Having a ball

Pin It

This would sound incredulous to many, but I had not one, but two groups of people bail on me for my dinner booking at The Chairman (大班樓) tonight. Thankfully I haven't run out of friends who would be excited to have the opportunity to dine here, so I managed to rope in a few more thanks to the Zhongmeister.

I was lucky we didn't have people with voracious appetites, so no extra dishes for us tonight. But on this visit, I insisted on getting the one dish I wasn't able to order on my last visit. A dish that was new at the time, which took me almost four months to be able to taste.

Crispy taro cake with smoked duck (茘甫鴨盒) - pretty tasty with that nice, smoky flavor in the filling. I wished the taro mash was more fluffy on top, though. That would have been even better.

Birthday on the mountain

Pin It

We're back in Taipei because, among other things, it's Dad's 85th birthday. I wasn't able to celebrate with him last year, so I was determined to do something nice this year. I had read about Noma's pop-up in Taipei at YMS by onefifteen, which had opened this year on Yangmingshan (陽明山), just next to the Parental Units' home. I figured the location made perfect sense for the Parental Units.

But YMS by onefifteen had been touted as a members-only club, with price of membership reported to be TWD 600,000. Well, I wouldn't use the membership often enough to warrant shelling out that kind of money, so I put that idea aside.

Then I saw Hairy Legs and Victor post about the place, and mentioned to Hairy Legs about the proximity of the restaurant to the Parental Units' home. I did not realize until then that onefifteen (初衣食午) is the group behind 1929 by Guillaume Galliot in Shanghai, so he offered to make a booking at YMS for me. I also didn't realize until recently that a good friend from high school was the interior designer behind both YMS and 1929 by Guillaume Galliot - which would explain why my long-lost friend has been posting pictures about both restaurants on his social media account.

I received an email from the group's F and B manager about my booking, and since he asked about dietary restrictions and preferences, I sent back a list of what we prefer to do without. I also mentioned that mom is sensitive to many chemical additives, which include MSG but much, much more. While fine dining restaurants serving western cuisine are generally less of a risk in this area, but one can never be too careful.

It's been raining on and off today, and although we left the Parental Units' home under a very light drizzle, it wasn't a surprise that the higher up we got on the mountain, the wetter it became. When we arrived at the entrace to the compound, there were staff with umbrellas on hand to escort us inside. But we had just reached Lab 10 - the casual dining / tea salon within the compound. We would need to trek a few more steps next door to Restaurant 12, where the fine dining restaurant is located.

Our table was right next to the wine cellar, and I had a good view of the open kitchen from my seat. Chef Jonatan Motos Ferrán came to greet us, and since Hairy Legs had recommended his cuisine, I felt assured we would be in good hands tonight. The menu is long with 14 courses - 17 if you count the 4 mignardises individually - and it's been a while since mom sat through a long, fine dining dinner... but I hoped she would still enjoy it.

We started with a series of four canapés:

Tomato ⁃ burrata ⁃ olive - not surprisingly, the meringue made with tomato water was a little sweet. The filling in the middle was made of burrata along with diced tomatoes and olives.

Turks in Taipei

Pin It

We're back in Taipei for a few days, and the Parental Units were very understanding about us spending some time away from them. This gave us the opportunity to catch up with Little Rabbit, which we needed to do in order to exchange some gifts. I asked her to suggest a place for us to meet, with the overarching criterion that it shouldn't be fine dining. To my surprise, most of the places she suggested weren't actually Taiwanese - or Chinese, for that matter...

Eventually Foursheets decided that she wanted to have Turkish cuisine, so we ended up all the way across town at Izmir Turk Kitchen. They had literally just re-opened a few days ago, so Little Rabbit was kinda excited.

There is a selection of mezze to choose from, so I let the ladies go and pick them out...

Deep-fried in a hurry

Pin It

I haven't seen a business associate for quite a few years, and he very kindly offered to treat me to lunch while he's in town. I was a little taken aback when Ippoh (一宝) was suggested, but I figured this was a good opportunity to return and see how I feel about the place after a few years.

We didn't have a lot of time, so I suggested we switch from the special menu that had been booked to the short course Yuki (雪) - cutting the restaurant's revenue in half. I felt bad for the chef, but we would not have finished lunch in time otherwise.

I know I was 10 minutes late to lunch, but I don't think that warranted the lack of explanation for the appetizer. We have some broad beans, Chinese yam (山芋), and a soft-boiled egg together with ponzu (ポン酢) jelly.

No baseball bat tonight

Pin It

One is meant to give a gift made of wood to one's spouse on the fifth wedding anniversary. I only remembered about the tradition of anniversary gifts some time this morning, and briefly contemplated trying to buy a small, wooden mallet as a joke to give to Foursheets. When I told her about it later in the day, she scoffed at the idea of a mallet and suggested that I get her a baseball bat instead, since it's much harder and would do much more damage thanks to its mass. Well... I'm glad there isn't one around the house.

My day actually started with me singing the Bee Gees' hit Stayin' Alive - my anthem for having survived another year of marriage. Besides a little celebratory dance with me tryin' a little move from Tony Manero, the main celebration would be dinner at Caprice. It was, in fact, where we exchanged our vows and got married... and Hairy Legs had very kindly moved our booking to the Chef's Table - the actual place where it all happened 5 years ago.