‘Little Indonesia’

From the News Lens, 11/05/2017: Aside from their banality, clichés such as “hidden gem” and “best-kept secret,” are nonsensical descriptors. Unless you’re the sole customer on opening day, someone knows about that restaurant. In Taipei where almost every dank back-alley eatery has been blogged, there are no secrets. But there still are places that get […]
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Of Hills and Swill

Last year I was the distinctly Un-Grand Old Baron of Beitou – just under halfway up the hill to Yangmingshan but feeling over halfway down the path of life. I was confined to a solitary-confinement-sized box on that hill, reeling from a broken marriage and drinking myself silly. A year later I’m in Danshui, […]
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Swollen Like a Shady Magistrate: Chowing Down Burmese Style

U Po Kyin, the diabolical antagonist of George Orwell’s novel Burmese Days is described as a man “so fat that for years he had not risen from his chair without help”. Frequently beset by pangs of hunger, he gorges on “a huge bowl of rice and a dozen plates containing curries, dried prawns and sliced […]
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Un Bataburillo de la Cocina Paraguaya

There’s something satisfying about reduplication. Words like pell-mell, riffraff and whippersnapper just sound good. Johnson called them “low words.” Blackadder called him a “pompous ass with sweaty dewflaps.” Hodepodge is another good one and so is the Spanish equivalent batiburillo. The word suits Asunción, a city of jumbles. Passionate indolence. Teutonic Guarani-speaking Ladinos. Dark and dusty bookshops on hot […]
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Verse Not Purse; No Green, Free Bean; Can’t Write for Toffee, Still Blagged a Coffee …

Though I sometimes still have the odd couplet or rhyme floating around my head (mainly the works of the late Christopher Wallace), I jacked in writing poetry a long time ago, mainly because I’m not very good. Not long after I got started with with this blog, I stuck up a couple of my better […]
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What’s the deal?

This one has bamboozled me for years. Why, oh why do market vendors announce that something is “25 NT each, four for a hundred!” like that’s some kind of deal? I’ve asked people and invariably got blank looks. “It’s 25 NT. Four for a hundred.” Some of the more wily, rascally types down the market […]
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