Sumie Nouvelle - Japanese Fine Dining in Taipei

Our third day in Taipei, we were a little tired of Chinese banquet dinners (we had two 10-course meals with family the two previous nights. So after a day of checking out the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall and shopping in Ximen Ding, we decided to have dinner at the nice Japanese restaurant inside our hotel, San Want Hotel, called Sumie Nouvelle Cuisine Japonaise.

We went for the chef's tasting menu, a seven course dinner.

First course was this beautfully plated guava, crab, soy gelee, cucumber, and tomato salad with miso dressing.

 Second up was Sashimi on the Rocks—snapper, hamachi, salmon, grilled white fish, and blanched shrimp. It was served with a white-fish ceviche.

The sashimi was very fresh and tasty, and the ceviche knocked it out of the park. The only thing that really didn't work for me was the shrimp. Anytime I've had shrimp with sashimi it's been fully cooked. This one was was reddish, but still translucent, and the texture in the mouth reflected that. But I manned up and swallowed it.

Third course was a play on tempura. Puffed rice crusted prawn, fried kabocha squash, fried fish.

Fourth course was a filet that was still cooking on a bed of hot rocks. Mine was delicious, but ended up a bit more done then I would've preferred. But that's the price I pay for taking too long to snap photos of all the food.

Steak is really expensive in Taiwan, because there isn't much that is locally raised on the island. So it must be imported from Japan, Australia, or the U.S.

Fifth course was a small collection of sushi (not pictured) and an amuse-bouche of hamachi.

Sixth course was a ginger lobster soup. The soup was extra gingery but delicious because it stayed piping hot the entire time. The soup was served in a bowl but lined with a water-resistant paper; inside the bowl, underneath the paper was a hot tile of granite to keep the soup hot.

Finally, for dessert we had mochi and cantaloupe. But this was no ordinary mochi, for inside this beautifully shaped mochi pillow topped with cocoa powder was a tiramisu filling. A wonderful little surprise to end the night.

In fact we were so inspired by the tiramisu mochi, that when we came back to the states, we had a holiday party where we took part in a dessert competition. We took the idea, and made a pumpkin pie mochi, which wasn't as beautiful (my first time making mochi), but a winning dessert none-the-less.

The House - Anniversary Dinner (part 1)

Earlier this month, Tracy and I celebrated our third anniversary. To make things both special and nostalgic, we had dinner at The House in San Francisco's North Beach, where we also went on our first date. I recall having the sesame soy glazed salmon and Tracy had the seared Ahi tuna. Both staples are still on the menu today.

This time around, we started off with the seared scallops with a yuzu vinaigrette, topped with some fancy micro-greens. Does that sound familiar? It should; in my first blog post I wrote about my version of yuzu seared scallops. They were cooked perfectly, the sauce was good, and the greens were nice too. It did however baffle me that the order came with three. I'd imagine most people at nice restaurants come in pairs, or in small groups. Three pieces? That means we had to share one, which could be a deal breaker if this were a first date.

We both slowly ate our first scallop, slicing it into quarters for each bite to make it last. I know you all do this, when you have good food in a very limited quantity. If there were 6 scallops on the plate I probably would've just popped the whole delicious bad boy in my mouth. After finishing the first, we both patiently waited to see who wanted that second one more. Tracy offered it to me, and she ate the radishes in the middle. I thought they were just for decor.

I'll write more about my main course tomorrow.

The House
1230 Grant Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133
http://www.thehse.com

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