It Is Not What It Is: RAW by André Chiang

The glass front door is still deceptively heavy. The transparency of the material belies the effort it takes to open the door and enter restaurant RAW. The disconnect between perception and reality does not end at the front door but continues throughout the experience of the meal. Eating at RAW is not what it seems to be.

I haven't been back to RAW in five years. The main reason is it is simply too hard to make a reservation, arguably the most difficult in Taipei. Under the direction of Taiwanese celebrity chef André Chiang, the dining room at RAW is always full. Even the Covid-19 pandemic and the ban on foreign tourists in Taiwan have not slowed the business down. The other reason I haven’t returned is I am ambivalent about my previous dining experience. I don’t feel the strong urge to dine at RAW again. Recently at the invitation of a friend I have finally returned to RAW to dine for the second time. 

RAW of 2020 is a different restaurant from five plus years ago when it first started. Now the restaurant has two Michelin stars instead of none. Does the restaurant provide a two-star dining experience? The price of the menu has almost doubled since the restaurant first started. Is a meal there now twice as good as my last visit? The answers to both questions are, in short, not really.

Stepping inside I see the interior hasn't changed much. The space is well maintained and everything still looks new. I still like the design except for the text by George Calombaris on the concrete wall near the entry. The space at the front of the restaurant remains empty but recently has found a new purpose: for diners to sit down, fill out their travel histories, and have their temperatures checked. 

While RAW still looks and feels the same as when it opened in late 2014, the circumstances have changed significantly. Five-plus years ago, Chiang was still cooking everyday and chasing Michelin stars at his eponymous fine dining restaurant in Singapore. RAW was just an outpost in his home country and designed to be a bistronomy. In 2016 Restaurant André received two Michelin stars in Singapore’s inaugural Michelin Guide. At that time, there were rumors that Chiang was originally slated to receive just one star. The rating was changed to two stars at the last minute due to the lobbying of the Singapore authorities. The story is unconfirmed but certainly intriguing.

In October of 2017, Chiang abruptly announced he was closing his flagship restaurant in Singapore and “returning” his Michelin stars. Moreover he was leaving Singapore and moving back to Taiwan. To signal his complete disinterest in the Michelin stars, Chiang even asked Michelin to exclude RAW from the upcoming 2018 Taipei guide. This request was strange given Chiang’s entire career and reputation were built on the associations with the Michelin Guide. His personal library in Singapore contained a collection of Michelin Guide of France spanning decades. Was Chiang really breaking up with Michelin?

Chiang knew how to play hard to get. To no one’s surprise, when Michelin launched the guide in Taipei, they ignored Chiang’s request and awarded RAW with one star. Thumbing his nose at Michelin didn’t have any negative effect; actually just the opposite. One year later in 2019, Michelin upgraded RAW to two stars and decided the restaurant is just as good as Restaurant André was in Singapore. 

In Singapore Chiang was working in the kitchen full-time and got two stars. In Taipei, he gets two stars even when he doesn’t even want any. Instead of being on his feet all day in Singapore, he just cooks for his mom and wife at his home in Yilan, an hour drive outside of Taipei. Chiang is a smart man and must be laughing all the way to the bank. He is the most famous Taiwanese chef in the world. Michelin in Taipei needs him. 

Moving from Singapore to Taiwan means RAW has become the main signature restaurant of Chiang. RAW is also a restaurant he almost never cooked in and still doesn’t. Since the restaurant’s opening, the person running the day-to-day operation has been his trusted Chef de Cuisine Alain Huang. Chiang simply designs the menu and Huang executes the dishes on his behalf. However, I am surprised at how little input Huang seems to have on the menu. After I finish my recent meal, I ask Huang about some of the decisions on the dishes, he seems to suggest they are all made by Chiang. 

There used to be only one menu at RAW, NT$1,800 for 8 courses and everyone ate the same dishes. The socialist nature of the restaurant is no longer present. Now there are three choices: NT$1,850, NT$2,680, and NT$3,500. The pricier menus come with more courses and fancier ingredients. Since a meal at the restaurant is so hard to come by, my friend and I opt for the most expensive menu. I want the whole experience. 

Prior to dining at RAW I have already saw the pictures of the dishes on many websites and publications. Just about all of them simply regurgitate the press release from the restaurant: how the new menu is all about the celebration of spring and the increasing awareness on sustainability. Chiang is a master of publicity and he knows the media in Taiwan love and crave access to him. The media in Taiwan are essentially his mouthpieces. They don’t question or review his food.

The eleven-course spring menu starts with a nice and delicate green strawberry tart. However, the season for strawberry in Taiwan is not in spring but winter. Why start the spring menu with an unripe strawberry? The accompanying ice has a nice and subtle flavor but is too much in terms of portion. After the third bite I am bored and don’t want to finish it.

The second dish is very interesting, a salmon collagen with wasabi presented in a cocktail dish with chopsticks. It’s a pretty dish. A cup of fish soup is served on the side. The texture and flavors are very good. 

The third course is an escabeche which is served in a small rectangular tin with a bread on the side. I only wish the restaurant would provide a bit more bread. Why not be a bit more generous? Escabeche is a dish that originated from Persia and is now commonly found in the Mediterranean coast of Spain. It is basically a way to preserve fish or meat in vinegar. Eating this dish reminds me of my trip to Barcelona. This is another nice dish with great flavors. However, I don’t know why escabeche represents spring or Taiwan. It feels like a dish that Chiang just wants to make.

After we finish the course, a loaf of bread is brought to the table. Since we order the most expensive menu, the bread is included. The bread seems to be the same as the one on my first visit and remains quite nice. I still don’t know whether the bread is made in-house or not. 

The fourth course is a salad with various spring leaves, seaweed, and mackerel served on the side. I enjoy the dish. The vegetables are fresh and delicious and the dressing is very flavorful. I am ambivalent about whether I need the mackerels or not. They are served on an ice pack inside a styrofoam-like bento box. The presentation is unappetizing. 

The next course is a cold pasta inspired by the Italian Spaghetti alle Vongole. Chiang makes the kitchen braid the pasta and the vegetable for a great visual effect. I don’t understand the use of almond cream which clashes with the marinated cockles. The dish looks better than it tastes and is designed to be on Instagram. The temperature of the dish is also not appealing.

As if one dish of vegetables is not enough to celebrate spring, the kitchen brings out another dish of vegetables; this time lukewarm instead of cold. The vegetables are topped with a truffle cream sauce, which I don’t understand at all. If the menu is an ode to spring, why use an ingredient from winter? Putting aside the idea of representing spring, where does one get good truffle at the end of April? Not from France, Italy, nor Australia. The scent of the truffle seems artificial. Would a world famous two-Michelin star chef choose to use truffle oil for a dish? 

After six courses, I am hoping to finally get a dish that is hot. But my wish does not come true. RAW is a restaurant of cold and lukewarm food. You will never hear the phrase, “be careful the plate is hot” from the server. The only food that is hot to the touch is the bread. But bread should not be served hot as it disguises the quality. Also anyone who makes crusty bread knows that the bread needs to cool down for the crust to develop. If a diner is eating hot bread in the restaurant it is because the kitchen has reheated the bread. 

The last two savory courses are both done with fresh pork. I wish the restaurant would not repeat an ingredient for a tasting menu. I suppose we can’t expect restaurants to be like the French Laundry where ingredients don’t repeat over the course of a meal. Moreover, while fresh pork is a meat the Chinese like to eat, it is not an ingredient associated with spring. Before the ubiquity of refrigerators, pigs were slaughtered in the winter and mostly cured to preserve for later. If RAW is suppose to be all about being in tune with the seasons, why not serve lamb or chicken that is more representative of spring?

The first pork dish is essentially a meatball. Every component is well executed and the plating is beautiful and photogenic as always. However, by the time the dish arrives on my table it is not hot enough. This is a disappointment as it reduces the enjoyment of the food significantly. 

The second pork dish is a play on the three layers of pork belly. Instead of an outside skin, a thick layer of fat, and lower portion of pink meat, there is only a layer of pork made from the pigtail. The other layers are made with Chinese yam and mozzarella. The “crackling” on the top is made with peanut which isn’t as nice as a real pork skin and just sticks to my teeth. The sauce is made with peanuts. And there is a dollop of mediocre caviar which seems to be there just to pad the price of the menu. On the side is a “salami” made with fig. It is as if Chiang is just messing with us on purpose. He knows full well that spring is a season for cured pork but he purposely makes it with an inverted flower. Again, the “salami” is more interesting in concept and appearance than taste. This last savory course is the only dish of the meal that I fail to finish. I don’t like it at all. The server says this is a way to eat less meat. But how about making the dish delicious so I will finish the food instead of wasting it. 

After the disappointment with the last savory course, the two desserts that followed can’t come fast enough. The first one is a study on tofu. The server brings over a large house-made tofu to the table, but that’s just a show piece presented to all the tables in the room. The second dessert is Chiang’s take on the traditional red “turtle” cake. The cake is delicious. Both desserts are excellent and I enjoy them very much. The last time I was at RAW, the dessert was a disappointment. This time the desserts are the highlights of the meal.

While the food at RAW has some high and low points, the service is substandard. RAW should be glad that the Michelin Guide doesn’t consider service as part of the criteria for awarding stars. When one dines at a Michelin two-star restaurant, one expects a certain level of professionalism. For instance, the services at the two-star restaurants Jean Georges or Daniel in New York City are impeccable. The front of house staff are not only experienced but very knowledgeable. In contrast, the servers at RAW feel like they either just graduated from culinary school or they are interns. They cannot even set the cutlery properly on the table. They are not trained and simply memorized a script to repeat to the diners. They also have zero awareness of the diner’s needs.

The servers are lackadaisical. My friend’s napkin falls on the floor, the server takes it away but doesn’t replace it. My sparkling water is refilled with flat. The drinking glass for the beer is removed before the bottle is emptied. The server asks to remove the bread before the main course. What’s the hurry? Does the dishwasher need to go home early? What if I want to sop up the sauce when the main course is served? The runner brings the food on a tray, but there is no server to deliver them to the table. This happens more than once. At the second time I ask the the runner to not wait for a server and just bring the food to the table. I hate to see the food idling and dying due to bad service. 

When the warm vegetable dish is brought to the table, I ask the server where does the truffle come from given we are at the end of April? She says she doesn’t know but would get back to me. A while later, she comes to our table to serve another dish and I ask her again about the origin. She only says the restaurant uses truffle from France, Australia and China. So I ask again where do you get the truffle in spring? Again, she says she would ask the kitchen. Towards the end of the meal, I ask the server for the third time and she still doesn’t know. I suppose this question is not part of a memorized script or it is some secret. Eventually the Chef de Cuisine comes to our table and says the truffles are not fresh but preserved in oil from the winter. He doesn’t explain why an ingredient associated with winter is required to prepare a menu for the spring. I am also tempted to ask don’t you have pre-shift meetings? Why don’t you train your staff to know where the food you are serving come from?

The menu of RAW changes with the seasons. Every time the change takes place it is like a cultural event in Taipei. If you hang around with hipsters, you probably will hear the phrase, “Have you tried this season’s menu at RAW?” Eating at RAW is similar to attending a fashion show to see the latest trends. The clothes on the fashion runways are often times styled more for effect and the media instead of wearability and beauty. The primary concern of the cooking at RAW is also for concepts and publicity instead of deliciousness. Unfortunately the spring 2020 menu at RAW does not express a coherent set of ideas. The dishes don’t form a good story nor celebrate the season. The diners at RAW are just paying money to participate in Chiang’s whimsical experiments. 

Chiang has become the face of the Taiwanese food scene. Promoted by everyone, including himself, Chiang is the golden boy and can do no wrong. But eating at RAW, I cannot help but wonder if this is just like “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen. The only difference is Chiang is not just the emperor but he is also the weaver. He is one of the smartest chefs in the world. He seems to be knowingly parading nonsensical food to the public. Every season the people await his new creations, snatch up the reservations, and applaud after the meals. 

This doesn’t mean RAW is a restaurant to be avoided. If I am a tourist coming from abroad, I would certainly want to eat at RAW to see what all the fuss is about. While I don’t like every dish, I do appreciate the creativity. Experimentation always comes with the possibility of failure. If one doesn’t fail then perhaps one is not daring enough. RAW remains an interesting place to have a thought-provoking meal. RAW is just not a place to have a delicious meal that makes you want to come back the next day to eat it again.

logy or -logy

Multi-course no-choice menu, touting of Taiwanese ingredients cooked with Western techniques, open kitchen with a Taiwanese or Japanese chef in his (always a he) thirties with Michelin-star restaurant pedigree, small wine list, and no discernible pastry chef, these are all part of the formula of a Michelin-star restaurant in Taipei. In recent years, not only does this formula work with the Michelin inspectors, but it is also embraced by the diners (especially the young) in Taipei. The restaurants Impromptu by Paul Lee, Mume, RAW, Ryugin, and Tairroir all employ some parts or all of the formula to become very successful.

Restaurant logy opened in the middle of November 2018 and received a Michelin star in April 2019. This has to be one of the shortest time between opening and garnering a star in the history of the Michelin Guide. The restaurant is small with only 13 seats at the counter. Since the start of the restaurant it has been very difficult to reserve a seat. How many times did the Michelin inspectors actually eat at the restaurant. Did the Michelin Guide simply award the star because logy closely followed the formula?

The chef of logy, Ryogo Tahara was a sous chef at the two-Michelin-star restaurant Florilège in Tokyo before coming to Taipei. Prior to Tokyo, he worked at a few Michelin-star restaurants in Italy. Restaurant logy is actually Tahara’s first time as the head chef but he certainly has high expectations. When Michelin made the announcement, Tahara told the local newspaper that he was happy, but would preferred to have a second star (“開心，但是再來一顆會更好”). Who doesn't like more stars? I suppose a chef should be confident (or arrogant) about his ability. I am not an expert on psychology. But even the Chef of the Century Joël Robuchon had to earn his stars at Restaurant Jamin one at a time.

Given the formulaic nature of logy, I wasn’t very eager to go the restaurant. The analogy is watching romantic comedy movies. Before one heads to the cinema, one already knows what's going to happen: they get together, they breakup, and they get back together. With a romantic comedy, the experience is a topic of conversation with friends but doesn’t have a profound impact. Nevertheless, just as some romantic comedies are better than others, logy is one of the better formulaic restaurants. By chance my friends had reservations at the restaurant but couldn’t go, so I ended up eating at logy twice but a year apart: one for dinner in March 2019 and the other for lunch in March 2020. Over the course of a year the formula of logy did not change. Only the price of the meal has increased.

Restaurant logy is located in a small alley of Daan district in Taipei, and occupies the ground floor of a nondescript seven-story apartment building. The facade of the restaurant is a light grey textured concrete wall with a floor-height vertical inscription of its name. The wall is devoid of any windows and has only one opening on the left side. Tucked inside the opening and not visible from the street is the front door, which adds to the sense of anticipation. Once inside the feel is the opposite of the exterior: the color is black, and the space is dark, small, and little severe.

The interior is based on the typology of the open kitchen with counter seating. Different from the typical setup, the seating area is raised on a platform allowing the diners to sit on regular chairs rather than bar seats. However, the trade-off is the platform reduces the clear ceiling height and the space feels more cramped. Sitting on a platform also means the diners look down at the cooks in the kitchen. Together with the dark walls and the lack of daylight, the effect is a bit theatrical. But unfortunately, out of the 13 seats, three around the corner of the L-shaped counter has only a partial view of the action due to a large black column. For my lunch I was assigned the seat at the corner of the counter and stared at the column for over two hours. The restaurant makes no apology. And unlike at an old theater, partial view at logy doesn't come with a discounted price.

The interior design of logy is from the genealogy of the two-Michelin-star restaurant Florilège in Tokyo. However, in Tokyo there isn’t any obstruction of the view of the kitchen. The dining room in Tokyo also has daylight coming through the drapes, making the space more comfortable. The restaurant in Taipei is a weak replica of the restaurant in Tokyo.

The counter at logy is made out of concrete and is a bit wider than it needs to be. This makes the space smaller. The walkway behind my chair feels narrow and uncomfortable especially when someone walks pass me to go to the bathroom. The width of the counter also made the server more distant and lessened the intimacy. The chairs at the counter are comfortable but problematic. When one is sitting at a counter, one’s dining companion is on the side rather than the front. Therefore, the chairs at the counter should allow the diners to easily turn to the sides. This can be done with a swivel chair or a chair without armrests. The chairs at logy are simply too heavy and constrictive, prohibiting the diners from turning to each other for a conversation. Perhaps this is done on purpose so the diners can focus on the kitchen and the food rather than on each other.

Another time I sat in the dining alcove. While the space is more ideal for a large party (four to six persons), it is detached from the open kitchen. The space is a little too narrow for comfort. Whenever a server walked behind me, I felt I had to pull my chair inward to avoid contact. Since the table is made of wood instead of concrete, a grey fuzzy round placemat is used to protect the surface. However, it looks like a big mouse pad and doesn’t look clean. There has to be a more elegant and natural placemat that can be used.

The interior design does not pay much attention to otology. All the surfaces of the restaurant are hard without acoustics treatment. For instance the ceiling is a floating plane with down lights that doesn’t absorb but reflect the sound. For my second meal, the dining party of three adjacent to me was so loud that I felt like I was eating at a night market.

Before any food is served, the server explained the terminology of the name. It is not necessary nor useful. The diner is then handed a card in English explaining the concept of the restaurant. In case the diner doesn’t know the meaning of the suffix-logy, three are listed on the card: 1. [from Greek] the science or study of, 2. [from Latin] spoken or written discourse, and 3. [in Japanese] an alley. I like reading and understanding theories, but I don't really need the card. Being told that "logy [sans hyphen] is the word we have chosen to express Asia’s profound dynamism. The cuisine combines elements of our core concepts – nature, climate, people, religion and food culture – but defies categorization" didn't add to my enjoyment of the food nor the experience with my dining companion. Similar to viewing art at a museum, I don’t need to read the labels on the wall before seeing the art. Let me just enjoy the work. And even the labels in the art museum describe the work rather than some concept that has no specificity. I rather just see a menu.

The card is a bit pretentious but not necessarily precise about the concept; more time should have been spent on etymology. In a couple of instances, the restaurant confuses the suffix -logy with the word logy. A suffix is a morpheme added at the end of a word to form a derivative and -logy denotes a subject of study. On the other hand, the definition of the word logy is: dull and heavy in motion or thought; sluggish. While the restaurant wants to position itself as a “point of cultural connection”, eating at logy is not a cultural event. At times the meal doesn’t denote a type of discourse but rather just feels logy.

There’s only one set menu (besides the vegetarian set) for all the diners. The meal starts with an one-bite amuse-bouche. For my first meal it is a ball-shape amuse that makes an analogy to Lu Ruo Fan (Taiwanese braised pork rice). I don’t really like the amuse nor is it hot enough. My second meal starts with a square piece of squid, with celtuce and fermented radish powder served on a spoon. This is more successful, and I prefer the non-associative nature of the dish.

Second course is a horse mackerel. The first time the fish is hidden under a cookie, which I wish is more crisp or not there at all. The second time the mackerel is hidden under edible flower. The slices of fish is layered with horizontally with thin slices of wax apple and served on whey. At both meals the mackerel is excellent with nice texture and flavors. I don’t understand the idea of always hiding the mackerel at the bottom, but the combinations of the ingredients are interesting.

In my first meal at logy the third course is an eel with banana. The dish is interesting in words but a little dull and heavy in taste. In my second meal eel doesn’t make an appearance and is replaced by a dish of abalone, which is well cooked, light, yet flavorful.

The signature dish of the chef seems to be the steamed egg or chawanmushi, which has remained on the menu since the opening. Served in a dark bowl, the dish is not just an oology, but a layered construction of steamed egg, crab meat, and celery ice cream. A hot broth is pour tableside. This dish is an ology in contrast: temperature, textures, and flavors. Instead of resolving the differences, the chef accentuates them. This is a very successful dish and delightful to eat. However, I don’t want to eat this same dish every time I go to logy.

In my second meal the restaurants serves a pigeon leg. The plating is similar to the mackerel with the protein hidden under chips. I am not sure why there is such an interest in topology. The construction is not really architectural either. Nevertheless, the pigeon is cooked very well and delicious.

The dishes build up to the pièce de résistance: a large format roast. For my first meal, the main course is a roast chicken that is first presented without the thighs and the legs, which just looks sad. I feel like someone ate the rest of my chicken. I think the chef kept my favorite part of the chicken, sot-l'y-laisse, for himself. I understand the thighs and breast have different cooking times, but the chicken is presented before the fish course is served. In other words, there is plenty of time for the kitchen to carve, cook, and rest the chicken. I don’t understand the methodology.

For my second meal the roast is a piece of pork. As with the chicken, the meat is presented to us early in the meal. The server says the pig is specially raised listening to the music by Mozart. I don’t know if the server realizes that Mozart died from eating undercooked pork. I don’t know anything about ethology. Does Mozart’s music really help make the pork taste better? Why not the music by Georg Friederich Händel? Or is the breeder trying to exact revenge for Mozart? Maybe the chef wants us to know that he can cook the pork to the right temperature; not too hard with modern technology. Indeed the pork is roasted nicely and served with cabbage. However, instead of Taiwan, I felt like I was in Alsace.

Based on two visits to logy, I find the main courses are nice but dull. The preparation is almost a bit too straightforward. They don’t have much of a wow factor that one expects, and feel a bit like a home-cooked Thanksgiving roast. Furthermore, since the protein is presented in a large format at the beginning of the meal, there’s a disconnect by the time the diner eats it. The grandeur of the large roast is absent from the small portion on the plate.

The desserts at logy are a bit of a disappointment. The restaurant doesn’t seem to have a dedicated pastry chef. Given the size of the restaurant, it probably doesn’t make economic sense to hire a pastry chef. However, desserts are three of the total ten courses. Dessert is an opportunity to bring some magic to end the meal. But at logy, the desserts feel a bit like an afterthought or just dishes to pad the menu. For instance one of the desserts is a soy milk pudding, with rose jelly, and a strawberry consommé. This is served in the same dark bowl as the steamed egg. The chef really likes the idea of soft custard topped with a sauce, and has to have both savory and sweet versions. This dessert is pleasant, but not too technical nor interesting. With just eight courses, does a diner really need two bowls of soft custard?

I wish the chronology of desserts isn't three consecutive cold dishes. Since every diner eats the same dessert, the restaurant can plan for large format desserts or something warm: soufflé, crêpe, tarte tatin. Why not make some desserts à la minute?

The last dessert (more like a mignardise than a course) of my two meals one year apart is the same: fresh aiyu jelly, coconut, and cocoa juice. It is a refreshing end to the meal, but doesn’t feel special enough. I certainly don’t expect a year after my first meal I would be eating the same thing again. Aiyu is a jelly made from the gel of the seeds of the awkeotsang creeping fig found in Taiwan. The server makes a big deal about the jelly and even shows the fruit on the side in case the the diners haven’t see it before. This is all part of the formula with the idea of the foreign chef discovering and promoting Taiwanese ingredients. Maybe a tourist would find the fruit more interesting. I don’t need the superficial pomology which felt less educational and more patronizing.

I am not sure what is the ideology of logy besides using Taiwanese ingredients to create French-Japanese food. The cooking is precise but some of the dishes are not as flavorful as I imagined. The savory dishes beside the large format roast are the best parts of the meal. They offer some interesting combination of flavors and textures. The chef seems to be more adept and have more ideas with preparing seafood than meats.

When logy first opened the dinner was priced NT$3,500 plus 10% service charge. In my most recent meal, the price has risen to NT$3,750 plus 10% service charge. While there are more expensive restaurants in Taipei, the pricing is not cheap, especially considering the so called ten-course menu is really eight courses with an amuse-bouche and a mignardise. The portion of each dish is small and without many expensive ingredients. In comparison, a meal at the Michelin-one-star Impromptu by Paul Lee, with a similar menu format, is NT$2,580 plus 10% service charge. Is the experience at logy worth fifty percent more than at Impromptu? Not for me.

Restaurant logy is a place with a young chef and a younger staff, cooking for a young crowd. The restaurant is also well suited for tourists seeking a western dining experience with local ingredients. Furthermore, the restaurant is ideally positioned for social media with dishes that are sometimes more photogenic than delicious. Given the limited seating and the local's love for Japanese chefs, a reservation at logy will probably continue to be hard to come by for the foreseeable future. I am not in the demographics for logy and don’t need to go back soon.

Turban de Langoustines en Spaghetti

In 1997 NBC ran an advertisement campaign with the slogan: If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you. The goal of the commercial was to get viewers to watch the reruns of the fall TV shows in the following summer. This was the pre-streaming era when shows were not on demand. The campaign wasn’t successful but the slogan always stayed with me.

Instead of television, the tagline might be more applicable to food and restaurants. Just like everything in life, food and restaurants are subject to fashion. Marketeers and journalists are constantly promoting new things, which encourages the general public to chase after the latest trends. From fusion to molecular gastronomy to new Nordic, every few years bring a new must-eat creation or a must-travel-to restaurant.

As we seek to taste the latest creations from the celebrity chefs of the moment, we forget there are more dishes from the past that we never had before. For instance, many people of my age or younger never had the classic dishes such as, Poularde en Vessie, Coulibiac, Canard à la Presse, Chartreuse…etc. Instead of foraging, pouring liquid nitrogen, or eating insects, why not seek out the greatest hits of the culinary world?

One of the classics that have fascinated me for the past year is Turban de Langoustines en Spaghetti by Joël Robuchon. My interest in the Turban began shortly after Robuchon's passing last summer. In an interview Robuchon gave last year, he referred to a proverb that said, “when an old man dies, a library burns down”. Robuchon said, “I have seen so many good chefs — some famous, some not — who have gone and, with them, a part of knowledge and tradition is lost and nobody can take it back.”

With his words in my mind, I flipped through the pages of Grand Livre de Cuisine de Joël Robuchon to see how many dishes of his that I have never tried before. The Turban caught my eye because it is not only a dish from Robuchon’s first three-star restaurant, Jamin, but also one of the ten recipes in the Best of Robuchon book. The dish is also included in Simply French, the book on Robuchon by Patricia Wells. Besides the importance of the dish in Robuchon's repertoire, I am also attracted by the architectural shape of the dish, a torus sliced horizontally in half. Or perhaps I am just intrigued by the peculiar nature of the dish: a French chef using an Italian pasta for his signature creation. I tried to find the history of the dish, but I didn’t have much success. Ever since last summer I wondered whether one day I would be able to try the Turban.

Last October when Philippe Braun, one of Robuchon’s longest collaborators came to Taipei to visit, I asked him why doesn’t L’Atelier make the Turban or some of the other classics from the days of Jamin. Braun said the Turban is not for L’Atelier, where the dishes are meant to be a bit more casual and simple. The classic dishes such as the Turban are for the gastronomy restaurants such as the one in Macau, Tokyo, or Las Vegas; they take a lot more work to prepare. However when I looked online at the menus of the three gastronomy restaurants, I didn’t see the Turban either. The Chef de Cuisine of Taipei at the time, Olivier Jean, told me later that the Turban is not on any of the menus at Robuchon restaurants but only made during special dinners.

I didn’t know when the next special dinner would take place in Taipei, thus I thought I would try to make the Turban at home. After all I have the recipe in my collection of cookbooks. In the Best of Robuchon, there are even photos of each step of the preparation. My thinking was since I make architectural models at work, I ought to be able to assemble a half torus at home. By chance I have a few individual savarin molds at home. I bought them on sale a long time ago at JB Prince in New York. They are bigger than the ones Robuchon called for. But I figured the techniques are the same. Instead of a tasting menu portion I would just make a main course.

The first step of the recipe is to brush the insides of the savarin molds with soft butter and then place them in the fridge to firm up. In the meantime boil a pot of water to par cook the spaghetti for about six minutes. Afterwards rinse the pasta under cold water, drain, and set aside; cover the pasta with plastic wrap to prevent them from drying out. Then line the inside of the mold with a single strand of spaghetti starting at the bottom. The process of lining the mold is not easy with my large hands. I couldn’t quite lasso the spaghetti into the mold so I had to use my two hands to slowly layer and pack the spaghetti in. While it is harder than I imagined, it is definitely doable. Once the mold is completely lined with spaghetti, they go back into the fridge to be chilled.

As the molds are being chilled, I made the mousse. Instead of langoustine which is hard to source, I used shrimp. Simply brush the shrimp with soft butter and blend them with cream in a food processor. Once a mousse-like texture is achieved, brush the the mousse onto the chilled spaghetti in the mold. Then put the deveined and shelled shrimps in the mold. Cover the molds with a buttered aluminum foil and return the molds to the refrigerator again.

The recipe is tedious, but many of the steps can be done separately and beforehand. When it is time to serve the dish, simply take the molds out of the fridge and place them in a steamer and steam for around three minutes. Then quickly remove the aluminum foil and unmold onto a plate. When the turban of spaghetti is unmolded it is quite a sight. I cannot help but marvel at the dish. I don’t know what inspired Robuchon to line a savarin mould with spaghetti strands. It’s just an incredible creation. I asked my two daughters to try the dish and they loved it. Will they remember the dish when they grow older, I don’t know. Unlike me who has met Robuchon, they are are even further removed from the dish. I hope they will learn to love the classics.

Last March the team of chefs from the Robuchon group, headed by Robuchon’s righthand man Eric Bouchenoire, came to Taipei for their annual visit. They prepared a special dinner honoring Robuchon’s legacy. One of the dishes Bouchenoire chose to make was the Turban of Spaghetti. I finally had a chance to eat the dish. He said good langoustine wasn’t available so the filling was made with scallop instead. Nevertheless the dish was everything that I expected and more. There’s a delicacy to the flavors behind the architectural construction of the dish. The sauce for the dish was delicious, full of umami, or as the Chinese would say, xian-wei. The slices of truffle elevated the dish to another level. It was perfect.

After the dinner, I showed Bouchenoire the picture of my attempt at making the Turban. He looked closely and said it was good but I used too much butter. I didn’t think there was ever the possibility of too much butter in French food. I did use a lot of butter because I was afraid the spaghetti wouldn’t unmold properly. Bouchenoire said too much butter may make the spaghetti less stable. I know the reality is even with enough practice I probably cannot make the Turban as well as the restaurant. And I can make two or four nice turbans at a time, it is hard for me to imagine making 50 of them perfectly under time pressure like at the restaurant.

Looking at and eating the Turban I could feel Robuchon’s presence. While he may be gone, he has passed on his knowledge to his numerous collaborators. However, it is not enough to just retain the knowledge. For Robuchon’s DNA to truly live on, the diners need to demand to eat the classic dishes at the restaurants. We need to realize that we always stand in a timeline where the past is farther away from us than the future. The future may be unclear, however, vast parts of the past are just as fuzzy. While it is interesting to be part of the experimentation of the present, a classic is actually an experiment in the past that worked and lasted. If you never had it, it's new to you.

Dot Dot Dot

“Can I propose something for the vitrines at the counter?”, I asked Chef Olivier Jean of L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon Taipei a couple of months ago. He accepted my offer but was probably a bit puzzled by my interest. While similar to the vitrines at a sushi bar, the ones at L’Atelier are not for displaying the day’s ingredients, but extending the decoration surrounding the open kitchen. Conceived and installed by the front-of-house staff, the contents of the vitrines change to reflect the seasons or the holidays. Whenever I dine at the counter of L’Atelier I see the vitrines and ask myself what would I do.

Since I’m an architect I want to do a more architectural installation. The theme of my proposal is dot dot dot. Using dots as a point of departure comes from the dishes at L’Atelier. Dots of sauces are frequently used as the finishing touches on a dish. The most famous example is the lobster gelée with caviar and cauliflower. At the top of the dish there is a ring of perfectly spaced tiny green dots. When the restaurant critic of the New York Times reviewed L’Atelier in the City, he wrote, “Not one dot of sauce, and there are many, is out of place.“

Besides the culinary nature of the dots, the theme makes a reference to ellipsis, a literary device to indicate an unfinished thought. Chef Robuchon passed away unexpectedly last summer, leaving many unfinished ideas on the future of food and restaurants. As such this installation is also conceived as a tribute to him.

There are six vitrines spread out along the length of the counter at L’Atelier. Each vitrine contains a variation on the theme of dot dot dot: cave, cityscape, constellation, park, ruin, and wave. All of them are based on circular geometry and abstraction. Architecture, nature, and ideas are reimagined as dot dot dot.

“Puis-je proposer quelque chose pour les vitrines au comptoir?”, Ai-je demandé au chef Olivier Jean de L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon Taipei il ya deux mois. Il a accepté mon offre mais était probablement un peu perplexe par mon intérêt. Semblables aux vitrines des bars à sushis, celles de L’Atelier ne servent pas à afficher les ingrédients de la journée, mais à prolonger la décoration entourant la cuisine ouverte. Conçu et installé par le personnel d'accueil, le contenu des vitrines change pour refléter les saisons ou les fêtes. Chaque fois que je dîne au comptoir de L’Atelier, je vois les vitrines et je me demande ce que je ferais.

Depuis que je suis un architecte, je veux faire une installation plus architecturale. Le thème de ma proposition est point point point. L’utilisation des points comme point de départ provient des plats de L’Atelier. Des points de sauce sont fréquemment utilisés pour la finition d'un plat. L'exemple le plus célèbre est la gelée de caviar à la crème de chou-fleur. Au surface du plat, il y a un anneau de minuscules points verts parfaitement espacés. Lorsque le critique de restaurant du New York Times a examiné L’Atelier dans sa ville, il a écrit: “Pas un point de sauce, et il y en a beaucoup, n’est à sa place.”

En dehors de la nature culinaire des points, le thème fait référence à des points de suspension, un dispositif littéraire indiquant une pensée inachevée. Chef Robuchon est décédé subitement l'été dernier, laissant de nombreuses idées inachevées sur l'avenir de l'alimentation et des restaurants. En tant que telle, cette installation est également conçue comme un hommage à lui.

Six vitrines sont réparties le long du comptoir de L’Atelier. Chaque vitrine contient une variation sur le thème de point point point: grotte, paysage urbain, constellation, parc, ruine et vague. Tous sont basés sur la géométrie circulaire et l'abstraction. L'architecture, la nature et les idées sont réinventés en tant que point point point.

Impromptu by Paul Lee

As I sit down at the counter of Impromptu by Paul Lee, a server places a small white card with a light grey mat underneath in front of me. On the card is a definition of the word impromptu: done without being planned or rehearsed. I don’t know what compels the restaurant to remind the guests about the meaning of the word. I find the emphasis on the idea of impromptu a bit strange. Impromptu is actually a misnomer because everything done at the restaurant is planned. After the server removes the white card, the grey mat is meant for the diners to put their mobile phones; nothing should be out of place. The restaurant is about control.

The person controlling everything is chef Paul Lee. Tall and handsome, he wouldn’t be out of place on the movie set of Crazy Rich Asians. Standing in the open kitchen he is dressed not in the standard white chef’s jacket but in a dress shirt, similar to the three-Michelin-star chef Alain Passard. Except Passard is usually in a white apron while Lee is in a blue apron that is for the commis in a French kitchen. Perhaps Lee is signaling that he is still learning.

While he may be humble, Lee is a very experienced chef. Born in Taiwan and studied at California’s Blue Ribbon Culinary School, Lee trained at Joël Robuchon's restaurants in Las Vegas with Tomonori Danzaki and in New York City with Xavier Boyer. He also worked at Martin Berasatagui’s Michelin-three-star restaurant in Spain. Prior to returning to Taipei, Lee was the executive chef at the fine dining restaurant Patina in downtown Los Angeles. Working with Joachim Splichal he changed the menu at Patina to an all tasting menu format. At age 37, Lee is one of the few chefs working in Taiwan with extensive experience in fine dining restaurants.

Impromptu only has one tasting menu. Every diner eats what Lee wants to cook. For anyone imagining Impromptu as a place where one can have a conversation with the chef, and he would create a special or new dish on the spot, one would be wrong. This is not like Pierre Gagnaire where he may improvise in the middle of dinner service. After all Lee trained at Robuchon and Robuchon didn’t believe in running specials. Robuchon believed that frequent menu changes meant one is trading perfection for variety. The menu at Impromptu doesn't change everyday and not even every month. Even when the menu changes after a month or two, it is not wholesale.

As Impromptu doesn't offer an à la carte option, it is not a restaurant that one can visit frequently, unless one wants to eat the same dishes over and over. Since the restaurant opened in late summer of 2018, I have been there twice. The visits were six months apart with different menus but in a similar format. I enjoyed both of my dinners.

The restaurant is located at the southeast corner of the shopping mall in the basement of Regent Hotel. From the corridor of the mall, a sliding door of translucent tinted glass opens into the restaurant. On the right is a small bar that doesn’t seem to be used much by the guests. On the left are tables with banquettes. In the middle of the space and in full view of the diners is the kitchen and counter seating.

The restaurant is small. There are 14 seats at the counter and about the same number of seats at the tables. There is also a private room in the back that can seat up to ten people. The ceiling is a bit lower than one would like but this is not the fault of the restaurant; the ceiling of the entire shopping mall is too low. One design flaw of the restaurant is the choice of the chairs for the counter. The seat is not wide and is made more restrictive by the armrests. Armrests for the chairs at the table are fine because the diners are usually talking across the table. The situation at the counter is different as one’s dining companion is on the side. The armrests make turning to the side to talk quite restrictive and uncomfortable. It would be nicer to have seats without armrests like at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon. The alternative would be to have swivel chairs.

The size and setup of the restaurant seem like a Japanese kappo restaurant, but the overall feel is not. The color palette of the restaurant is quite neutral with off-white, taupe, and light and dark wood. While wood is used for the surfaces, the appearance is not natural but more synthetic. The ceiling is mostly exposed except for the area above the counter. The design reminds me a bit of the restaurant designs by the late David Collins, albeit with a lesser budget. The table setting is simple, with no charger plate nor placemat. There’s just a napkin folded in a square, a water glass, and a wine glass. Small vases with flowers dot the counter. The overall feel of the restaurant is quite pleasant.

Depending on the season, the tasting menu starts with one or more cold dishes. For my first dinner in the summer, there are three cold dishes in a row. The first course is hamachi, watermelon, aguachile. The second is scallop, sakura shrimp, whey, and cucumber. The third is ayu fish, guava, and Sichuan peppercorns. The touch of Sichuan peppercorns is very interesting and done with great precision - just the right amount of numbness in the flavor profile. If one of the criteria for being a good chef is coming up with his or her own combinations of ingredients, then Lee certainly hits the marks.



Lee calls his food new American cuisine and this sounds like a good term. He is trained in the French tradition but his food is multi-cultural. He uses many Asian ingredients such as shaoxing wine, fermented black bean, Chinese sausages, Sichuan peppercorn. He also takes ideas from all sorts of cuisines. In a single tasting menu, there is Chinese noodle, Italian truffle pizza, yakitori, Vietnamese sandwich, French blood sausage, and South American chimichurri sauce. Throughout the dinner the ingredients don't repeat and all the different ideas and tastes go very well together. I really appreciate and like Lee's global outlook, which is more interesting than the narrow focus on Taiwanese flavors of some restaurants in Taipei.

After the cold dishes, bread is served as one of the course. The bread is way too hot as I can barely hold the bread comfortably with my bare hands. Anyone who made bread knows bread should not be eaten straight out of the oven. One needs the bread to cool down a bit for the crust to develop. I assume the bread at Impromptu is baked earlier in the day and reheated during service. While having a hot bread seems satisfying it doesn’t allow one to get the full taste of the bread. In my first dinner, the bread and butter are served as a stand-alone course, and as such they are not special enough. I don't understand why this type of bread or why just one bread. In my second dinner the same bread and butter are served with the soup, which makes more sense. Nevertheless, the role of the bread in the set menu is a bit unclear. It seems the restaurant feels a meal should include bread, but without a baker, the bread program seems a bit half-hearted.

One savory course in the set menu provides the diner with a choice. To choose an alternate entails a supplement. At both of my meals I go with the supplemental charge but I wish I hadn't. For my first dinner, instead of Taiwanese pork, I added NT$550 (a quarter of the price of the entire menu) to have a thin slice of Japanese wagyu beef of unknown grade. It turns out to be the worst dish of both dinners. My dining companion orders the pork and is much better. In the second dinner I forego the truffle pizza and instead spend an extra NT$380 for lobster noodle with burnt scallion. While the lobster noodle is better than the wagyu sukiyaki, the noodle isn't that interesting.

The sequence of dishes build up to the main course, a large format  protein dish that is shared by multiple diners. The first time I am there, the main course is roast goose. A cook presents the goose in the beginning of our dinner, prior to serving the amuse bouche. The large bird looks impressive, beautiful, and delicious looking.

However, by the time the goose is served, each guest only receives a very small portion - about the size of my two fingers. If the idea is to leave the diner wanting more, it certainly succeeded. The contrast of before and after is simply too jarring. Despite the size, the goose is very nice.

In my second dinner, the pièce de résistance is roast pork loin. Again the large pork loin is first presented whole to the guests.

The individual serving of the pork loin is bigger than the goose, but still a bit on the small side to my liking. The loin is nicely roasted and the boudin noir, eggplant, and kale on the side are all very nice. I just wish there is more of it.

A reinterpretation of bahn mi is served on the side. Instead of baguette the sandwich is with fried steamed bun. This is very delicious but again the portion is tiny -  more like a finger food served at a cocktail party.

The set menu has two desserts. One of them is a fruit. For my first dinner I have the fig with aiyu and shiso, which recalls David Chang's comment about figs on a  plate. The second time the fruit is strawberry with Sichuan peppercorn and lemon marigold. The fruit desserts provide some interesting flavor combination, but they are not technical.

At both of my dinners, six months apart, the main dessert is a white chocolate bread pudding with frozen foie gras. The dish reminds me a bit of the frozen foie gras at Momofuku Ko in New York City. At Impromptu, the foie is chilled quickly with liquid nitrogen in front of the diners. This must be a signature dessert of Lee since it stays on the menu. I enjoy the dessert, but I don't need to eat it twice in six months. Dessert at Impromptu is good but not elaborate and without much wow factor. I suppose the restaurant doesn't have a dedicated pastry chef.

After a petit four and a milk tea, Lee personally hands a menu to every guest and asks about their meal. Once service is over, Lee is more relaxed and happy to talk about his ideas. The menu comes in an envelope but is not printed à la minute. In one of my meals there is a glitch. Lee is not able to procure the sweetbread and serves a squid instead. However, the menu still says sweetbread. I wish Lee would really embrace the idea of impromptu to change and print the menu daily.

There’s a small wine list, totaling less than 30 bottles. The majority of the wines are between NT$2,000 and NT$4,000. The mark-ups of the wines are reasonable. For instance, a bottle of Billecart Salmon brut rose is on the list for NT$3,800. The same bottle is priced at NT$9,200 at Mandarin Oriental Taipei. The corkage fee is $750, less than other comparable restaurants. Wine or cocktail pairings are also available. The beverage program is friendly but, compared to the food, it is not as interesting.

The price of the menu is NT$2,200. This number seems to be carefully considered. While it may not be deemed as cheap, it doesn’t feel expensive for the number of courses offered. However, besides the aforementioned small portions, the ingredients are not expensive. With just one menu, Lee can offer a better price and be sure the quality is consistent for a small number of people. The restaurant is not big, but it is not small like a restaurant in Tokyo where the chef and an assistant can do everything. Perhaps at this point the restaurant simply doesn't have the staff and capacity to change the menu everyday.

Operating a western restaurant in Taipei is difficult. The business and personnel aspects of the restaurant will always be challenging, yet I cannot help but think the cooking part is a bit too easy for Lee. Impromptu just has dinner service and many of the dishes are not highly technical. Lee has the experience and talent to operate a grand restaurant. Maybe Taipei may never have the market for real luxury. But wouldn't it be nice if Lee can open a restaurant where I can have the lièvre à la royale, my friend can have the turbot, and we can order another dish to share? After being opened for less than a year, Lee has already gained one Michelin star. I want to know what's next?