The understated facade of Toutouan (燈燈庵), a new kaiseki (懷石料理) restaurant that opened off Taipei’s swank Anhe Road last week, conceals some very considerable ambitions.
This is the first venture of the Tokyo restaurant of the same name outside of Japan, and is the result of a collaboration between Toutouan and the Hong Kong-based Inno Hospitality Company (香港宜諾管理顧問公司).
With its unique mixture of contemporary design, ritual and fine cuisine, Taipei’s Toutouan has aspirations in food and service that exceed five-star standards.
Photo: Ian Bartholomew, Taipei Times
Kaiseki usually refers to a multi-course Japanese meal, one that seeks to present exceptionally fine ingredients in dishes that thoughtfully combine flavors and exquisite visual appeal, with a formal style of service.
Despite its location and unexciting minimalist design, Toutouan generally achieves its ambitions. There is no a la carte menu, only a selection of four set menus for lunch (from NT$800 to NT$1,800 per person) and four for dinner (from NT$1,800 to NT$3,000). Currently the restaurant is also offering a number of wine pairing menus starting at NT$550.
The concept behind Toutouan is to provide a total dining experience designed by experts to maximize diners’ enjoyment.
Photo: Ian Bartholomew, Taipei Times
According to Jennifer Wang (王玨驎), a wine consultant at Inno, great effort was made to find wines that are not normally found in Taipei.
Toutouan places heavy emphasis on using local ingredients, though the owners of the parent restaurant decided not to compromise with fundamentals such as soy sauce, miso seasoning, vinegar and salt, which are all imported.
As some of the food is extraordinarily simple, the quality of these ingredients is critical.
A dish such as the crab meat bun (蟹肉饅頭) is a case in point: it is actually a light crab meat dumpling (shaped like a steamed bun) in a light stock. The soup, light and clear, is so refined and fresh that it shocks the palette into self-awareness — a Zen-like experience. The crab dumpling looks like a heavy white lump, but bite into it and you discover an airy mousse-like consistency. The whole dish is an astonishing balancing act. This is just one of many dishes that manage to express a deeply felt conceptual element that is integral to many of the creations at Toutouan.
The food at Toutouan is inspired by the formality of the Japanese tea ceremony. A dish such as smoked duck breast with figs poached in red wine is served at the table, the ingredients being presented to the guest before the chef plates the food. The meat is carved in front of the diner, and then the chef creates a small, transient work of art.
The antipasti dish is a masterwork, using simple, even rustic, ingredients, but presenting them in such a ceremonious fashion that you cannot help but take notice.
Simplicity at Toutouan is the result of great attention to detail, and a similar attention to detail is required by the diner to get the most out of the experience.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built
RSS