The restaurant has a lovely space that is well lit, warm and comfortable. I hadn't had a dining experience like this in a while so it was nice to find something to remind me of home. The dinner was a 7 course meal with 6 wine pairings. The wine distributors and chef did an amazing job with the evening.
Each table had these beautifully printed menus on thick cardstock. A local band played jazz music which was fronted by this wonderful jazz singer who studied in New York. I was impressed!
This was the menu. I know you can't read this so I'll give details below.
We also got an order sheet to order wines and some wine descriptions, all in Chinese. Not much help there.
A beautiful room and great service
The restaurant is also a bakery and this chef has won some national awards for his breads. Seems funny that a Chinese chef would win a French bread baking award. Love that! These two breads were delicious! The black one was a squid ink baguette. Yup, I said squid ink. It was so good I could have eaten many of them and I'm not that much of a bread person. The second is their award winning bread - walnut and dried longan.
Logan is a local fruit sometimes called dragon-eye. I have seen these everywhere but hadn't eaten any yet. You peel these and eat the center. It had a touch of sweetness and the texture was wonderful in the bread.
The first course was sous-vide smoked salmon in this sauce that had a touch of vanilla. The salmon was prepared perfectly; it practically melted in your mouth and had just a touch of smoke.
The second course was a grilled prawn with lemon orange sauce. That little nugget on the side was a sea urchin quiche. YUM!
Next up was Pan Fried Foie Gras with stewed pig intestine stuffed with truffle risotto. It would never be called pig intestine in the states. Would they even serve pig intestine in the states? This was my favorite course of the night. I literally was groaning while eating every delicious morsel. It was paired with a luscious merlot. I'm salivating just thinking about it!
Next up, crispy pork and onion with an orange sauce. That's a perfectly cooked little frog's leg sticking up on the top right. Nomnom!
The next course, which I missed taking a picture of, was smoked duck breast with a potato mushroom concoction. We were given a little break and had some mango sorbet before being served the final main course.
Grilled Australian lamb loin with morel sauce and local asparagus
Dessert was house made ice cream wrapped in paper thin slices of pear that was shaped like a little pear on the plate. We also were served hot tea and petit fours at the end but by that point I was stuffed. I barely ate dessert at all.
There was a lot of conversation around me, which was all in Chinese of course, and I found out, as we were leaving, that Pearl discussed my coming in to work with the staff at Pasadena as a consultant about food and wine service in a French restaurant. I started laughing. I asked her how that came up and she said she spoke with the CEO about my having serving experience and about working in the food industry for many years. I had told Pearl that at times I miss working in a restaurant. I don't miss having a second job but I miss the people and energy. Oh, and the food of course! Apparently the restaurant is being closed for a month do do some renovation and the CEO would like me to come in after they open again. We'll see if that happens and if I feel I have anything I could even pass on. It just made me chuckle to think I could be connected to the food industry here in Taiwan.
So I give my night out a big thumbs up and look forward to doing something like this again in the future. I guess there is another such dinner when the restaurant opens in December and that we may go to that one together. I can't wait!
It's great, I could be connected to the food industry here in Taiwan
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