Feasting on expensive shoes from inside a presidential suite 總統套房裡吃皮鞋

This is from a story on a Chinese New Year’s presidential suite crocodile hot pot deal at the City Crowne Hotel. The crocodile was not tasty. My cameraman Roy wrote about it in his blog and said he felt like he was “eating an expensive ladies’ purse inside a presidential suite.” I thought it was more like “eating an expensive shoe inside a presidential suite.” The chef demonstrated for us in the hotel room how he would prepare the dish in the kitchen, and while it may have looked good on TV, it sure didn’t taste what it should have. He let us eat what he made in the hotel room, and all I tasted was burnt, fishy, chewy flesh with a thick layer of rubber that was supposed to be collagen-rich skin.

這是台北皇冠飯店推出過年總統套房鱷魚砂鍋餐的報導。
那鱷魚不太好吃。
我的攝影政諺說，他感覺像在”總統套房裡吃皮包”。
我覺得比較像在總統套房裡吃皮鞋。
廚師為了給我們拍畫面，
所以在套房裡做幾個動作給我們拍，
但沒想到最後他真的把那鍋給我們吃。
或許在電視上看起來很好吃，
但是我吃到的是燒焦，腥味重，老老的肉，
然後號稱充滿膠原蛋白的皮，吃起來像真相橡膠。
加上我平常就不太喜歡吃肉，那鱷魚真是不好吃。

The presidential suite there was once the private room of a man named Wang Youzeng (王又曾), reported to be wanted by the Taiwanese government for embezzling tens of billions of Taiwan Dollars (hundreds of millions to billions of US Dollars) and fleeing the country, leaving his children in Taiwan to do jail time for him. He used to own the hotel but it was sold off after the crisis broke out. Now the hotel is trying to capitalize on the fact that he used to own it and treated there heads of state (including former KMT party chairman Lien Chan 連戰 and former Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui 李登輝) and conducted there all kinds of business killings. The room is usually open only to screened guests, but the hotel’s promotion was that if you paid for a TWD65.000 (USD2.000) 12-person Chinese New Year’s dinner, the meal will be served in that room and you also get to stay there that one night. Imagine getting to sleep in the bed that one of who could be Taiwan’s most successful crooks slept in. I don’t know if I could.

媒體報導力霸百億掏空案爆發之後，王又曾逃離台灣，
留下了他小孩在台灣坐牢，收拾他的爛攤子，
力霸飯店是其中之一。
力霸飯店被賣掉，變成台北皇家大飯店，
通常總統套房只對篩選過的客戶開放，
飯店在過年期間開放給一般民眾，
只要在過年期間訂一桌十到十二人份六萬五的鱷魚餐宴，
就可以在王又曾以前的專屬總統套房請客，住宿。
想想，可以在以前王又曾宴像是連戰，李登輝等國家領袖，
談大生意的私人總統套房請客，
睡在或許是台灣最大的經濟犯的床上，
哇，那種感覺又是怎麼樣？
我想我會睡不著。

More pictures at Roy’s blog.
搭當那邊有更多的照片