Cuisine: Italian-Spanish
Location: An He Rd. No. 4, Lane 127, Sec. 1, Taipei, Taiwan
Price: $$$ - $$$$
Food: 3.5*
Service: 3.5*
Overall: 3.5*
There is a definite disconnect between the culture of eating in Taiwan and fine dining. I noticed this when reading the menu at Forchetta, which states the origin from which their food comes from (e.g. chicken from Mioli, fresh seafood from Keelung Pier).
I found it intriguing because usually when restaurants in the states do this –Maine lobsters, Kobe beef, etc. – it gives the sense that the ingredients are fresher and higher quality. I know that lobsters from Maine are fresh, that Kobe cows is raised to produce amazingly high quality beef, so on and so forth. However, I know next to nothing about Miao Li (the phonetically correct and more accepted pinyin spelling of 'Mioli', which Forchetta used), and when I think of Keelung, I don’t think of fishermen and the pier, but rather I think of a river that used to be so insanely polluted that someone once described it as looking like Coca-Cola. Which is funny, because the river I'm thinking of isn't even Keelung River, its Tamshui River1. Even though I’m certain that the local produce is of very high quality, seeing it written down on the menu did not automatically trigger that connection to quality food for me, as my above thinking shows.
The good thing is that my little philosophical tangent into the gastronomic culture of Taiwan didn’t stop me from keeping an open stomach and palate towards the food being served. Though Forchetta serves some Spanish (Iberico ham; tapas plate) food, I only had their Italian food. But if what I had were any indication, then I would expect the rest of their menu, Spanish or Italian, to be well crafted and worth tasting.
An interesting note about the service here – our server was someone who I recognized from a previous trip to Mondo, another fine Italian restaurant in the nooks of Taipei. He stands out particularly because he speaks English fluently (a rarity here), and also because of his gregarious nature. He actually selected the courses for my friend and me, so overwhelming us with his suggestions and enthusiasm that I think we decided to just let him run with it. In general I found him to be very helpful in explaining the food and enhancing our experience there, save for the fact that his constant doting2 was certainly out of the ordinary when it came to service I’ve come to expect. It was a little like dining at a friend’s place and having their parents keep saying, “Eat! Eat! Eat!” That and I had a minor quibble about his rush to serve us the plated food – because we split all of our dishes, he would often separate the dish, put it on our individual plates, and pull the original plate of food in a blink of an eye. Aside from the fact that it prevented me from taking photos of the composed plate, I was a little disappointed that it detracted from the visual aspect of eating. But I thought service overall was very good, and certainly appreciated how helpful our server was.
Without further ado, my meal at Forchetta:
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| Fresh baked bread |
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| Tomato paste, garlic aioli |
Bread: I was impressed with how fresh the bread was – in fact, when I went back for a second piece of bread 20 minutes after it had arrived, the wait had robbed it of its freshness and the bread became just slightly harder (certainly not to the point of it being inedible, just that you could tell how fresh it had been originally). It came paired with tomato sauce and garlic aioli3 that we spread ourselves, which I definitely preferred to the common alternative, a pat of butter. The flavor combination was great – very rustic Italian, with the garlic and tomato.
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| Shrimp Carpaccio w/ sun-dried tomatoes, arugula, truffle oil |
Appetizer: I love arugula. The peppery taste it gives off pairs greatly with the light, refreshing flavors that a carpaccio is supposed to bring. I was very happy with the shrimp – they had a great raw flavor without being too slimy for my tastes. The arugula and sundried tomatoes gave the dish a real kick, and the presence of truffle oil gave another layer to the dish that left a lingering taste afterwards.
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| Mushroom and truffle pan-fried ravioli |
Appetizer: I was a little miffed by the presentation – these pan-fried ravioli were not like either traditional ravioli or deep-fried ones, but rather something in between. The original plate was dotted with a bit of sauce, but we didn’t get any of the sauce after our slightly-too-hands-on server served us and removed the plate. I wasn’t a fan of how big the ravioli were, and thought they resembled pot stickers more than ravioli. The filling was quite tasty, however – the combination of mushrooms with a hint of truffle is a very classic one. Served hot, I loved that the scent of truffles was released once the ravioli was cut into. I would have loved this dish if it were served traditionally as ravioli instead of this bizarre Asian-fusion pot sticker style.
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| Spaghetti with spicy chicken from Mioli and Chinese pickled mustard vegetables from Fu Hsin Garden |
Pasta/ Primi: I've always believed that a good Italian restaurant is judged by the quality of their pasta – if so, Forchetta passes with flying colors.
The undoubted star of the meal, the pasta was finished with some spicy olive oil to give it an extra kick, but the crunch and taste of the pickled mustard vegetables had me sold. I love pickled mustard vegetables with Asian cuisine, and seeing them used so cleverly here without turning the spaghetti into a bowl of Asian-style noodles was an impressive feat. The pasta was cooked perfectly, the chicken superbly tender, and the slight spiciness to it kept me coming back for more.
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| Pineapple panna cotta |
Dessert: Again, I didn’t get a picture of the original plating here before our server helped us split it into two. I liked this as a closing to our meal – it was not overly sweet, which I actually liked a lot. The pineapple flavors were still prominent, and the texture to the panna cotta was fantastic. A good end to a fine dinner.
Last thoughts: Forchetta was definitely a quality Italian restaurant that I would be happy to return to. In a city filled with Italian spots, I don’t think many can make a pasta dish that I enjoyed as much as the spaghetti here.
The first floor is very small and gives the place a very intimate and elegant feel – I didn’t venture down to the basement, where I think there was more seating. As such, I’d definitely recommend this place for a romantic dinner, a nice night out, or simply as a fine dining destination.
1. Just yesterday, the local news in Taipei, which focuses exclusively on ridiculous sensationalized news that whips the nation into a frenzy about idiotic issues of non-consequence, reported that a corpse was found floating in Tamshui River, just 25 meters away from a major MRT (Taipei's equivalent of the L) station. Not the best association to have with the origin of my food, erroneous or not.↩
2. Ranging from telling us to eat our bread before it got cold to playfully chastising my friend for not finishing her ravioli. Although, in his defense, he was 100% right about the bread getting a little stale if it sat for too long.↩
3. Like bacon and chipotle mayo, garlic aioli makes everything taste better. This is also why I am a sucker for the turkey with garlic aioli at Al’s Deli and the Al Forno at Rollin’ to Go.↩
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