OK I don’t want to get bogged down with a history lesson here and I’m not a history scholar, but Taiwan has been visited/colonized by many people over the years. It has had a few names in its time, and one was Ihla Formosa which is Portuguese for “Beautiful Island”. The island was uncharted in the 1500’s and was given that name by Portuguese sailors. There goes the history lesson, and there are many people I can refer you to if you want to know more about that stuff.
A really crap segue, but it is grammatically correct when I tell you that what is interesting for me is that, in the north of the island at least, there is not much Portuguese stuff. From my research, (which hasn’t been that extensive I’ll be honest) there is virtually no Portuguese food here except for egg tarts that were a huge fad in 1998, and the restaurant I’m visiting today: Tuga. Before I start rabbiting on about Tuga, I’ll mention the egg tart fad in more detail.
As old news footage and old timers tell me, there was little exotic food here in the late 90’s, and it has been relayed to me that it really was a simpler time. Egg tarts from Macau (in reality a British/Portuguese fusion-thanks to Mr. Connors for digging that one out of the archives) were really exotic and proved to be a big hit all over Asia. As their popularity grew, people were waiting in line for two hours at a time for the tarts and then every man and his dog started selling them. Then suddenly…gone, the market basically consumed itself. They are still available in a few bakeries and in KFC but not at the levels of hysteria seen in 1998.
I was planning to go last week as a celebration of finishing that conference, but Balle Balle won out. I instead decided to celebrate the end of my class teaching English to the police in Banqiao.
I was a little bit disappointed that my ass didn’t find itself hauled in front of the chief for being “well outside your jurisdiction, Bao. My ASS is on the line, that hand cannon isn’t regulation” or other cop related procedures. I instead got a good report for being funny and unconventional from the boys in Forensics who incidentally told me they laugh out loud at the science around crime scenes displayed in movies.
“You don’t want to watch movie murder scene with us, It would be spoiled” apparently.
So on to the blue line I went.
It is definitely not my usual kind of jaunt, they asked me if I had a reservation (and at the end my company number) and felt like I was in what I thought restaurants would be like when I was a poor kid growing up. The first thing that hit me was the amount of wine available; there were walls and walls of the stuff. It is completely lost on me, but I can only guess it is good wine- if selection and volume are anything to go by. The cost was also outside my usual parameters, but I thought I’d go for completeness’ sake and to try bacalhau as it is one of Portugal’s most famous dishes. Turns out that it wasn’t available and hasn’t been for quite a while if reviews on Tripadvisor are to be believed. The waiter seemed a bit off about that, maybe because he’d had to tell people a lot. My best guess is that the curse of the virus strikes again, some ingredients simply can’t get in. So instead I went for one of the cheapest things on the menu which was pork in orange sauce (I didn’t get the name), and natural lemonade. I enjoyed it, but I’m thinking it wasn’t the best spotlight of what they can do. The portion was fine and taste good etc., maybe I’m just a bit jaded because what I wanted and specifically went for wasn’t available.
It came with bread and a kind of tuna spread as an appetizer thing too, as bread starters go it was as you’d expect. The lemonade was great, and had added mint leaves. A winner in the ethnic drinks parallel thing I have going on in my head.
So all in all, it is a nice fancy upscale place, good service and everything which I’m sure is even better when the entire menu is available. Not their fault of course, we are in the year that everyone wants to forget after all. When the money is flowing more freely and I know that I can get what I want, I will come back, reservation made, maybe with someone who can tell me if the wine is good.
Address: No. 12, Alley 11, Lane 216, Section 4, Zhongxiao East Road
Getting there: Probably Zhongxiao Dunhua MRT, walk five minutes towards Sun Yet San Memorial Hall and it is close to OnTap.
52 Cuisines? 