‘Mr Barbecue’ offers tips on how to grill up a mouth-watering steak (hint: use charcoal)

Taipei Times
Date:  Jul 18, 2015
By: Peter Elliot  /  Bloomberg Business

Jonathan Waxman was a Berkeley, California hippy who fell into the restaurant trade, running

the kitchens at Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse in the late 1970s and palling around with culinary rock-stars like Jeremiah Tower and Michael McCarty. Together they brought a relaxed, ingredient-focused sensibility to eating that came to be known as “California cuisine.”

Waxman’s seminal restaurant Jams closed in the ‘80s, but he kept in the game. He’s been running the more Italian-focused Barbuto in New York’s West Village since 2004 and last year opened Adele’s in Nashville, Tennessee, which is named after his mother and features a giant wood-burning oven at its center. He’s become the gentle grandfather of a new generation of chefs. As he prepares to reopen Jams in 1 Hotel Central Park this month, another Adele’s in Toronto and a possible return to his home turf in San Francisco, Bloomberg Brief’s Peter Elliot caught up with him at Barbuto.     [FULL  STORY]

Yahoo News
Date: July 8, 2015
By: Lyndsay Hemphill

There are plenty of reasons to travel to Taiwan, but one thing any traveler to Taiwan should be most excited about is the food.

From restaurants with certain specialties to night markets where you can sample a wide array of snacks, delicious food is pretty much all around.

I recently spent two weeks traveling around the whole island, and sampled as much as I could. These five foods are not to be missed.

1. Coffin Bread (棺材板)
coffin toast
(Lyndsay Hemphill/Business Insider)

Granted not the most appetizing of names, but coffin bread (also called coffin toast or coffin sandwich) was far and away the most interesting and delicious food I tried.

Coffin bread is a piece of super thick white bread French Toast, that is hollowed out and stuffed with something tasty. Originally invented in the southern city of Tainan, I sampled this snack at the Zhiqiang night market in Hualien.

Coffin toast(Michael McDonough/Flickr)

You can pick from among a wide range of fillings, including three-cup chicken or pepper beef. The mixture of sweet and savory really hits the spot, and the toast is easy to munch on as you wander through the rest of the market.

Coffin Toast(Lyndsay Hemphill/Business Insider) Innards of the coffin toast sandwich

Someone needs to make this snack a reality in the States, please.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 08, 2015

To promote Hakka cuisine, the Taichung City government will hold a Dongshih Hakka

Cuisine Outdoor Banquet next month. The venue will have one hundred banquet tables and can seat one thousand people. The public can indulge in Hakka cuisine while enjoying a wonderful program of performances and a raffle. Tickets to the event have already gone on sale, with a number of tickets still available; one ticket reserves one table. People that are interested may purchase tickets on the ibon online booking system.

Taichung City Mayor Lin Chia-lung used the slogan “South and north Taiwan eat to get full, while Taichung eats smart” to recommend everyone to head to Dongshih to try out the cuisine. Lin said, aside from eating smart, Taichung food is extordinarily varied, and the authentic cuisine of Dongshih has the purist Hakka flavor. For only NT$3,999, you can enjoy 12 Hakka dishes. Lin recommends that everyone register for the event as early as possible to have a good meal together and experience rich Hakka culture.

The Economic Development Bureau says the Dongshih Hakka Cuisine Outdoor Banquet will bring together Dongshih township’s local Hakka seal meat, drunken chicken and fresh shrimp, assorted Hakka grass jelly, pickled mustard-green pork soup and more, served at an outdoor banquet with one hundred tables and seating for one thousand people. The bureau hopes the event will raise the profile of Taichung’s Hakka food culture.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/06/17
By: Bien Chin-feng, Tien Yu-pin and Kuo Chung-han

Taipei, June 17 (CNA) I-Mei Food Co. (義美), one of Taiwan’s biggest and most reputable food companies, on Wednesday demanded local health authorities to re-examine the wrap of its zongzi after it had been found to contain more sulfur dioxide (SO2) than allowed.

I-Mei said it has regularly sampled its zongzi leaves and was sure of its safety.

Taoyuan’s Public Health Department sampled 80 ingredients for making zongzi (粽子), a glutinous rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo leaves traditionally eaten during the Dragon Boat Festival, including small dried shrimp (xiami), dried mushroom (xianggu) and zongzi leaves and publicized the results earlier on Wednesday.     [FULL  STORY]

Roll Call
Date: June 2 2015
By: Jason Dick

Things one learns at Taste of Taiwan: Even the healthiest foods benefit from putting

something fried on top, Taiwan’s top man in Washington loves to croon show tunes and former Rep. Lester Wolff has a connection to “Mad Men.”

For its May 21 dinner at Twin Oaks Estate in Northwest Washington, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office pulled together some of its favorite chefs, musicians, friends and allies for a little sorghum liquor, island food and song. Along with Wolff, Congress was represented at dinner by Rep. Donald M. Payne Jr., D-N.J., and Del. Stacey Plaskett, D-V.I.

Fried Up, Ready to Go

“All I can say about this dinner is, ‘Wow,’” said Wolff, a New York Democrat and longtime supporter of Taiwan. He could have been referring to any number of dishes by Chef Meng-Jen Pan and his assistant, Chef Wan-Li Tsai, Taiwanese toques brought to Twin Oaks for the occasion.     [FULL  STORY]