Yellowface author RF Kuang shares 5 Taipei spots beyond the usual tourist trail

Experiences From a neighbourhood vegetarian noodle shop to an art-house cinema and a campus store known for ice cream sandwiches, these are the places that stayed with the bestselling novelist after a summer in Taipei. Taipei blends dense urban neighbourhoods with mountain views, with Taipei 101 defining the skyline. (Photo: iStock) When the novelist RF Kuang spent two months in 2023 in Taipei for an intensive Mandarin course, she found herself inadvertently sketching the outlines of a new novel. Her grandfather had recently died, and she was keeping a diary. “I was trying to remember as many details and document the texture and flavour of what grief felt like,” she said in a video interview.Those entries became the raw material for her novel Taipei Story, which follows Lily Chen, a 19-year-old Chinese American contending with mistranslation and bereavement during a summer in the city.A doctoral candidate in East Asian languages and literatures at Yale, Kuang has built a devoted following for her meticulously researched novels about language, empire and power. Taipei Story is her seventh novel and her second work of literary fiction after her 2023 publishing-world satire Yellowface. It returns to the questions of identity and belonging that have long animated her work. Author RF Kuang has topped The New York Times Best Seller list. (Photo: RF Kuang) Lily Chen is fictional, but the novel’s emotional and physical settings are inspired by Kuang’s study-abroad stint. She built her protagonist’s Taipei from her own experiences, like studying in kitschy cafes near National Taiwan University, where she was enrolled; slipping into movie screenings between classes; and hiking Elephant Mountain at the edge of the city. “I wanted to explore the sort of circuit of daily experiences that somebody spending a summer at N.T.U. would have had,” Kuang said.Although Kuang has not returned to Taipei since that summer, certain corners of the city have stayed with her. Here are five:Qingtian Tea House Qingtian Tea House. (Photo: An Rong Xu/The New York Times) Kuang ended up at the Qingtian Tea House with a classmate who was on a mission to sample tea “everywhere around the city” and was charmed by its serene setting and giant mango tree. (Photo: An Rong Xu/The New York Times) “I had a classmate whose hobby was obsessively trying tea everywhere around the city,” Kuang said. She was occasionally roped into these quests, one of which led to Qingtian Tea House, a charming oasis that occupies a Japanese-era wooden home near her campus at N.T.U. in the Da’an District. It specialises in Taiwanese oolongs, but the detail Kuang remembers the most fondly wasn’t on the menu. It was the giant mango tree in the courtyard. During her visit, a rainstorm began knocking mangoes onto the roof with startling thuds. “At some point, we stopped paying attention to our tea and started counting the mango bangs,” she said. The final tally: roughly 85.Vegetarian Tomato Beef Noodle Restaurant Vegetarian Tomato Beef Noodle Restaurant. (Photo: An Rong Xu/The New York Times) Kuang, who does not eat meat, found a vegetarian version of beef noodle soup, one of Taiwan’s signature dishes, made with lion’s head mushroom at this “hole-in-the-wall” spot in the Xinyi District. (Photo: An Rong Xu/The New York Times) Beef noodle soup — braised chunks of beef in a rich broth — is one of Taiwan’s most emblematic dishes. Thousands of restaurants across the country specialise in it, and Taipei even holds an annual competition for who can cook the best bowl. Kuang, who does not eat meat, had never tried the dish — or even a vegetarian version — until she stumbled on Vegetarian Tomato Beef Noodle Restaurant in the Xinyi District. “It’s this hole-in-the-wall place where they seemed totally uninterested in having any customers,” she said. Their version swaps the beef with lion’s head mushroom, served with springy noodles in a tomato-centric soup. “It was incredible,” she said.Nationwide Healthy Vegetarian Nationwide Healthy Vegetarian. (Photo: An Rong Xu/The New York Times) At Nationwide Healthy Vegetarian, diners can load up on plant-based dishes from a buffet and then pay by weight. Places like this, Kuang said, dispel the idea that Taipei is a difficult city for vegetarians. (Photo: An Rong Xu/The New York Times) Before she moved to Taipei, some of Kuang’s friends warned her that the city would be difficult for a vegetarian. “That’s just completely not true,” she said. She became a regular at Nationwide Healthy Vegetarian, a cafeteria-style buffet chain with locations all over the city where diners load up on freshly prepared dishes like crispy fried tofu, braised eggplant, stir-fried ferns, bamboo shoot salad and multigrain rice, then pay by weight.N.T.U. Agricultural Products Sales Center N.T.U. Agricultural Products Sales Center. (Photo: An Rong Xu/The New York Times) The Agricultural Products Sales Center at National Taiwan University specialises in dairy products like ice cream sandwiches. “I don’t know if we were just starving,” Kuang said, “but it was some of the best ice cream I ever had.” (Photo: An Rong Xu/The New York Times) Some of Kuang’s favourite discoveries came from tips shared in class — including this campus shop N.T.U. Agricultural Products Sales Center, which sells fresh milk and ice cream sandwiches made with dairy from the university’s experimental farm. The milk, which her classmates described as unusually rich, drew lines every day. The sandwiches, consisting of a thick slab of ice cream pressed between two savoury soda crackers, also had a cultish following. “I don’t know if we were just starving, but it was some of the best ice cream I ever had,” she said.SPOT Huashan SPOT Huashan. (Photo: An Rong Xu/The New York Times) During her time in Taipei, Ms. Kuang frequented the SPOT Huashan cinema, an art-house theatre that shows international and domestic films alike. “Taiwan has a really fun repertory indie cinema scene,” Kuang said. (Photo: An Rong Xu/The New York Times) Taiwanese cinema made its international breakthrough in the 1980s. Though its heyday has passed, the island’s cinephile culture endures. “Taiwan has a really fun repertory indie cinema scene,” Kuang said. She spent hours at the SPOT Huashan in the Zhongzheng District, an art-house theatre where obscure international films screen alongside domestic hits. One stood out: The Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Passion, which follows a group of college friends through a night of romantic revelations. Kuang was delighted by the interplay of Japanese dialogue and English, Japanese and Mandarin subtitles. “In the film, they’re jumping between languages, yet communication is still sometimes impossible because we have so many ways of hiding how we actually feel and what we want to express,” she said. She ended up weaving that experience — and those themes — into a scene in Taipei Story.By Clarissa Wei © The New York Times.This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Source: New York Times/bt