When it comes to French-style country cooking in Taiwan, anyone in the Zhongli food and creative scene is sure to say something about House+Café. Located in an old brick building with an attached glass patio, the restaurant is known for its quality food and foreign flair. Housed in a western-style mansion originally built as an annex of the neighbouring Liu Family Ancestral Shrine, the property fell into disrepair until entrepreneur Hoān-Khiong Kiun-Gui decided to take it on.
Hoān-Khiong is a Taiwanese Hakka with a fondness for old buildings, and a strong appreciation for creative culture and historical memory. With House+Café, not only has reactived one of Zhongli’s abandoned historic properties, he has done so with a humanistic spirit and and innovative approach to contemporary Hakka culture and cuisine.
The Diversity of Hakka Style
Built in 1910, the annex of the Liu Family Ancestral Shrine was made with imported red bricks, guard railings, stone columns, and other typical elements of British colonial–style architecture. Walking up the stairs, it is clear from the the style of the tiled roof that the whole mansion is full of old memories. The classic 19th-century design has placed the building on the same list as other old Zhongli mansions such as Wu Hung-Sen’s Former Residence on Zhongzheng Road.
While House+Café has largely preserved the simple style of the mansion, today it functions as an arts space and gallery, with the new glasshouse on the side of the building used as a restaurant. Both old and new architecture are brought together with a simplicity and grace that has helped blend right into the surrounding landscape. Hosting both solo and group shows in the gallery, occasional exhibitions highlight the innovation of the young contemporary art scene in Taoyuan, while linking local artists with their contemporaries in Japan, Germany, and elsewhere overseas. Through this work, the space has created new opportunities for the local creative community to interact and keep in touch with the currents in the international art world.
Hoān-Khiong Kiun-Gui has spent most of his life cultivating cultural and creative soil. He was taught as a child to persevere in the face of challenges and to overcome adversity — to strive with fortitude in the Hakka spirit. This spirit is even enshrined in the Hoān-Khiong family motto: “loyalty, filial piety, honesty, and thrift”, which is meant to encourage Hakka descendants to remember their roots, fulfil familial duties, and pass on Hakka culture.
As a Taiwanese Hakka descendant, Hoān-Khiong has made it his work to promote the Hakka aesthetic and lifestyle, but his efforts have focused in particular on expanding that definition. “While many celebrate Hakka traditions,” he says, “it is time people start paying more attention to what is new in Hakka culture.” For Hoān-Khiong, that means moving beyond the stereotypes and images of Hakka tradition so often confined to Hakka cuisine like ziba (glutinous rice ball), or Hakka music like mountain folk song. It also means expanding the reach — as when Hoān-Khiong introduced Hakka elements into the Eslite Bookstore chain in Taiwan. His vision of House+Café continues in this same vein, incorporating aspects of Hakka life, culture, and history into the restaurant industry, and creating a place where Hakka music is infused with Hakka food, customs, and artistry. House+Café opens this door to a wider public, revealing how Hakka style is truly multi-dimensional.
Envisioning the Future of Hakka Culinary Culture
Hoān-Khiong Kiun-Gui believes that food is hands down the best medium through which other groups and communities can come to know Hakka culture: “The Hakka image has to come from daily life.” In the case of Hakka people, who have weathered all kinds of geographic and environmental challenges over the course of their history, Taiwanese Hakka today have a strong spirit of perseverance. This can be seen in the unique kinds of pickled vegetables and rice dishes found only in Taiwanese Hakka cuisine. As the saying goes, “The mountain dweller lives off the mountain; the ocean dweller lives off the ocean.”
For Hoān-Khiong, innovative thinking is needed to drive change in the Taiwanese Hakka cultural and creative industries. For example, Hoān-Khiong has sought to reduce the on oily, salty, and fragrant flavours in Hakka cuisine, focusing instead on refreshing, low-fat variations on the traditional Hakka dishes popular in Taiwanese Hakka restaurants. In tandem with this innovative approach to Hakka cuisine, he has extended these ideas of the contemporary Taiwanese Hakka experience to the style of the restaurant itself. The traditional sanheyuan (three-sectioned U-shaped complex) is no longer essential to the authentic presentation of contemporary Taiwanese Hakka cuisine, and such expectations have been changing thanks to internet celebrities and the new wave of restaurants that have opened up in recent years. Anything is possible, even fancy cutlery.
Hoān-Khiong has also been working to reframe the value of Taiwanese Hakka cuisine. Apart from ban tiao (a Hakka rice noodle dish), for example, he suggests there could be another Taiwanese Hakka dish that could rise to the same fame as something like spaghetti allo scoglio — a Venetian seafood pasta, which apparently has made Northern Italy famous in the food world. The real question, of course, is “If a bowl of pasta goes for almost $200 NT, why does a bowl of ban tiao only cost $40?” Hoān-Khiong refuses to confine Hakka culture to its past forms and traditions, but constantly seeks new ways to upgrade and differentiate the unique taste of authentic Taiwanese Hakka cuisine.
New Cultural Perspective in an Old Building
Hoān-Khiong Kiun-Gui hopes that each detail of House+Café can convey a sense of calm and ease, and a certain life philosophy. Combining the flavours of both Southern France and Northern Italy, the architecture of both the British and the Taiwanese, the restaurant feels like a fashionable barn in a comfortable rural setting, sunlight pouring in through the windows. Hoān-Khiong smiles when he says, “All cuisine culture comes out of leisure.”
House+Café has reactivated the Liu Family Ancestral Shrine’s old annex, directing the life of the century-old mansion in a completely new direction. Cultural experimentation at its finest, the space is designed not only to highlight the quality of the food and experience, but to do so in a way that makes people think more deeply about the possibilities of Taiwanese Hakka culture. Today in Zhongli, Hoān-Khiong has made a base for local innovation and a place where the Taiwanese Hakka heritage can be showcased to the world.
House+Café
No. 32, Zhengda St., Zhongli Dist., Taoyuan City, Taiwan
(+886) 3-281-1910
11:30am–9:30pm, 3:00pm–5:00pm (Kitchen closed during afternoon tea hours)
A Stop Along the Way:
Yongchuan Beef Noodles
In Taiwan, everyone knows Zhongli is the best place for beef noodles, and Yongchuan Beef Noodles does not disappoint. Their fragrant spicy beef broth is full of flavour and warms up the whole body. For over half a century, the restaurant has made a name for itself by being one of the best values in town, serving large pieces of braised beef with chewy beef tendon, and offering extra soup and noodle service free of charge.
No. 61-1, Minquan Rd., Zhongli Dist., Taoyuan City, Taiwan
(+886) 3-495-3402
Open 24/7
A Stop Along the Way:
Jodie Ho Cafe
Jodie Ho Cafe is housed in a former herbal medicine shop, was reconfigured as a cafe when the fifth generation of the family took over. Keeping the medicine cabinets and shelves in place, the shop retains its retro atmosphere, while giving customers a place to relax with the rich aroma of coffee in the air.
No. 488, Huanzhong East Rd., Zhongli Dist., Taoyuan City, Taiwan
(+886) 919-143-599
12:30pm–8:00pm」
Shihmen Reservoir
Once the largest reservoir in the Far East, Shihmen Reservoir is a vast artificial lake across the Dahan River, benefitting millions of people in Northern Taiwan. The spectacle is especially impressive during the rainy season. Other nearby areas and sites worth exploring include Amuping and Cihu, as well as the lakeside walking trails, and restaurants serving the freshest Shihmen fish.
No. 2, Jia'an Rd., Longtan Dist., Taoyuan City, Taiwan
(+886) 3-471-2001, Toll-Free: (+886) 800-200-233
8:00am–6:00pm
Fun Hakka - A Fun Trip to Taoyuan
As the government of Taiwan has been in the process of implementing a national-level revitalisation project along Provincial Highway 3, many local communities have been activated in recent years. History, culture, and industry have all come together at a number of stops along the highway, and Hakka communities have prospered as a result.
There is an extraordinary diversity to the ways of life, cultures, and histories of different Taiwanese Hakka people. For those who live in the Taoyuan districts of Xinwu, Yangmei, Pingzhen, Longtan, Zhongli, Guanyin, Dayuan, and Daxi, Highway 3 is a key asset in the diverse cultural landscape. A north–south highway that features scenic mountain views and extends from Taipei to Pingtung, Highway 3 provides access to many Hakka communities, especially the 850,000 Taiwanese Hakka spread throughout the mountainous, coastal, and urban areas of Taoyuan.
