The Sheraton has emerged from its recent renovations with a modern, East-West mentality, which is epitomized by its new restaurant/club, Fuze, which is of course fusion cuisine. Don't worry: It's far from the squid pizza and the waffles with dried pork. In fact, the food at Fuze doesn't have many Taiwanese or Chinese influences at all.
Head chef Kevin Vu is Vietnamese/Chinese-American and grew up in San Francisco, the fusion cuisine capital of the world. He dropped out of dental school to attend California Culinary Institute, where he learned how to combine the foods and flavors he grew up with as an American with Asian heritage. Over the past seven years Vu has been traveling around Asia (Shanghai, Bangkok and Dubai), spreading the virtues of quality fusion and picking up more traditional ingredients to use in his cooking. Vu spent six months taking Fuze "from idea to concept," and finally to realization last Thursday at the restaurant's grand opening.
The dishes featured at Fuze "originate from the boundaryless cuisines of San Francisco, crossing the borders of Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, America and Italy," according to the publicity.
For example, the sampler -- with salsa, pasta and shrimp -- blends elements from three different continents. The mango salsa made with California avocados (the mangos are Taiwanese, of course) is Mexican but contains a key Asian ingredient: fish sauce. This may seem an unlikely addition, except that fish sauce is really good -- it's one of the best things about Vietnamese food. The angel-hair pasta was fairly mild but the tomato sauce was infused with ginger. The shrimp were marinated in a Thai concoction of coconut juice, lemongrass and shallots, then pan-fried and covered in a lobster and sake reduction sauce.
The tuna tart really brought out Fuze's Californian influence. It was a cylinder with alternating layers of avocado chunks and raw tuna marinated in soy sauce, ginger, and lime juice topped with fried shallots to add a bit of sweet and savory. A white miso sauce was made from fermented white soybeans. Vu pointed out that miso is purported to have healing powers and the Japanese shipped tonnes of it to the Chernobyl disaster area to help prevent cancer.
Vu's strength is his sauces. The lobster and sake reduction was delicious, as was the white miso sauce. Some of the sauces take over a day to make. "It's really all about the sauces. They're like the soundtrack to a movie -- they add excitement and emotion," he said.
At 9:30pm, dinner stops and the nightclub begins, with live music provided by Too Close, a seven-member band from the US, Canada and Australia.
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