I cannot believe it is our last day in this wonderful country. So much to see, do – and eat!
We meet our guide and driver and set off for Yangminshan National Pak in Xizhi. Our lunch today will be at the Shi-Yang Culture restaurant – described by our guide as “enjoying the food with a peaceful mind”.
We leave the city for the half-hour trip and wind our way up mountain roads, through lush vegetation and ready ourselves for a day with food, tea and nature. We are met at the top of the driveway by our host, which was a good thing because if you blink you miss the entrance! Shi-Yang is an extremely popular restaurant and we are lucky to have secured a reservation, weeks in advance. As we head down the winding path, past the lake filled with koi and the mass of abundant greenery and flowers, a feeling of peace descends and we remember our guide’s description.
The building is Japanese style with large floor to ceiling windows, wooden floors, polished concrete benches, large iron beams, corrugated tin walls, and minimalistic. We are asked to remove our shoes then taken to one of the many private rooms for our lunch. The majority of the restaurant staff are Zen Buddhists and we find ourselves speaking in hushed tones as we take our place at the (low) table.
The lunch is most certainly not to be a rushed affair and will take around 3 hours. Shi-Yang has one menu of thirteen mouth-watering courses consisting of Japanese and Taiwanese flavours. We begin with oolong tea, also referred to as high mountain tea because it is grown at an altitude of 1,000 metres.
Next, we have pink guava and passionfruit, followed by peanut tofu and ground popcorn, mixed with a little olive oil. Our fourth course is made up of scallops, eggplant and egg with pesto, then frozen tomato, eggplant and miso. The incredible seafood platter consists of sea urchins, abalone, prawns, squid, rice paper wrapped rolls with salmon roe and slices of yuzu citrus. This is followed by a fermenting cleanser of vinegar, pineapple and apple, then turmeric fried rice with Japanese mushrooms. The lotus flower soup was one of our favourite courses, in taste and presentation. On arrival at the table it looked like a simple soup of chicken mushrooms and herbs, but when the waitress carefully places a dried lotus flower on top of the soup it slowly opens into the beautiful lotus flower and takes our breath away.
Dessert was also refreshing with an arrowroot black bean mousse and dragon fruit with watermelon mousse.
After lunch we move across to a Shi-Yang teahouse for a private tea ceremony with one of the “Tea Masters”, Mei Chuan, who learnt from The Master and has been doing this ceremony for 7 years. All is calm, all is quiet as we move unhurriedly and, it seems, in harmony on approach to the (low) table. Buddhist music plays in the background.
The ceremony is in two parts with a different tea for each part. The teapot we are served from is over 100 years old and is made of cast iron, allowing the tea to “breathe”.
Great care is taken in the preparation of our tea, everything seems to move in slow motion with the measuring and rinsing, pouring and serving. All is well in the world and we come to realise that nothing is important at this moment except for the tea we are tasting, and appreciating.
By the end of the ceremony we find it difficult to move, we could probably stay in this relaxed state for a few more hours, particularly after the schedule we have been through over the past 6 days. However, it is time to bid our tea master, and this wonderful place farewell as we begin our journey back to Taipei. Walking back up the winding path we look back to see Mei Chuan waving us goodbye. I immediately make a mental note to return here again one day.
The writer was a guest of the Taiwan Tourism Bureau/Taiwan Visitors Association.
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