Restaurant: Sherwood

By Adam Ulfers
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Friday, Aug 20, 2004, Page 19

Pull a chair up to the dessert buffet at the Sherwood PHOTO: ADAM ULFERS, TAIPEI TIMES

The Sherwood hotel is hard to miss, towering among the large bank buildings on Minsheng East Road and something to consider taking a closer look at while in the area is the hotel's own Harry's Bar Lover's Day specials and the Olympic promotions also underway at B-one Buffet Restaurant.

Harry's Bar and B-one Buffet Restaurant both have buy-two-get-one-free drink deals until the Olympic closing ceremonies on Aug. 29. But each establishment offers its own complimentary drink offers and lottery prizes.

Harry's Bar has an especially alluring Lover's Day special that will benefit romantic patrons this Sunday. From 2pm until 5pm for NT$500, you can order a coffee or tea with your choice of Cosmopolitan or Startini cocktails.

To top off the night, the bar will host an elegant, all-you-can-eat dessert buffet costing NT$950 per person, which includes a full dessert bar spread with fried ice cream and raspberries, various puddings, countless bakery-fresh cheesecakes and other pastries, as well as a glass of champagne -- not to mention a Sherwood Bear.

"The dessert bar is one of a kind, featuring all the house specials and other delicious desserts," said Jean Tien (田毓琴), Henry's Bar & VI/VII assistant manager.

The bar also has an Olympic lottery through which your NT$500 tab can give you the chance to win a 42-inch Plasma TV, weekend accommodations in a Superior Room, a summer SPA package, B-one afternoon tea tickets, a complimentary Yi-Yuan restaurant afternoon dim-sum meal or even a Sherwood baseball cap.

Two floors below Henry's Bar is B-one Buffet Restaurant, a haven for the die-hard Chinese-Taipei baseball team and beer fan where a team homerun rewards patrons with national pride and a free Le Ble d'Or mug of beer.

There is also a Greek cuisine promotion, which features quasi-traditional Greek dishes, including the appetizer platter with pita bread, hummus, tzatziki, eggplant dressing, Greek yogurt and feta cheese. These appetizers, along with the country tomato salad and the Greek mushroom salad, are the three that almost get you there but leave the Mediterranean-escape feeling lacking, especially considering the 47 Asian dishes that overwhelm the menu.

For the Lover's Day dinner at B-one, the regular buffet price of NT$880 will be inflated to NT$1,000 per person. On the other hand, Taipei will be playing the Netherlands beginning at 3:30pm and if a slugfest ensues, saving money on drinks will be easy.

The Sherwood is a ritzy place, where Henry's Bar is the most comfortable, resembling an old-fashioned leather cigar lounge, B-one is a variation of an extravagant Las Vegas buffet and the Yi-Yuan and Tuscano Italian restaurants complement the luxurious design in spades.

There is, however, a feel of hollow, form-over-content atmosphere throughout, which is to say that it is to your advantage to tip the valets.