Brought a book with me, waiting for my nephew to finish his violin lesson, although it was probably the coldest and the most rainy day of the whole winter, sitting in the hotel's 38F lounge, enjoying a glass of light Italian white, some appetizers and the misty view of Taipei, could be still pretty romantic.
Verdicchio White Wine
You got picture windows all around.
Foggy today, quite suitable for James Joyce.
My appetizers:
Sun dried tomatoes, Parmesan cheese(aged 12 months),
black olives, Mozzarella cheese.
* * *
Intermission:
Booked a table, went to pick up my nephew, came back to dine in the next door restaurant.
Part One:
Sous Chef Micheal Lin
Another talented Taiwanese chef I've discovered!
Selection by the glass has sufficient choices,
good value as well.
One of our dinner menus.
Claude didn't want the fish dish so we replaced it with gnocchi.
I ordered the vegetarian menu.
Breads didn't look like much but they were surprisingly good.
Later the service manager Dawn told us that Antonio gave the bakery lots of suggestions.
The breads were indeed much better than what they served in this restaurant before.
Amuse Bouche:
White Bean Soup
A bit watery.
Lin Performed excellently tonight except for this one.
Taiwanese chefs tend to make the western style soups a bit diluted,
probably because we always say "drink" (喝) soup instead of "eat" (吃) soup in Chinese.
San Angelo, Pinot Grigio, Toscana i.g.t.
Banfi, Italy 2007
Typical Italian Pinot Grigio, light but nice.
Dolcetto D'Alba D.O.C.,
Gianni Gagliardo, Italy 2007
Just like the grape's name "Dolcetto",
the red was smooth, easy but still interesting.
Considering an inexpensive everyday wine in the area where it's from.
the quality was very good though.
Wine glasses for Pinot Grigio and Dolcetto.
Tomato salad with Burreta cheese
The cheese was fresh, light, a bit creamy inside, matched the tomato better than Mozzarella.
Dan said it reminded him of Queso Fresco,
a kind of cheese he loved to use in a fruit salad when he was living in Spain.
Fois Gras with pistachio and onion purée
Good to take a break from using fruits.
You can see the purée part better in this picture.
Pumpkin Soup
Good and hearty for this kind of weather.
Beef Broth with Ravioli
Gnocchi
This Risotto was even better than the one Angelo made for me last time at Robuchon.
Three kinds of salt for the beef:
smoked salt from England, Spanish one with 3 kinds of peppers, and an Italian one with garlic.
Australian Wagyu Beef served with Padano cheese and Arugula.
Beef was so good that you don't need anything but a bit of salt.
Padano cheese tasted good with arugula.
Dessert
The pineapple slices were OK but the Ou Long Tea Sorbet was quite unique.
Digestif:
Distilled, lemon flavored, very sweet.
Better to sip little by little with water slowly,
otherwise it could be a bit dangerous!
A shot of Lemoncello Capri
Preparing their significant Tiramisu:
sponge cake, a shot of espresso,
Moscapone cheese with egg yolk,
grated Valrhona chocolate (75% cacao) on top.
Lighter and much more delicious than the usual kind you can find, less sweet as well.
Desserts after dessert.
Espresso was quite good.
Claude's black tea.
Sam came over to check if everything was OK tonight,
turned out it was the day off for Antonio,
and the sous chef Micheal Lin was in charge.
The food was excellent and the whole dining experience was very pleasant.
Bravo to you all!
* * *
Intermission
Dan and I were invited to some party nearby, but it looked so crowded there so we decided to have
dinner here first and then drop by to say hello to everybody. Besides, it's always hard to talk to
a bunch of people while eating anyway.
Part Two:
Chef Antonio Tardi
Ordered almost exactly the same thing as the other night because Antonio was here and I was
curious to see what the difference would be.
You can say Antonio trained his sous chef very well.
Tonight was excellent too but a bit more detailed.
It was nice to talk to Antonio and Micheal, too.
Amuse Bouche:
A miniature salad
The only thing I think they could do better is the amuse bouche part.
This is actually a very important part,
just like meeting somebody the very first time,
got to be impressive.
Robuchon does best in this part amongst all the restaurants in Taipei.
But the last time when I had dinner there they didn't serve the pre-dessert,
which is considered the ouverture for dessert, too.
Not sure if they forgot or the chef decided to eliminate it.
Quite disappointing!!!
Mumm Champagne
We ordered this San Lorenzo Sangiovese 2007 and a glass of Dolcetto as well.
Paired well with our beef and most of the other dishes.
Seems to be even a better choice than the Champagne.
Antonio added some herb on top of the beef broth which Micheal didn't do.
The herbal aroma brought out an even better flavor from the soup.
This time we kept the fish dish with pasta.
Preferred Gnocchi, though.
Apart from the 3 kinds of salts, Antonio suggested us to add a bit of olive oil to the beef .
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Antonio was very proud of it's quality.
Warm chocolate cake with melted chocolate inside.
Little sweets after dessert.
My Ou Long Tea was better than I expected.
Overall, Antonio did a very good job and the sevice has improved a lot.
His cuisine is a bit like Mozart,
easy to read but hard to perform well.
Bravo again!
Quite a nice soirée!
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