Four Freedoms Park

Ever since my first encounter with a building by Louis Kahn, the library at Exeter Academy, I have always admired Kahn's work. At that time (I was a high school student in summer school), I didn't know much about architecture nor about Kahn. Nevertheless, the library's elemental forms, soaring space, beautiful light, and strong materiality made a powerful impression on me.

While I don't make pilgrimages to see Kahn's buildings, I try to see as many of them as I can. This summer when I was in New York City for vacation, I visited the "new" Kahn project, Four Freedoms Park, on Roosevelt Island. Kahn designed the project around 40 years ago, but the construction did not begin until March 2010.

The 4-acre park is located at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island. The easiest way to get to the park from Manhattan is to take the Roosevelt Island Tram on Second Avenue and 60th Street. From the tram station on Roosevelt to the park is a just a short walk with great view of the Manhattan skyline.

The first things one sees at the park are five large tress followed by a monumental stairway.

The stairs are tall enough to block some of views ahead but the presence of the linden tress above invite one to climb up to discover what's behind.

The handrail for the staircase reminds me of the ones at the Kimbell Art Museum.

At the top of the stairs, the triangular space of the park is revealed with allée of trees on two sides.

One can walk across the lawn but it was nicer to walk under the trees with views on the side.

The allée leads to a large granite niche with an oversized bronze head of Roosevelt and s simple inscription:1882 -1945.

From the two sides, one enters a three-sided room open to the sky. The south side of the room is completely open to the expanse of the water. The square room is about 60 feet on each side and the walls are 12 feet high and made of solid granite blocks, each weighing around 36 tons.

The granite blocks are each separated by an one-inch gap. The wall on the back side, behind the Roosevelt sculpture is an excerpt from his "Four Freedoms" speech in 1941.

The square room is really a contemplative space that is both open and protected, with views of the river and the cityscape.

I am amazed that the park was completed forty years after it was designed. Kahn essentially went back to the basics of architecture with the triangular garden and the square room. The design is also full of complexity and subtlety in terms of the orchestration of the progress of spaces and the detailing. With the abstract and powerful design, Kahn was able to achieve a much admired timelessness to the architecture.

Cronut

The New York City-based pastry chef Dominique Ansel invented the Cronut in May this year. The Cronut is a hybrid of croissant and doughnut - a laminated dough that is proofed, fried in grapeseed oil, rolled in sugar, filled with cream inside, and topped with a glaze. Ansel said it took him over two months of experimenting with time and temperature to create this new pastry. Since only around 300 Cronuts are made everyday, they quickly sell out within a couple of hours. Ansel's pastry shop opens at 8am but a line of customers is formed much earlier. People have waited hours to get their hands on the Cronut. There are even scalpers who camp out to sell their spots at the front of the line. The Cronut has not only taken off in New York, but has become a global phenomenon, including being featured on the news in Taiwan.

In a recent trip to New York, we decided to try our luck and see if we could buy some Cronuts. Since we were jet-lagged, getting up early was not too hard. Actually, we dragged our feet and didn't get to SoHo until around 7:45am. By then the line had already curved around Thompson Street to the playground. The store opened at 8am and shortly thereafter the line started to move. By the time we got near Spring Street, a baker from the store came out and handed everyone mini-madeleines, which greatly delighted my two young daughters. The mini-madeleines were perfect, a reminder of our meals at Daniel, where Ansel was the pastry chef.

The store let around 10 people to enter at one time. Therefore, the line moved in large blocks instead of steadily, and it took us about an hour to get inside the store.

Once we were inside, we basically waited for people to pay. While the store had already boxed a lot of Cronuts which were ready to go, it simply took some time to run the customers' credit cards through the registers. As we waited in line inside the store, we could see the Cronuts behind the counter. Sadly, each person is only allowed to buy two Cronuts.

Each Cronut costs US$5. The aforementioned scalper asked for US$30 for his spot on the line. We bought a few boxes and took the Crounuts home to enjoy them.

There is only one flavor per month and for July it was Blackberry. In short, the Cronut was delicious. Croissant and doughnut are two of my favorite things, and to have them be combined in a pastry is just a delight and such a treat. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin once remarked that, "The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity than the discovery of a new star." I can't agree more. Ansel is a genius. I only wish the line wasn't so long to buy the Cronuts.

Pâte à Choux

Last month the newspapers in Taiwan reported that the food company I-Mei used expired soy protein isolate to make millions of packages of cream puffs. Almost no one expected a company like I-Mei would put people's health at risk for a little extra profit. The news also reminded me that I haven't made the pastry dough, pâte à choux, in a long time.

Pâte à choux is not difficult to make and I am always amazed that it is made with just four basic ingredients: flour, eggs, butter and water. Pâte à choux is a great dough to master because of its versatility - the basis for cream puff, eclair, Paris-Brest, gougère and Parisian gnocchi. Recently for a dinner party, I decide to make the classic bistro dessert, profiteroles.

Pâte à choux is made by first melting some butter with water and a little sugar and salt. Some recipes call for using water with milk to create a richer dough. However, Taiwan is too humid so I only use water. Flour is added to the liquid all at once and mixed rigorously to cookout the moisture, making a paste called the panade. Eggs are then added one at a time and mixed thoroughly. One can use a food processor or mixer to beat in the eggs, but typically I just do it by hand. I figure I should burn some calories before enjoying the finished product later.

I use a round tip with an half-inch opening to pipe the dough on to a Silpat. After tapping down the tips of the round pieces of dough with a little water on my finger, they are baked in an oven for around 35 minutes.

After the puffs are cooled, slice them in half and insert a small scoop of vanilla ice cream in between.

The warm chocolate sauce for the profiteroles is made by melting the chocolate with some honey and butter and then smoothing it out with a little milk.

I really enjoy making profiteroles, a very satisfying dessert to end a meal. I am a little rusty with using the piping bag so my puffs are not as uniform as I like. However, I don't think I will be so finicky about uniformity to pipe the dough into a silicone mold as suggested by the Bouchon Bakery cookbook. A little homemade-ness is not such a bad thing for a dinner party at home; certainly better than any puff in a sealed bag made with soy protein isolate in a factory.

Guest Blogging: Kevin Chen

Below is the second guest post by my great friend Kevin Chen.

MJ vs. Kobe

By Kevin Chen

Seeing excerpts from Phil Jackson’s new book about how Michael Jordan is superior to Kobe Bryant has prompted me to write about a topic that has fascinated me for some time – the debate over who’s the greatest of all time. I have a lot of thoughts on how that title should be determined in general in any sport, but for now, let’s stick with the issue at hand – Michael vs. Kobe. And my assertion is this: if Kobe had been thinking with his very intelligent head rather than with his super-sized ego, he would have realized that best chance he had to surpass Jordan was to convince Shaquille O’Neil to stay with the Lakers, not to push him out the door. This is what Kobe should have realized: in order to surpass MJ, he had to win not just six championships, but MORE THAN six championships, to have a legitimate claim. AND, he had a much better chance of winning seven or more championships with Shaq than without Shaq.

Let’s look at the first argument – why does Kobe need more than six rings? Because the first three championships that Kobe won need to be significantly discounted because he was clearly not the best player, either in stats or in reality, on his own team during those championship runs; Shaq was. Shaq was the Finals MVP for all three of Kobe’s first three championships, just like MJ was the Finals MVP for all six of his championships. Magic Johnson is considered a greater player than Scottie Pippen even though Magic has five rings to Scottie’s six because for most or all of his championship runs, Magic was the best player on his team and Scottie was a very important second-best player on his team.

Certainly this is the very reason Kobe decided that Shaq had to go – because Kobe realized that in order to reach Jordan’s level, he had to win championships on a team where he clearly was the best player. Kobe recently reiterated as much – with comments like “You can’t expect Michael to play his entire career with Wilt” when asked why he didn’t want to stay together with Shaq. However, what he failed to realize was that, even if Shaq had stayed, Kobe STILL would have been able to win championships with himself as the clear best player on the Lakers because Shaq was on the downside of his career while Kobe was just coming into his peak; just because Shaq was staying did not mean that Kobe had to continue to play second fiddle. In fact, the pendulum was already swinging in the last two years that Kobe and Shaq played together, 2002-2003 and 2003-2004. And, even though Shaq was on the downside, he clearly was still a dominant center and likely would be for at least three or four years – look at what happened after he joined the Heat, when he played a very important second fiddle to D-Wade and helped D-Wade win his first championship. Kobe’s big miscalculation was that he thought he would continue to be second best to Shaq if Shaq stayed; given their age difference and where the two were at their respective careers at that time, that simply wasn’t going to happen (again, see what happened between D-Wade and Shaq in Miami).

If Kobe had Shaq’s help for the subsequent four or so seasons, the two of them together would have given the Lakers the best chance to win multiple championships during that stretch – in fact they probably would’ve been favored to win every year during that period. And, that would have given the Lakers’ management enough time to determine how to retool to keep the Lakers competitive later down the road (like 2009-2013), with Kobe still in his prime and Shaq slipping into retirement. All this would have been given Kobe the best chance of winning seven or more rings. It doesn’t mean it definitely would’ve happened, but it would’ve given him a better chance than what he decided to do: get rid of Shaq. Kobe should have realized that, with Shaq gone, the Lakers likely would not win championships for the subsequent three or four years, and because of this required retooling period, he was unlikely to have time to get to seven or more championships in his career. His best chance of surpassing MJ was with Shaq, and because of miscalculated ego, he let that opportunity slip away.

Ducky Restaurant

Last fall, Benoît Monier, the sommelier at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon Taipei, said to me, "A few of our former employees went out on their own and opened a restaurant. You should try it sometime." He handed me a business card for the restaurant, which is named Ducky 大嗑西式餐館. He proceeded to tell me that the restaurant is not fancy and the young proprietors did everything themselves with a limited budget to setup the restaurant, including the design and construction of the space. 

Since last fall, I have frequented Ducky several times for lunches with friends and dinner with the family. In short, I really like the restaurant. I recommended Ducky to my picky and hard-to-please friends and so far they all seem to enjoy their meals there as well.

The fact that Ducky is good is probably no surprise. As the writer Anthony Bourdain once said something to the effect that if you spend two years working for Joël Robuchon, Alain Ducasse, or Thomas Keller, you never need a resume again. The three proprietors of Ducky worked for over two years at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon Taipei, two as members of the front of house and one as a cook.

The food at Ducky is done with care and executed well. There are certainly traces of Robuchon's dishes, such as the pan-fried amadai fillet with crispy skin and scales. The risotto is always cooked nicely with good flavors and served all'onda. The pasta dishes are also nice, my kids really enjoyed the ones with tomato sauce. My kids also enjoyed the french fries that come with the steak or can be ordered separately. The braised beef cheeks is fork tender and delicious. The portion at Ducky is generous and the pricing is very reasonable.  The appetizers are mostly under NT$200 and the main courses, including pasta, range from mid NT$300 to less than NT$600.

So what is there not to like? In terms of food, not much. It would be nice to be served some bread at the start of the meal; I know bread is actually not an easy thing to do well. The only dish I am not really crazy about is the steak. Ducky serves a U.S. Choice eight-ounce sirloin. The meat is cooked to the right temperature but the meat itself is so-so. I realize if a better quality of beef is used, the price will have to be much higher than the current NT$580; I would be willing to pay more. Actually is there really a need for steak to be on the menu? Why not have more pork (belly, knuckle, and shoulder) on the regular menu? Why not have cheaper cuts of meats that require more techniques, which the kitchen certainly is capable of doing? I also wish the restaurant has a larger selection of desserts. Putting some more bistro classics like profiteroles, lemon tart, bread pudding, or even just some ice cream on the menu would be nice.

The service at Ducky is good. My only complaint is the lack of large napkins. The restaurant provides a thin stack of small paper napkins, similar to a Chinese restaurant. I always ended up using several of them. Why not just provide a large paper napkin for each person that can be placed on the customer's laps? I don't believe the cost will be too different.

Since I am an architect I will express some opinions on the design of the space. I don't really like the use of wood paneling on some parts of the wall. The overhead shelving supported by diagonal kickers underneath is not necessary and look too haphazardly put together. The tables for four are a little too small for comfort. The chairs, while not uncomfortable, seem too heavy looking. Overall, the interior doesn't match the refinement that the kitchen is striving for on the plates. I know the budget was limited. However, just like a good cook can transform cheap ingredients into a great dish, sometimes good design can be done with limited funds. I suggest if a renovation is ever in the cards, please seek professional help. Maybe some designers are happy to barter design for food.

I always enjoy eating at Ducky. While at the restaurant, it is not unusual to run into the current staff of L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon Taipei having a meal there with their friends on their days off. Ducky has been open for less than a year and I am sure they are still looking to improve the restaurant. The restaurant is a little out of the way for me, which is the only reason I am not there more often.

Arpège Egg

Whenever I have friends over for dinner, I always like to make an amuse-bouche to start the meal. My current interests lie with the different egg recipes that French chefs make. Recently, I try my hand at making Alain Passard's famous Chaud-froid d’oeuf au sirop d’érable et vinaigre de xérès. I have never been to Passard's three-Michelin star restaurant L'Arpège in Paris. My wife, Maria, and I only walked past it once on our way to Le musée Rodin. Since I don't know when I will ever make it to L'Arpège, the only way to experience the dish is to make it myself.

The recipe for Passard's egg dish is widely available. There is even a video of Passard demonstrating the recipe on Youtube. I use the recipe in The Paris Cookbook by Patricia Wells. First, whip some heavy cream in a bowl to soft peaks and season with some sherry vinegar and salt. Then, cut off the top of the egg and pour out the egg white. Float the egg, like a little boat, in simmering water for around 3 minutes.

Take the egg out and set it in an egg cup. Sprinkle some chives or other herbs on the egg yolk, season with salt and pepper, and spoon over some cold whipped cream. Finally drizzle a little maple syrup on top and serve.

I really enjoyed this amuse-bouche with the contrasting temperatures and flavors. I agree with Patricia Wells that it is a dish that I probably will make over and over again.

Back to STAY

"Why do you keep going back to STAY?" My friends asked me over dinner when I told them about my recent meals at Yannick Alléno's restaurant. Several of my friends have been to STAY Taipei but none of them are terribly enthusiastic about the restaurant. It is no secret to them that I am very ambivalent about the restaurant. I would go to STAY, complain about the meal afterwards, and go back again. One of my friends even describes my repeated visits to STAY as a form of an abusive relationship. I don't need an intervention, however, the western fine dining scene in Taipei can really use some help. While STAY has problems, it is still much better than most of the western restaurants in Taipei. A meal at La Festa at the Grand Victoria Hotel will make one appreciate STAY. I go back because, in short, I really want STAY to succeed.

STAY Taipei has been open for over a year and it is fair to say that the restaurant has not resonated with the public; many people expressed disappointment with the food on the internet. In turn, the chef and the owner of the restaurant voiced their frustrations in the local newspapers and suggested the public didn't understand the food. There was even a semi-public spat with a blogger over the presentation of a steak dish. Perhaps there is a misalignment of expectations, but it is clear that there are many internal problems with STAY Taipei. In a year the restaurant has changed the chef de cuisine, lost the sommelier, and gone through several managers.

Over a year ago when I wrote about the food at STAY I was not terribly enthusiastic. When the restaurant first opened, I felt it was closer to a bistro than a fine dining restaurant as the menu consisted of dishes like grilled salmon, roast chicken, steak with French fries, St. Honoré, and brownie with ice cream. The dishes were mostly fine, but not terribly exciting and certainly with very little wow factors. I understand the idea behind the food, but it is not in the right context. If STAY had opened in a city like Paris with many Michelin-starred restaurants, perhaps it would be nice to have simple and well executed food in a less formal setting. However in Taipei where there are few good western restaurants, and with the marketing machine solely focused on Alléno's three Michelin stars, the food at STAY simply didn't capture the imagination of the public.

The owner and the chef have noticed the problem and in the past year the food at STAY has evolved. More expensive ingredients like caviar appeared on the menu. Cheaper but more flavorful cuts of meat that required more techniques, such as pork cheeks and lamb shoulder, showed up at the table. While not everything worked, the food has gradually become more interesting. The desserts became more composed and even included a hot souffle. It also helps that Alléno comes to Taipei four times a year to check in on the restaurant. When Alléno is present, the restaurant is more interesting with a special menu. So far the best meal I had at STAY remains to be the special dinner last March on Alléno's first trip back to the restaurant after the opening. I still remember the caviar with sea urchin and the sea bass overlaid with squid. The dishes really dazzled. I firmly believe Alléno is such a talented chef that he can shake spectacular dishes out of his sleeve. The question is does he want to? More important, can his team at the restaurant execute the dishes with consistency without him?

Last month I had dinner at STAY with Alléno back in the restaurant. He was offering a five course set menu. The first course was sea urchin with sole "blanc manger". The sole and the sea urchin were paired with sake jelly and topped with nori. The flavors were refreshing and it was a good way to start the meal. The second course was a seared duck foie gras "calisson". This was easily the best dish of the night. The two pieces of foie gras were in the shape of a calisson candy and each topped with a thin layer of icing. They were served with a sweet and sour sauce with confit pieces of melons. This was a dish one expects to see from Alléno. The flavors were clean, the execution was precise, and the presentation was beautiful; a dish that actually looked simple. The third course was a crustacean consomme with small mushrooms and two lobster mousse dumplings; a flavorful dish that was fairly good. The last savory course was beef with pasta and asparagus. The beef was cooked well to the right temperature, however I thought the accompaniment was a bit too complicated. The dessert consisted of two cocoa meringues spheres with chestnut spheres, which were delicious. The dessert at STAY is always consistently good.

While the recent dinner by Alléno was very good, it was not as good as the one in March last year, but certainly better than the menu he presented in September; the menu in September was a little disappointing, especially the scallop dish. If I have to be picky about the recent dinner, I would say in terms of seasonality, it was a bit strange to see asparagus and chestnut on the same menu. In terms of presentation, the sea urchin dish seemed a bit casual. All the other dishes consisted of pairs: two foie gras, two dumplings, two pieces of beef, and two dessert spheres. In contrast, the sea urchin was the only dish served as a single item in a loose geometric manner. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the food. Hopefully next time Alléno will present his Cuisine Moderne.

The biggest problem with the restaurant is actually not the food but the space. The location of the restaurant at Taipei 101 may be an attractive address for the tourists, but it is not ideal for fine dining. The restaurant is located on the fourth floor of the Taipei 101 Mall, which requires going through the shopping mall to get there. Sometimes being on a high floor instead of the ground floor means getting some nicer views, such as Per Se in New York or Caprice in Hong Kong. However, with STAY Taipei there is no real payoff because the room is actually an interior space with no windows. If anything, the only view out from the dining room is the escalators of the shopping mall. A restaurant without exterior window is not uncommon but it requires some good design. Unfortunately the design at STAY didn't really succeed in making a pleasant, comfortable, or sexy space. Frankly, I am not sure what the design intent is.

The worse part of the the interior design is actually the lighting. The restaurant uses a lot of open filament bulbs which are fine by themselves. The problem is they are combined with full-height light strips along the wall leading from the entrance into the kitchen. These lights are too bright and not in the same color frequency as the hanging bulbs. They face directly at the banquettes under the glass tree wall. The result is people sitting on the banquettes are very uncomfortable as they look directly at the lights, and their dining companions are backlit and thus don't look good at all. The crown jewel of the interior is the Pastry Library, which is brightly lit with very white LED lights, yet another different color. The lights on the bottom shelf are currently broken and detached, thus exposing the strong lights directly to all the customers sitting in chairs facing the library. I recently sat in one of the unfortunate seats and could barely look up at my dining companions because of the bright lights. I really hope someone will redesign the lighting of the space.

The space and ambiance of the restaurant have a major impact on the dining experience. Conceptually this is not any different from the importance of the tableware. In theory, the food is just what's on the plate. However, any serious French chef will not serve the food on paper plates, nor will a sommelier serve the wine in plastic cups. Therefore, why should the restaurant serve food and wine in an uncomfortable space? The design of the restaurant should enhance the food. Furthermore, a restaurant should make people happy and feel nourished. Right now, the design of STAY simply does the opposite. I have now been to STAY enough times to have sat at many different tables. I still haven't figured out which is the most comfortable spot.

Besides the physical space, the restaurant has some strange ways of operating. For instance, the restaurant is very stingy with the menu. They never hand out enough menus to the diners. If we are a party of two, the server would hand us one set menu and one a la carte.  If we are a party of three, they would place two set menus and one a la carte on the table. For the life of me I cannot understand the reason behind this mode of operation. We are not at a Chinese restaurant with a lazy susan in the middle and someone orders for everyone to share. Why can't each diner get a full set of menus by his or herself? Instead, I always find myself passing the different menus back and forth with my dining companions. This is extremely annoying. I don't think diners at Le Meurice share menus. Even my neighborhood pizza joint hands out menus to every diner, including my preschool daughter. I have asked the waitress at STAY why they can't hand out a full set of menus to each person, but I didn't get an answer that made any sense. I also cannot understand why the table setting calls for placing the knife and the fork on the same side of the plate. I see this is done at Alléno's Terroir Parisien, but that's a casual restaurant without tablecloth. At Alléno's previous restaurant, Le Meurice, the knife and forks (tines down) are placed properly on each side of the plate. Why can't STAY do the same?

The service at STAY is wanting. First of all, there doesn't seem to be a maître d'hôtel at the restaurant. I can never figure out who is in charge of the whole operation. The servers at STAY don't quite believe in the idea that the customer is always right. I agree the customers might get things wrong, but is it really necessary to rationalize any problem or argue with the customer? In a meal over a year ago, I was asked about my main course, to which I said, "Frankly, the dish is a bit under seasoned." Instead of acknowledging the problem, the server got defensive and said, "Chef wants the dish to be very light." I just turned my head and helped myself to the salt grinder. In a recent meal, our espressos didn't show up after the dessert. When we asked about them, instead of responding with, "I am sorry and I will go check on them," we were told, "We are using Nespresso today and it takes longer to make the espresso." The last time I used a Nespresso machine, it was pretty quick. The coffee comes in a capsule, so one doesn't even need to spend time grinding or tamping the coffee. Perhaps these are legitimate reasons behind the problem, but they sound more like excuses. What's wrong with admitting to some mistakes or seeing the issues from a customer's point of view?

In the same recent meal I asked our server to suggest a bottle of wine within a certain price range. She recommended a bottle from 1996 which was actually fairly good; however I didn't understand why she didn't decant the wine. Half way through our meal, the Head Sommelier, who for some reason didn't help us with the wine, remarked that he was surprised the wine seemed good based on the color. I was a little annoyed and said, "If you are suspicious about the quality of the wine, why do you have it on your wine list?" This is like the chef coming out to say he is surprised the dish tastes good. How is one going to feel comfortable ordering anything, much less something expensive? Restaurants should strive to develop a sense of trust with the customers, and this was just the opposite.

I fully understand that owning and running a fancy western restaurant in Taipei is not easy. Ingredients are difficult to import, good personnel are scarce, and the profits are hard to come by. I admire the owners of STAY for establishing a Michelin-quality restaurant in Taipei. I certainly want to support the restaurant in my limited way, however, there shouldn't be unconditional love. Since STAY aims high and is expensive, the restaurant should be judged accordingly. The food is good, but sometimes even with Alléno in the restaurant, it is not consistent. Furthermore, I wish the menu is more ambitious. Besides the food, there are still too many problems with the design and quirks in the service to allow one to fully enjoy the meal. Sometimes the dining experience feels very transactional. STAY does not exude the sense of generosity or care that one expects at a high end restaurant. Nevertheless, despite the problems, STAY still has potential. Alléno and the owner are sincere in their desire to make the restaurant great. In turn I will be back, albeit with reservations.

Kikunoi Honten

During Chinese New Year, our family took a short trip to Osaka and Kyoto. As with all our trips, prior to leaving I started to research about places to eat. Since Kyoto is famous for kaiseki, I wanted to make sure we try one and asked the hotel to make a reservation for lunch at Kikunoi Honten.

Kikunoi 菊乃井 is one of the best restaurants in Kyoto and the Michelin guide awarded it three stars for four consecutive years. I chose Kikunoi for a few reasons. First of all, I have seen Kikunoi's chef and proprietor Yoshihiro Murata's book on kaiseki and always wanted to try some of the dishes. Second, the restaurant welcomes children. Third, the restaurant has a very well priced lunch menu. And finally, the location is quite convenient for us.

Kikunoi is situated just south of Chionin Temple in the Gion district. The idea was we would visit the temple and stroll through the park and take lunch at the restaurant. However, we ran late and thus took a taxi. As the taxi made a turn from the street into a forecourt of the restaurant, it was clear we entered an exclusive and special place.

The staff of the restaurant greeted us outside the restaurant and helped us alight from the cars. Right after we stepped inside the restaurant we sat down on the tatami to take off our shoes. Then a kimono-clad hostess led us through a series of narrow corridors to our private room which has a vestibule to provide some separation from the public. The room was much larger than I expected. The room has a beautiful large rectangular table in the middle which covers a hole underneath for our legs. One side of the room has a little platform with a simple flower arrangement and a scroll on the wall.

Another side of the room has view and access to an outdoor garden. The room is very quiet and serene. The furnishing and decor are very minimal but comfortable; the space really compliments the food.

When I made the request for the reservation I asked if the restaurant was agreeable to serve our two young children. Kikunoi had no problem and could even serve the kids a different menu: a large and elaborate bento box. They only asked that we be in a private room, which I was only happy to oblige. At the restaurant there was no menu to choose from as I already picked out a simple set menu when the reservation was made. The set lunch was priced at 8,000 yen plus service charge and tax, which I thought was very reasonable. The kids menu was priced at 2,700 yen.

The lunch started with a large cup of tea. The first course was a collection of hor d'oeuvres, or Hassun, which included: "horse reins" sushi, ume jelly, ice fish with yuzu, tofu marinated in red-pickled ume, fuki bud marinated in miso, rapini with mustard, cod roe terrine, sweet black beans and wasabi greens. Everything was good and needless to say beautifully presented.

The second course was sashimi of red sea bream and young maguro or blue fin tuna. They were served with some udo (wild mountain vegetable), carrot, wasabi, and marinated fresh nori.

The third course was a turtle soup with minced duck, yomogi (Japanese mugwort) dumpling, Kujo onion, arrowhead root, giant turnip slice, daikon, carrot, tetragon leaf, and gold leaf. This was arguably the best dish of the meal. Not only were the flavors and textures wonderful, the dish was also poetic: the giant turnip slice floating on top evoked the image of a thin sheet of ice floating on water. My photo of the dish taken with the iPhone doesn't really express the wonders of this soup - a complex dish that really demonstrated the skill and intellect of the chef.

The soup was followed by a grilled halibut topped with dried karasumi (grey mullet roe), shiitake mushroom. The fish was perfectly cooked and the roe really added to the umami taste of the dish. I also enjoyed the simple presentation of the dish with the contrasting forms and the greenish plate. At this point of the meal, Chef Murata's daughter came into our room with the server to say hello and serve the dish to us.

For the next course, our server brought out individual burners and lit them at the table. The dish was a hotpot of yellow tail, with tofu, turnip, carrot, onion, and mibuna leaf. Our server helped us cook the dish.

The last savory course was glutinous rice with anago eel, which was served with a white miso soup and pickled daikon stalk, daikon leaf, and eggplant.

Dessert was strawberry ice cream with strawberry fruit, which was just delicious. Our kids were also served the same dessert which they quite enjoyed.

The lunch ended with a mochi dessert and a small bowl of green tea.

Our lunch at Kikunoi was by far the best meal of our Osaka/Kyoto trip. I love the ambiance of the room, the seasonality of the dishes, and the variety of techniques, ingredients, and flavors put forth by the chef. The service was wonderful. Our server said "Okini" (Kyoto dialect for thank you) so frequently that I started to say "Okini" back to her half way through the lunch. The meal was a revelation and I gained a great deal of appreciation for kaiseki. As we were leaving the restaurant, chef Murata's daughter walked out with us to our taxis. I thanked her for the wonderful meal and told her we will definitely be back, probably at a different season to experience the restaurant and the food in a different way. Kikunoi is worth a special journey.

Chinese Caviar

A while back I read several articles on French chefs using caviar not from the Caspian sea but from China. Frankly, when I read it I was quite surprised to learn that the caviar produced in China was that good. Since I am not too far from China, I figured I should try to get some. A few internet searches suggested the farmed raised caviar, Kaluga Queen, made by Hangzhou Qingdaohu Xunlong as the one to try.

As far as I know Kaluga Queen is not available in Taiwan. Therefore, my first attempt to obtain the caviar was to ask my sister-in-law, who works in Beijing, to buy some. It turned out she was unable to find the caviar in any retail store. I didn't want to pursue other methods so for a while I simply forgot about it. Recently in a family gathering, for reasons I cannot remember, the conversation turned to caviar and I chimed in about the reported quality of Chinese caviar. Upon learning the caviar came from Hangzhou, one of my very resourceful relatives took upon himself to get it. A few weeks later, some Kaluga Queen Ossetra caviar showed up in my apartment.

With the caviar in hand I invited my relatives over for dinner to try them. I decided to make a couple of dishes based on Eric Ripert's recipes. I love the food at Le Bernardin. Since I can't make it to Ripert's restaurant anytime soon, I should try to make the food myself. The dinner's first course was Smoked Salmon Carpaccio with Brioche and Caviar. This was actually not difficult to do. There are only four ingredients, the three listed above and creme fraîche. I couldn't find creme fraîche so I made some myself with heavy cream and yogurt. I must admit I didn't trim the smoked salmon into a perfect pointed oval as the kitchen at Le Bernardin would do; unlike a restaurant, if I trimmed off the edges I would still have to eat them myself. Nevertheless, this was a very good dish.

The second course I made was Linguine with Caviar and Sea Urchin. The sea urchin was blended with butter, tossed with the pasta, sprinkled with some Parmesan cheese and sea urchin, and topped with some caviar. This was probably the most expensive dish I ever made but also one of the most delicious and memorable.

The caviar by Kaluga Queen was really good. While it is expensive, the caviar from China is still cheaper than the ones sold in the retail stores in the West. Maybe one day the Chinese caviar will be available for purchase in Taipei. Perhaps the Chinese will figure out a way to maintain the quality but lower the price. For now, having Kaluga Queen at home was a rare moment of luxury.