XLB in Taipei: Din Tai Fung/ 鼎泰豐

Cuisine: Chinese/ Dim Sum
Location: No. 194, Sec. 2, Xin Yi Rd., Taipei, Taiwan
Price: $$
Food: *****
Service: ****
Overall: *****


Every time I have a friend soliciting food suggestions in Taipei, the very first place I point them to is always one and the same – Din Tai Fung, so they have a chance to experience the world famous Xiao Long Baos (XLBs).

Just how good is this place? The Hong Kong branch received a Michelin star in 2009, and the original Taipei store was named one of the ten best gourmet restaurants in the world by NY Times in 1993. All this, for making the most amazing XLBs known to mankind.

Grilled Meat in Taipei: Ying Bao/ 鷹堡

Cuisine: Meat
Location: No. 5, Lane 160 Sung Chiang Rd., Taipei, Taiwan
Price: $$$$
Food: 3.5*
Service: ****
Overall: 3.5*


Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a carnivore? To look at the lush green foliage around and think, well that looks absolutely disgusting, if it’s not the flesh of an animal I have no intention of putting it in my mouth? That, apparently, is the basis on which Ying Bao operates.

I first heard about this place over the summer, but ran out of time to make it to the restaurant. When asked what kind of food Ying Bao served, my dad’s response was simply, “meat.” So when the opportunity struck to dine here for dinner with some family friends, I eagerly anticipated the experience.

French in Taipei: Abu Authentic

Cuisine: French

Location: Si Wei Rd. No. 28, Taipei, Taiwan

Price: $$$$

Food: ****

Service: ***

Overall: ****

Eating French food always feels like a dining experience fit for a king – filled with extravagant ingredients and flavors, bursting with sauces heavy with cream. How the French have kept this up for more than a century¹ and perfected such a rich, decadent dining experience² is beyond my understanding.

Though my knowledge of the culinary world extends as far as Top Chef and Food Network, it appears to me that most chefs trained in culinary arts will have been versed in traditional French cooking, from making the five mother sauces³ to using French influence in their cooking.

It would seem to me then that a chef that can master French food must not only have the basics of French cooking down pat but also have the ability to give his food an unique spin to keep it modern and unique.

With Abu, this is certainly the case. William Bu, the chef/ owner of Abu Authentic, used to work at Tutto Bello, a small Italian restaurant nestled in one of the millions of alleys of Taipei. Tutto Bello has always been my favorite Italian restaurant in Taipei (and I would compare Tutto Bello to the best that America to offer), so when I read that Abu had moved from Italian to French and opened his own restaurant, I was determined to try it out.

The result? I was blown away by his food, as I once was at Tutto Bello. 

Thai in Taipei: Sukhothai

Cuisine: Thai

Location: Zhongxiao East Rd. No. 12, Sec. 1 at the Sheraton Hotel

Price: $$$

Food: 3.5*

Service: ***

Overall: 3.5*

There are many places to eat Thai in Taipei, most prominently Thai Town, a massive chain restaurant in Taiwan that puts out some very good (if not totally authentic) Thai food. Growing up, it was always my go to restaurant for Thai food. Although the cuisine is altered for the customer base (more Chinese flavors, less Thai), I think that it helped give me an appreciation for traditional Thai food while I was still developing my palate and less willing to try funky tasting foods or items with names I couldn’t even pronounce.

That said, I’ve since been to Thailand a couple of times, and absolutely love authentic Thai cuisine. From the intense heat of the curries to the fresh seafood, whether it’s pineapple fried rice or shrimp cakes, the spices and flavors of Thai cuisine are so different from its Southeast Asian brethren. When my aunt suggested that we go to Sukhothai, a supposedly more authentic and classy version of Thai Town, I was happy to say yes and excited to try it out.

Italian in Taipei: Osteria by Angie

Cuisine: Italian

Location: Guang Fu South Rd. No. 33, Lane 280, Taipei, Taiwan

Price: $$$

Food: 2.5*

Service: ***

Overall: 2.5*

Website: http://osteria.com.tw

In a city where Italian restaurants run abound and many try and cater to the tastes of the locals instead of preserving the authenticity of Italian cuisine, Osteria by Angie stands out in stark contrast. Co-owned by executive chef Giorgio Pappalardo, who grew up in Sicily, Osteria by Angie goes to great pains to deliver the feeling of authentic, home-cooked Italian food that makes one feel at home.

The concept, in my opinion, is fantastic – as someone with a decidedly non-Taiwanese palate, I have been to many Italian restaurants in Taipei where the quality of the food suffers as a result of dumbing down the food to local tastes. At Osteria by Angie, the pizzas are made with buffalo’s milk mozzarella imported from Italy, the pasta is hand-rolled and homemade, and the risotto is actually cooked “al dente”, instead of into a sloppy mush, the texture that many locals prefer as it more closely resembles the white rice eaten on an every day basis.

Osteria by Angie had all the components necessary for it to deliver an all-star meal – and at its best, I was definitely impressed with some of the dishes it had to offer. Sadly, I found flaws with a few dishes, whether it was in the preparation or in that they simply didn’t have a lot of flavor. The restaurant has a potential to be fantastic, but as it stands, too many missteps made the overall experience pretty average.

The first thing I noticed was how cramped the seating was on the first floor – we were seated in a booth that was directly next to the walk-in area. The layout was such that often, servers had to stand in the walk-in area and reach around us to plate food or refill water, which made their presence very conspicuous and made me feel like they got in the way of each other a lot. Otherwise, service was pretty much what I would expect.

Because our group ate family style, I wasn’t able to get pictures of all the plates, resorting instead to just taking pictures of what was on my own plate so I could chronicle the meal. So, apologizes for some less than stellar/ missing photos. With that in mind…

Deep-fried calamari with garlic aioli

Appetizer: The batter on the calamari was light and airy, giving them a nice crunch. I thought the garlic aioli could have been a little stronger – with the lemons that were squeezed over the calamari, the taste of garlic was neutralized and hard to detect.

Grilled tiger prawns, marinated capsicum, rocket salad

Appetizer: The poor, poor tiger prawns were way overcooked, making them chewy and tough instead of tender like they should be. Not only that, but the capsicum were not just marinated in olive oil - it felt more like they were just completely soaked in them. The amount of oil on the bottom of the plate gives you a little bit of indication here. They turned the dish entirely too greasy and further worsened an already crappy dish.

Angus Beef carpaccio, Parmigiano Reggiano, truffle

Appetizer: One of my favorite dishes of the day. The carpaccio was sliced very thinly, and the parmigiano reggiano and accompanying arugula gave the dish a kick that was finished with a slight hint of truffles. I appreciated that the dish wasn’t heavy-handed on truffle oil – it really allowed the carpaccio to shine through.

Salad: Romaine lettuce with Parma ham and smoked ricotta cheese (no photo)

The smoked ricotta cheese was an interesting departure from what I would normally expect in a salad – it had great flavor and accentuated the salad. Otherwise, this salad was pretty standard Italian, with the dressing being a simple balsamic vinaigrette.

Mushroom risotto with braised beef cheeks in red wine

Primi: Probably the best thing I had all day. I absolutely loved that the risotto had a bite to it, as it should – as I mentioned above, too often in Taipei I’ll get risotto with the consistency of white rice, which drives me crazy. The beef cheeks were braised perfectly and melted in my mouth. That, plus the fact that I love mushroom risotto, sealed the deal for me.

Pizza Diavola: Spicy salami, tomato, mozzarella cheese, basil

Pizza: Another very good dish – the cheese had that gooey, melty quality to it that I love, and the flavors are very traditional Italian. It's pretty hard, I think, to make something with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, basil, and spicy salami and have it come out poorly. I liked the thinness of the pizza dough, but found the crust to be a little bit too thick for my liking. 

Pizza Quattro funghi: Mozzarella cheese and four kinds of mushrooms

Pizza: I am surprised that the same kitchen that produced the pizza diavola could produce this disaster. Considering that this was a white pizza, I would have expected some intense flavors to replace the tomato sauce. Instead, I got bland, unseasoned mushrooms and some doughy pizza bread with a little bit of cheese. Without any flavor, I felt that the cheese's main contribution was to greasify the pizza (and my lips).  Just a poorly made dish all around.

Dessert Sampler: Chocolate soufflé, mango crème brulee, tiramisu, assorted gelato (no photo)

The dessert was complimentary, as someone in our party had complained to our server about the overcooked tiger prawns. If the point of dessert was to assure us that they cared about the quality of food they put out, well, they failed pretty miserably. It wasn’t that dessert was bad – most of it was decent, if not particularly memorable. However, the one thing I will remember from this sampler plate is that we were served a soufflé that didn’t rise at all – like a deflated balloon, the entire soufflé sank into the ramekin it was served it, creating an utterly sad and pathetic visual display that I will definitely remember. I wish I had a photo of it, but I think that we immediately dug in to the soufflé so we wouldn’t have to keep staring at the sunken black hole where there should have been an airy, fluffy top.

Last thoughts: The highlights – and there were many – were great, and left me wanting to make a return trip to have the risotto, pizza, and carpaccio again. Sadly, the lowlights – and there were just as many – left me disappointed with my meal as a whole, in the sense that I thought this meal could have been so much better. I’d love to go back the next time I’m in Taipei to see if they’ve improved upon some of the poorer dishes I encountered today – if they do, Osteria by Angie will become a great place to go to for authentic Italian.

Italian-Spanish in Taipei: Forchetta

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:

Fresh baked bread

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

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. 

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^{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.↩}

French in Taipei: Aux Champs sur Marne

First things first:

Haven’t yet read what my ratings for restaurants mean? Go here.

Haven’t yet read my philosophy behind reviewing restaurants? Go here.

Cuisine: French

Location: Xin An St. No. 161, Taipei, Taiwan.

Price Range: $$$

Food: **

Service: **

Overall: **

Every time I’m back home I end up going to a few places to eat that my dad, relatives, or family friends have found since the last time I’ve been back. The story is usually goes like this – they’ve found a great new restaurant, and the food there is spectacular. As a result, they’ve been back a couple times already in the span of a few short months, and the owner/ maitre d’/ executive chef greets them by name¹ and sometimes trots out dishes² that are nowhere to be found on the menu.

So understandably, I was excited when some family friends told us they had found a great French place that served rustic, authentic French food. Sadly, this was one of the rare times that I was decidedly underwhelmed by a fine dining establishment in Taipei.

The restaurant is very small – by my count, it seats maybe 30 people. The kitchen is in plain view of the dining room, separated only by the expediting station. Given that, I would have expected service to be attentive, or at least not be poor enough to leave me with a bad impression. Especially considering that the restaurant doesn’t do a la carte at all (instead offering multiple options for a set menu consisting of a soup, salad, optional appetizer, entrée, and dessert), you would think that they would have the pacing of the meal down to a tee. Instead, there was a 30-minute delay between our salad and appetizers, followed by a 20-minute delay between our appetizer and main course. Which, for the people who didn’t bother with the appetizers, translated into almost an hour-long wait³.

Even worse, the food simply wasn’t very good. It wasn’t bad, either – it was just that there was always one component to each dish that I didn’t care for. Instead of talking in generalities⁴, here’s a more in-depth recap of my meal at Aux Champs Sur Marne:

Left: Apricot, Ricotta, Berries. Middle: Salami, Pesto, Pickled Cucumber. Right: Salmon, and honestly, I can't remember for the life of me what the hell that orange looking sauce was.

Amuse-bouche: A pedestrian beginning to a pedestrian meal. Why were the bites served on Ritz crackers? I have no idea. The chef imports his bread from France so that it has an authentic flavor, but can’t be bothered to drum up something more ingenious than two whole Ritz cracker for a dish that’s meant to showcase the creativity of his cuisine, apparently.

French onion soup

Soup: The croutons in the soup were delicious. These garlicky croutons were the undoubted highlight of my meal. Which is not at all a good thing when you think about it. Also the soup managed to hit that balance of being flavorful without being overpowering, and in general I am a sucker for a good French onion soup. There was no cheese at all in this soup, though, which I was extremely disappointed with, especially considering that I was told the food was going to be authentic.

Imported bread from France

Garlic-sauteed mushroom salad

Salad: The dish was plated so that the mushroom was literally at the forefront of the plate. Which was apt, because the garlic flavor was so powerful that it muted everything else on the plate.  The mushrooms were delicious because of that flavor, but they seemed like they belonged in a steakhouse as a side dish (which I would have loved). Instead the flavor masked what I thought was a very decent balsamic dressing on the salad.

Escargot "gratin"

Appetizer: The escargot I had here was way fishier than any that I had previously had, and I really did not care for it. The fishiness also emanated into the gratin, making this dish a total miss for me.

Green apple sorbet with brandy

Palate cleanser: This dish was complimentary, perhaps due to the aforementioned service mishaps. But they only gave our table of six two of these for some reason. Which is fine because it meant that only two of us had to taste this. I could tell the green apple sorbet was refreshing and subtly sweet, which I liked a lot. Too bad the intense taste of brandy completely overtook the sorbet and left an insanely bitter after taste in my mouth. As palate cleansers go, this one was one big epic FAIL. It came closer to nuking my palate than cleaning it.

Duck breast confit, apple tatin, Dijon mustard, seasonal vegetables

Entrée: The duck managed to be cut into slices that were just too big and chewy to eat in one bite, but the duck was just south of tender so that it was decently difficult to break the slices down into smaller pieces. The accoutrements to this dish were decent – the sweetness of the apple tatin and the bite to the Dijon mustard, plus yet another sauce that I can’t name because there was no explanation of the dish, all paired well with the duck. However, the seasonal vegetables to the side were dreadful. Why the fuck was there a bland mishmash consisting of a Chinese long bean, a mushroom stem, an ear of baby corn, a slice of zucchini, and a cherry tomato⁵ on my plate? It added absolutely nothing, and on an entrée that was very flavorful, managed to be completely devoid of taste. This shitstorm of vegetables is something that I would have expected to receive at a chain western restaurant designed to cater to the masses of Taipei, not a small French restaurant trying to emphasize authenticity.

Vanilla ice cream, blueberry and banana crepe

Dessert: I was pretty much ready for the meal to end at this point, as I am now with my lengthy post nitpicking about the meal. Let’s just say that the crepe was a little bit too thick for me, but otherwise the dessert wasn’t bad.

Last thoughts: like I said, I felt that everything managed to miss the boat by just a bit one way or another. Overall, a wholesomely forgettable dining experience. Especially for the price point, I wouldn’t be able to justify recommending this place to anyone.

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^{1. My uncle David has been to a certain Japanese restaurant in Taipei so many times in the last few months that they keep a set of chopsticks engraved with his name there for his personal use.↩}

^{2. A good friend of my dad’s claims that he once frequented an Italian establishment so often that to switch things up he once asked the chef/ owner to make him porridge instead. As the story goes, the porridge was as fantastic as the restaurant’s Italian food.↩}

^{3. Food worth waiting over an hour for: Hot Doug’s and Kuma’s Corner. And at least there you’re warned that you’ll be waiting for hours and hours to eat.↩}

^{4. Which I promised I wouldn’t do when it comes to reviewing restaurants!↩}

^{5. The fact that they plated an entire cherry tomato (instead of halves) really bothered me. Because the cherry tomato had been either blanched or boiled, I was beyond worried that when I picked it up with a fork the entire tomato would collapse and spew tomato juice all over the table.↩}