FIREFLY AUTHENTIC TAIWANESE RESTAURANT 217, Yuteh Road Tel: (04) 2208-2799 Hours: 12 noon-2 am

ADD YOUR RATING & REVIEW | VIEW VISITOR RATINGS & REVIEWS

Owner Tsai Yung-lung may be an architect by trade but his new restaurant venture reflects another deep passion--the desire to preserve authentic Taiwanese cuisine. According to Tsai, Taiwanese cuisine has been influenced by a variety of other types--Hakka, Chinese, Japanese and so on--but is near extinct in its original form, enjoyed almost a century ago.Diners at Firefly can enjoy a variety of these dishes, gleaned by Tsai from around the island during the course of his travels in the past two decades. There are weekly set-menu meals for NT$300 and NT$600 with four dishes, one soup and one drink (juice) and one dessert.Four-person table meals are also available for NT$1,500 to NT$2,500. Dishes include items like fried oysters, mixed-vegetable soup, home-made sausage with scallions and vegetables, steamed rice mixed with lettuce and mushrooms, and salted pork. The food is truly unique and, according to many old-timers, the real thing from the past. Lunch is noon to 2 p.m. and dinner is 5 to 9:30 p.m. with an afternoon tea time and drinks in the evening.Firefly is located on the back corner of the Taichung Botanical Garden, along a parkway at the corner with Pokuan Road