There is a special feeling about entering a highly successful restaurant. The oddly named Kuo Bee Pen Da, located just off trendy Anho Road definitely has that feeling. Since it opened four years ago, it has been doing a roaring business with its unique blend of nouvelle Cantonese food and hot pot. Despite, or possibly because, of its unconventional menu, it has retained its popularity among Taipei's notoriously fickle eating public.
Kuo Bee Pen Da is as much about style as about food. The name, which translates as "The pot is bigger than the basin," is really a quirky inside joke. The point is market differentiation, the desire to seem special even before customers have come in the door that is a hallmark of trendy eateries all over the world.
Fortunately, Kuo Bee Pen Da's commitment to being different extends beyond its name to the menu, which has remained relatively consistent over the years. Four types of hot pot are offered -- bouillon, curry, Thai-style and satay -- a feature that was innovative four years ago but now is pretty standard. The difference is in the quality of the stock, and more obviously the quality of the hot pot ingredients. The quality comes at a price, with plates of premium US beef or exotic ostrich meat starting at about NT$300.
PHOTO: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
David Huang (黃振剛), the restaurant's manager, made no apologies for the higher than usual price. For the hand-made meat and fish balls and the variety of dumplings, the additional expense is infinitely worthwhile. These cannot be compared to the bulk-bought hot pot ingredients that are used at many all-you-can-eat establishments, which announce themselves not least by the film of stale oil that they leave behind in the pot. Needless to say, there is none of that at Kuo Bee Pen Da.
To go with the hot pot, the restaurant offers a wide menu of innovative Cantonese-inspired cuisine. "Many of the dishes are designed to go with a main hot pot," Huang said. But they are delicious in their own right, and dishes such as the baked shrimp in pesto (NT$420) or the goose liver rolls (NT$360), wild boar shashlik and tender duck with almond (NT$360) would grace any dinner. Following the Cantonese theme, plenty live fish are on offer, and these can go into the hot pot or be prepared in any of a dozen ways at the customer's request.
A wide selection of desserts is also available. The mango pudding is a good way of finishing up the meal and can compete with the best of the many Hong Kong-style desert places that have sprung up recently.
"We can provide a meal with a wide variety of elements," Huang said. "Most hot pot places just do hot pot and nothing else. Here you can mix and match." As for drinks, while there is a good range of juices and basic beers, spirits are only available by the bottle.
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