Taipei food blog | Sugared & Spiced

Mountain & Sea House 山海樓

Add: No. 16, Lane 11, Section 2, Zhong Shan North Road, Taipei / 台北市中山北路二段11巷16號
Tel: (02) 2581 5760
Hours: 11:30am-2:30pm, 5:30-10pm
Price: 1,500~2,000 NTD/person
Visited: Feb 2015

Please note that this is an invited tasting.

One of my favorite meals on this trip in Taipei was lunch at the recently-opened 山海樓 “Mountain & Sea House”, a restaurant specializing in vintage Taiwanese cuisine. While most people think of Taiwan as the land of night market food, there was in fact a period of time during the Japanese colonial era when Taiwanese haute cuisine thrived. Back then, wealthy patrons would employ personal chefs to create unique and sophisticated dishes to treat special guests, and these banquet delicacies are exactly what Mountain & Sea House tries to revive.

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Befittingly, the restaurant is located in an old house which belonged to a Japanese doctor, and a two-year renovation process resurrected the old structure into something stunning. From the delicately pieced together vintage floor tiles to the elaborate old-school wallpaper, the whole place oozes the charm of a bygone era.

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2015/02/252015/08/05

[Taipei] Qing Tian 76 青田七六

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Qing Tian 76 青田七六

Add: No. 6, Lane 7, Qing Tian Street, Taipei / 台北市青田街7巷6號
Tel: (02) 2391 6676
Hours: [lunch] 11:30am-2pm [afternoon tea] 2:30-5:00pm [dinner] 5:30-9pm
Website: qingtian76.tw
Price: 350 NTD/tea set (a la carte available)
Visited: Feb 2015

A tea house renovated from an historical building, located in the quaint neighborhood of Qing Tian Street. Did not try the savories, but the coffee, tea, and pastries here are all quite lovely.

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We were seated in the sunroom area, which is bright with plenty of natural light. Additional indoor and outdoor space also available, the indoor space is especially appropriate for those with kids as the little ones are free to crawl around on the wooden floors.

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青田洋菓子套餐 (350 NTD), Qing Tian Western Set, which includes 和三盆糖蛋糕 (rolled cake made from refined Japanese sugar), 凍生巧克力 (nama chocolate), and 翠之華 (green tea latte).

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2015/02/252015/08/05

[Taipei] WUnique Pâtisserie 無二烘培

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WUnique Pâtisserie 無二烘培

Add: 台北市安和路二段184巷10號 / 10, Lane 184, An He Road, Taipei
Tel: (02) 2737 1707
Hours: [Thu-Mon] 12-7pm (closed Tue & Wed)
Price: 150-180 NTD/pastry
Visited: Feb 2015

WUnique is a small pastry boutique that sprouted in Taipei just a few months ago, in September 2014. I met the owner/pastry chef Tim Wu back in Paris at Ferrandi – we did not overlap as I had already graduated by the time he enrolled, but I had heard from my chef that Tim is a talented young man who’s quick at learning. After 5 months of pastry classes followed by a 6-month internship at Ledoyen, a prestigious Michelin three star restaurant in Paris, Tim came back to Taipei to set up his own pastry studio. He started alone, soon joined by his finacée Winnie (whom he met at Ferrandi), and they are now a total of four in the kitchen. Here are some snapshots from their early mornings.

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Kouign-Amann in the making. This specialty from Brittany is made from croissant dough folded with layers of butter and sugar, you can imagine how good it smells when these are in the oven…

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2015/02/232016/09/19

[Taipei] Sushi Jubei 鮨十兵衛

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Sushi Jubei 鮨十兵衛

Add: 5, Lane 23, Section 2, Anhe Road, Taipei / 台北市安和路2段23巷5號
Tel: 0981 018 018
Hours: [Tue-Sun] 11:30am-9pm (closed on Mon)
Price: [lunch] 1500-3000 NTD [dinner] 2500-5000 NTD
Visited: Feb 2015

12-seat sushi bar by Shawn 蔡孝文, previously of Sushi Nomura 野村壽司.

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Lunch sets are priced at 1500, 2000, or 2500 NTD. We chose the 1500 NTD set, which began with this katsuo no tataki, grilled skipjack tuna.

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Ika (squid).

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2015/02/172015/08/05

[Taipei] Kajitsu 菓實

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Kajitsu 菓實

Add: 2F., No.128, Kangding Rd., Taipei / 台北市康定路128號2樓
Tel: 0978870653
Hours: Wed-Sun 12-9pm
Website: pojowowo.blogspot.tw
Price: details here.
Visited: Feb 2015

Two months ago back in Paris, I was home after another long and exhausting day in the kitchen. As usual, I was mindlessly going through my Facebook feed (not the best thing to do before going to bed but it does loosen me up after an intense dinner service), and a page called “菓實 Kajitsu” caught my attention. I started browsing through their beautiful pastry photos paired with down-to-earth writings, and was immediately charmed. I decided that I need to visit this place when I’m in Taipei.

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So here I am, two months later, in Kajitsu’s homey and cozy pastry studio located in an apartment building of Wanhua district, a very old neighborhood in Taipei City. I met the couple behind Kajitsu, Abby and Evan, who welcomed me with hot tea and freshly baked pastries. Abby is the pastry chef and Evan, an industrial designer by trade, takes care of the marketing part of the business, including photography and graphic designs.

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Abby didn’t start young as a pastry chef. She was a psychology major in university and worked as a Japanese translator briefly after graduation, before she decided to start her pastry career as an apprentice for Japanese pastry chef Tadashi Yanagi (柳正司). She then spent a year at Boîte de Bijoux before launching her own studio in October 2014, where she could have more freedom in both ingredient choice and product design. They purposefully chose Wanhua, where the rent is much lower than in the hotter areas of Taipei, so the extra money can be spent on quality ingredients such as imported Isigny butter from France and Nisshin flour from Japan.

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2015/02/142015/08/05

[Taipei] Light One Cafe 光一咖啡

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Light One Cafe 光一咖啡

Add: 2F, 1-4 Lane 20, Section 2, Zhong Shan North Road, Taipei / 台北市中山北路2段20巷1-4號2樓
Tel: (02) 2531 0131
Hours: 12-9pm
Price: 140-200 NTD/coffee
Visited: Feb 2015

A cafe renovated from an old apartment, with giant windows that let in plenty of light and shades of green from outside. A pleasant space to sip on a cup of coffee.

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2015/02/142015/08/05

[Taipei] The Tasting Room 啜飲室

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The Tasting Room 啜飲室

Add: 14, Alley 5, Lane 107, Section 1 Fu Xing South Road, Taipei / 台北市復興南路一段107巷5弄14號
Tel: (02) 8773 9001
Hours: 5pm-midnight
Price: 100-250 NTD/beer
Visited: Feb 2015

啜飲室 The Tasting Room opened just shy of one month ago in a quiet lane of Fu Xing South Road. What it is: a beer bar that features a selection of some 20 craft brews from around the world, and a gallery that showcases local Taiwanese art. The design is simple but stylish – it’s one big open space with a shiny beer bar on the left, communal tables at the center and back, and a few smaller tables on the right. Warm woods, soft lighting, and jazzy piano in the air. It’s a charming space, a love a first sight for me.

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The menu is written on the blackboard right above the bar, and if the names don’t tell you much, the friendly bartenders will. As it was my first visit, they made a few recommendations and let me try a small dose of each before choosing. The prices are very affordable – a glass of beer ranges from 100-250 NTD – making this a easy place to frequent without breaking the bank. For now there is no food on the menu, though I heard talks about 滷味 (Taiwanese braised snack foods) for the future.

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2015/02/122015/08/05

[Taipei] Savour Cafe

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Savour Cafe

Add: 115-2, Section 4 Xin Yi Road, Taipei / 台北市信義路四段115-2號
Tel: (02) 2701 2498
Hours: 11:30am-10pm
Price: [drinks] 100-200 NTD [food] 140-200 NTD
Visited: Feb 2015

A stylish cafe with bare concrete walls, warm wooden furniture, plenty of natural light, and pretty baristas. Decent drinks, decent desserts, decent service.

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2015/02/112015/08/05

[Taipei] 2½ Months Soba 二月半そば蕎麦麺

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2½ Months Soba 二月半そば蕎麦麺

Add: No. 1-1, Lane 20, Zhongshan North Road Section 2, Taipei / 台北市中山北路二段20巷1號1之1樓
Tel: (02) 2563 8008
Hours: 11:30am-2pm, 5:30-9pm (closed on Wed)
Website: www.facebook.com/healthy.soba
Price: 250-350 NTD/person
Visited: Feb 2015

Taipei has a plethora of ramen and udon joints, but soba shops are a rare find. Unable to get good buckwheat noodles in the city, a Japanese couple decided to open their own restaurant and named it “2½ Months Soba”, which refers to the two-and-a-half-month process of sowing and harvest to produce buckwheat. As far as I could tell, this place is authentic with many Japanese customers.

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The noodle menu is roughly divided into three parts, including hot soup noodles, dipping soup noodles, and cold noodles. I tried the XO樱花蝦芝麻酱蕎麥涼麵 (190 NTD), which is soba noodles served with a XO sauce + sakura shrimp + sesame sauce. Also comes with mashed turnip, chopped green onions, and dried seaweed slices.

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2015/02/112015/08/05

[Taipei] Fresh Station Sushi & Fruits 逸鮮棧

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Fresh Station Sushi & Fruits 逸鮮棧

Add: No. 500-5, Sec. 4, Zhongxiao Dong Lu, Taipei / 台北市忠孝東路4段500號之5
Tel: (02) 2725 3555
Hours: 11:30am-3pm, 5:30-10:30pm
Price: [lunch] 320-660 NTD [dinner] 600-1200+ NTD
Visited: Feb 2015

When some friends invited me to have dinner at “Fresh Station Sushi & Fruits”, I wasn’t sure what to expect. “Fresh Station” itself sounds like a salad bar, and the sushi + fruits combo just threw me off completely. Apparently this is a sushi bar that incorporates fruits into its cuisine, which sounds like a desperate attempt to differentiate itself from the hundreds of other sushi restaurants in Taipei…but the friends who invited me to dinner are serious foodies, so I trusted their opinions and went in for a try.

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Upon being seated, my friends told me that they are actually not a fan of Fresh Station’s fruit cuisine, but really enjoy the more traditional sushis prepared by the chefs here. So that’s what we had that night.

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One of the restaurant specialty is its large variety of pickles – apparently they pickle everything – which are supplied to customers generously throughout the meal.

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Tag: Taipei food blog

[Taipei] Mountain & Sea House 山海樓

[Taipei] Qing Tian 76 青田七六

[Taipei] WUnique Pâtisserie 無二烘培

[Taipei] Sushi Jubei 鮨十兵衛

[Taipei] Kajitsu 菓實

[Taipei] Light One Cafe 光一咖啡

[Taipei] The Tasting Room 啜飲室

[Taipei] Savour Cafe

[Taipei] 2½ Months Soba 二月半そば蕎麦麺

[Taipei] Fresh Station Sushi & Fruits 逸鮮棧

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