Gilley’s Restaurant (天母盛鑫) opened in 1979 in Tienmu, where it made a local name on German pork knuckle and glossy rib-eye steaks eaten with a pinch of salt and nothing else.
Since then, the European-style restaurant has moved to Zhongshan N Rd (中山北路) in Shilin and opened a new location inside the Miramar Entertainment Park.
The Miramar location is the smaller of the two. Its compact single room seats about 40 at slender wooden tables and chairs covered in a crimson felt. This decor creates an elegant salon look, interrupted by an enlarged photograph of a pork knuckle and some large clownfish-colored fluorescent lamps arranged at the very back in the shape of Xs. The lamps glow softly and oddly, and from the fifth-floor shopping concourse looking in, the restaurant is a big weird box of light.
Photo: Enru Lin, Taipei Times
The menu here offers mainly set meals, plus a few appetizers and soup items a la carte. Sets range from NT$380 (vegetable risotto with cream sauce) to NT$780 (roasted steak with crayfish), and include bread, salad, an appetizer, dessert and a beverage.
First from the kitchen is a hot puffy roll meant to be eaten with garlic butter sitting on the table in a ramekin. The butter comes out thick on the knife but melts easily, and the flavor is surprising, herblike before rounding out into a light sweetness.
Next up is a romaine salad tossed in a tart vinegar dressing; and then soup, a sturdy bowl of corn chowder that’s an interpretation of western corn chowder featuring Hokkaido cream (NT$120 a la carte).
Photo: Enru Lin, Taipei Times
The appetizer arrives in three parts: From left to right on the plate, there’s a whorl of goose liver mousse on a one-bite slice on flaky toast; a slightly warm, subtly smoked frisson of Norwegian smoked salmon; and a dish filled with a bit of chewy snail in tomato sauce and melted mozzarella. They look unappetizing and gaudy on the plate, but the flavors go together like a deconstructed pizza.
Gilley’s real standouts are meats prepared simply but remarkably. German pork knuckle with in-house sauerkraut (NT$680), one of Gilley’s enduring trophy items, comes out on the plate as a gorgeous golden parcel with no excess fat. This is a particularly large pork knuckle that’s baked and then flash-fried into a golden crisp. The exterior is rough and crispy, and the inside is juicy, with a blooming porkiness and soft texture that falls apart under the knife.
The Frenched lamb shoulder rack (NT$680) is also a good cut prepared in an extraordinary way. Each order is two ribs that come with a small side of mashed potatoes and thick drops of mint sauce arranged in a horseshoe formation on the plate. When they arrive, they are well-rested and warm, not hot, rimmed with only a slight strip of fat and browned beautifully with no carbonization on top.
Photo: Enru Lin, Taipei Times
Beverages include juices, coffee and teas like chrysanthemum (NT$120) and a fruity Lady Grey (NT$120). There’s Heineken and Corona, but no wine list. Upon request, waitstaff push out a cart and can help pair meats with white and red wines ranging from NT$550 to NT$1,100.
Photo: Enru Lin, Taipei Times
Photo: Enru Lin, Taipei Times
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