Two weeks ago, I ate a duck’s foot for the first time at Ya Ge (雅閣), the Michelin-starred fine-dining Cantonese restaurant located in the Mandarin Oriental. The appendage in question was thinly veiled by a cloak of slippery tofu skin that suffused its fragrance into everything it touched — the stuffing of shrimp, pork, taro and celery, crowned with a webbed duck’s foot, glazed in abalone sauce.
Lifting the foot to my mouth, I discovered that this delicacy — much like the sea cucumbers and birds’ nests of my youth — was more a matter of mouthfeel than taste. The gelatinous folds had little in the way of their own flavor, instead absorbing the milkiness of the tofu skin and umami of the sauce. As the bird’s delicate bones clattered to my plate, I realized that despite never having eaten a duck’s foot before, there was something familiar and comforting about the way it tasted after all.
In the plush dining rooms of the Mandarin Oriental, such nostalgic textures and flavor combinations are seeing a revival under the leadership of Ya Ge’s chef de cuisine Tse Man (謝文). Chef Tse, who previously cooked at the legendary Fook Lam Moon in Hong Kong, applies his expert knowledge of Cantonese fare and exacting selection of ingredients to the restaurant’s new seasonal dim sum menu, which stretches the imagination back in time.
Photo courtesy of Mandarin Oriental Taipei
The steamed duck’s feet (NT$300) are just one of many retro dishes developed anew. Deep-fried mashed taro filled with foie gras and mushrooms (NT$300) evokes old-world glamor with its feathery, crispy golden skirt. Taro remains the star of that dish, given the restrained use of goose liver. And the evergreen barbecued pork bun (NT$300) is reliable, with fluffy bread wrapped around a substantial filling.
But the innovations do not disappoint either. A steamed dumpling stuffed with crab meat, shrimp, egg white and black truffle (NT$360) is an easy standout. Black truffle has become a lazy shorthand for luxury, indiscriminately deployed in marked-up versions of basic dishes — black truffle French fries or scrambled eggs, to name a few. In these dumplings, however, the fungus is used with intention, and melds well with the springy seafood and silky egg whites.
Like its understated interior, Ya Ge knows how to produce a showstopper in the most unassuming places. Moreish vegetarian dumplings (NT$270) filled with matsutake mushrooms are folded and painted like ornamental carp napping in a bamboo basket. The molten interiors of salted egg custard buns (NT$270), a perennial favorite, are encased in black charcoal dough with a bold brush of gold dust, lending dramatic flair to each bite.
Photo courtesy of Mandarin Oriental Taipei
But the most intricate of all is the oven-baked crab (NT$750), served in its own custom-made crab-shaped holder. A silver carapace, complete with crab legs and pincers, mimics the shells of the flower crab and Japanese blue crab, whose insides have been meticulously hand-picked, de-boned and shaped into a crisp cutlet minimally seasoned with onions. The clean flavors and exquisite presentation signal the kitchen’s confidence in their ingredients and techniques, with no resorting to cover-ups.
While my appetite that day centered on the new dim sum menu, a la carte options, like the crab, also deserve attention. Crispy roasted chicken (NT$750 for a half, NT$1,480 for a whole) lives up to its name, achieving a seemingly impossible combination of crisp, bronzed skin lining juicy and tender meat. The chicken is flavorsome on its own, but is also given a leg up by an unusual dip of lemon juice and fish sauce.
Honey-glazed barbecued pork (NT$980), using meat from three-month-old local Berkshire piglets, is served atop a bed of hot stones that amplify the smells and sounds of sizzling lard. The fatty meat is not the melt-in-your-mouth texture that I prefer, but carries a bit of chew. For a well-rounded meal, seasonal vegetables — on this occasion, sweet asparagus — braised in supreme broth (NT$400) will do a lot to offset the richness of the other dishes.
Photo courtesy of Mandarin Oriental Taipei
The rose-tinted glasses of yesteryear also extend to the desserts. Humble red bean soup (NT$320), with a velvety texture from partially mashed beans, benefits from the lightly perfumed note of 10-year-aged dried tangerine peel. It’s a rare find — red bean soup cooked with tangerine peel is now seldom available outside the home and the most traditional of dessert shops. But if sweet soup is not your cup of tea, the organic beancurd with mashed taro (NT$320) is a heavenly pairing in a bowl and a loving nod to Taiwan’s local produce.
Davina Tham ate at Ya Ge courtesy of Mandarin Oriental Taipei.
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