Bagel Bagel is housed in a 55-year-old building and its regular patrons include business movers-and-shakers and diplomats. They come here for the quality food and the unique dining atmosphere, which never go out of style.
The two-storey building has a wood beam ceiling which, in the architecturally flaccid, concrete jungle of Taipei, lends it a certain pedigree and charm.
On the first floor, after passing through a small garden and reception, the largest of the restaurant's several dining rooms requires a few minutes to take in. What is revealed is a treasure trove of 20th century Chinese, Russian, French, English and Italian furniture: including cabinets, birdcages, chests of drawers, a 1950s refrigerator, dried flowers, chandeliers, candelabras, a gramophone, mirrors, screens, futuristic lamps from the 1960s and a ship's steering wheel -- enough to fill an auction house catalogue several times over. All the furniture is for sale.
The restaurant was named Bagel Bagel because its first courses were accompanied by the distinctive bread when it opened a decade ago. There is no a la carte menu, but special dietary requirements can be catered for. The set menu includes six dishes, usually with three choices of main course. The food prepared by four full time chefs is modern European with a hint of the Orient.
The set menu is changed according to the availability of seasonal produce. This week's menu features salmon marinated in vodka and lemon juice served with parsley oil, citrus fruit segments and savory marmalade, warm duck breast salad with chives and garlic croutons, homemade spinach spaghetti and tomato sauce. Particularly noteworthy is the rack of veal, marinated with herbs, sauteed then baked and served in a beetroot juice and veal reduction, accompanied by a slab of fondant potato and watercress and wasabi cream sauce.
In a country where neophilia more often than not dictates the interior design of restaurants, it is refreshing to while away several hours over dinner in a setting that combines a sense of faded opulence with a rejection of minimalist austerity. Like Audrey Hepburn, perhaps, whose image is found throughout the restaurant, Bagel Bagel has a classic image that has survived the fads of fashion.
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