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RESTAURANTS: Butterfly (蝴蝶)

Butterfly (蝴蝶) Address: 53, Ln 161, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段161巷53號) Telephone: (02) 2751-5067 Open: Daily from 6pm to 1am; closes at 2am on Fridays and Saturdays Average meal: NT$600 Details: Chinese and English menu; credit cards accepted

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Following on the successes of Sofa, Fifi and Khaki, haute couture doyen Isabelle Wen (溫慶珠) has opened another place at which to see and be seen.

Located across the road from her popular nightspot Sofa, Wen’s latest culinary project opened about a month ago and is a lounge bar that sports a look that is the designer’s signature chic incarnate. As, apparently, is the food. Butterfly serves hot and spicy Sichuan cuisine said to come directly from the Wen family’s recipes.

As a lounge bar, Butterfly excels in mood-setting. The visual motif is a fusion of East and West, with a palette of unconventional indigo-blue and umber colors that exudes a sense of mystique and luxury. Chinese antiques rest comfortably among the vintage-looking sofa and chairs. A bar in the front offers a passable selection of cocktails, beer, and red and white wines. Oil paintings and illustrations on the walls lend an almost fairy-tale feel, while seemingly casually placed vintage screens and gauzy curtains hint at femininity. All in all, the interior is an amalgamation of Wen-esque fashion with a meticulous attention to detail.

As a restaurant, Butterfly is a chic version of Fifi, as the menus are almost identical and modernized to cater to contemporary diners. The food itself is, however, a disappointment. It lacks the pungent punch of the dishes served at Fifi, as well as the nuanced differences in flavors and spiciness.

My dining partners and I ordered several dishes off the recommendation list on the table. The chicken with red hot pepper (大千愛雞, NT$320) was appetizing, but an easy comparison could be made between the plate and fried chicken nuggets hawked by street food vendors. The Sichuan-style fried bamboo shoots (川味炒筍, NT$220) tasted exactly like its name suggests: fried bamboo shoots with chili.

Not so appetizing were the fried silver rolls (炸銀絲捲, NT$80), which were inexcusably dry. But the shredded beef in spicy sauce (毛澤東煮牛, NT$360) generated the most frowns. The oil-laden broth looked as if it came directly from a spicy hot pot and it failed to impress diners with a tolerance for spicy food, such as myself. Sad-looking slices of beef floated in the pot along with other elements that added no flavor to the dish. “The ingredients seem to have no relation to each other,” said one of my dining partners.

Some might say we were a picky bunch, because this establishment is more of a trendy lounge where fashionistas come to people-watch. On the Sunday night we visited, the young and chic patrons at Butterfly included a group of starlets and their escorts sitting in the back. In the corner, there was a trendy tribe of slender young women in short skits and tanned men who wore sunglasses in spite of the dim lighting.

Butterfly makes a glittery spot for trendoids in the city’s fashion hub. But its menu needs improvement before it becomes a must-visit restaurant for foodies.

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