italian/fusion: i recommend WHIPLE HOUSE

WHIPLE HOUSE
No. 34, Lane 252, DunHua S. Rd, Sec. 1
(02) 2775-1627

MRT: ZhongXiao/FuXing

website: whiplehouse.com

hours: 12PM- 9PM

$$-$$$

Kid friendliness: no high chairs spotted

Visit reviewed: (all photos with Canon S90)

Taipei is full of these strange and interesting little restaurants- a little bit Japanese, a little bit French, a little bit Italian, a little bit Chinese- and a little bit of a furniture/clothing shop? Whiple House has the unique quality of being a restaurant hidden on the second floor of what appears to be a woodsy clothing store- look for this storefront if you ever give it a try.



Once upstairs, the kitchen is tucked in the corner and family style seating takes up most of the second floor, with some interesting displays of vintage looking goods off to one side.



The menu is unfortunately only in Chinese without photos, so I relied on my friends to order- especially the ones who had been before and chose the place.



My favorite dish and the main reason I'd come back is for the uni spaghetti with crab (NT$480). Creamy with a balance between the sweet and salty, a bite of the uni spaghetti is complimented by the chunks of sweet crab meat. I kind of wanted a whole plate to myself.



Less interesting was the mentaiko spaghetti(NT$320) which seemed to lose its fishy bubbles of roe after it got to me. I could taste more of the seaweed and olive oil than anything else and even had to double check with my friend that it had mentaiko in it.



If you get a salad, get the one with the mountain yam and poached egg and tofu (NT$280) over the one with beef, bacon and beans (NT$360). The bacon was hard rather than crispy and the elements of the first salad worked better together.




The country bread was surprisingly good- you can get it with an orange marmalade and butter (NT$80)...



or with this hot cheese and egg (NT$280). The server put a raw egg into the hot cheese and stirred, and then recommended that we spread it atop the bread while hot.



The result was kind of like a soft scrambled egg with cheese spread and something I think I might experiment with at home.



The mushroom soup (NT$150) was good and they had split a bowl into different cups for us.



The risotto was very al dente and reminded me of the risotto from Bianco, but the Bianco's risotto had more layers of flavors.



If I could make a recommendation, that would be to skip the steak/beef or even the meats in general. They run on the pricey side and are not as satisfying. We had the waitress help us order, and since we had a large group she decided we could sample a bit of everything.

The roasted chicken was probably my favorite of the three meats- though it tasted comparable to my George Foreman grilled chicken...



The grilled pork (NT$480) had a side of saukeraut and veggies.



The steak (NT$880) was my least favorite- a bit tough and chewy and definitely not worth the pricetag for the portion (though I can't remember if there were two plates of this size at the table).



So give it a try if you're looking for something a little bit different, or like to do your window shopping while you eat.


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italian: CHIANTI RISTORANTE

CHIANTI RISTORANTE
(YANG TI)
No. 91, Da An Road, Sec 1
(02) 2721-3182 ‎

MRT: Zhong Xiao/FuXing

$$

Kid friendliness: no high chairs available

Visit reviewed: 9/25/2009



You might have spotted Chianti while driving in the alleys near Sogo. Or maybe more noticeably, its can't-miss-the-giant-signage next door neighbor, Hello Kitty Sweets.



There is some nice sofa seating in the front, for waiting or afternoon tea, as well as a freezer of house-made gelatos and cakes to admire by the front counter. I arrived for lunch with a few friends before they officially opened, but they were nice enough to let us wait inside on the sofas rather than outside while they got ready. Upstairs there is also a room for private dining, or my friend said that you could reserve the second floor for a private party.




The menu is in English and Chinese, with lots of pictures of appetizers, salads, pastas, pizzas and grilled meats/seafood. There is also a set menu lunch for NT$500-$680 from which you can choose various pastas and risotto dishes, or osso bucco and grilled garoupa. I think I ended up being the only one to order from the set menu- one of my friends ordered a crab salad and crab risotto and the other ordered a pizza instead.



For me, I wanted to try the paella. It was calling my name.



The set's caesar salad and vegetable soup were good- nothing to complain about. You can also choose green salad or pumpkin soup with the set lunch.




And then the paella with chicken, sausage and seafood (NTS580 set lunch)... I don't know why I half expected a mini-cast iron pan of oven baked paella, but instead my dish resembled more of a seafood risotto in looks, texture and taste. It was creamy and soft, with nice touches of saffron. While I'm not a paella expert, I could have swore the last time I had it, it didn't taste like this- maybe it's my own bad for ordering a Spanish dish at an Italian restaurant? I still ate it all, but I just was expecting something different.



While my friend enjoyed her crab salad and creamy crab risotto, I didn't think it was completely worth the splurge. The crab meat tasted as if it was frozen and then not defrosted completely, with an icy texture and not sweet like I've had in fresh crab salads in the past. The risotto also had a lot of crab meat mixed inside the risotto, but again it didn't draw out the sweetness of the crab, but rather got a bit lost in the creaminess.




Then came the set menu's dessert- which came with a slice of cake and mini scoop of sorbet. There isn't a choice offered on the menu, but if you ask nicely, they'll let you swap out the regular chocolate cake for banana chocolate cake as well as the sorbet flavor.



The lemon sorbet was a bit more sour than sweet, but I liked the milk sorbet. The chocolate cakes did not have enough richness for me, but my friends liked the chocolate banana cake.



All in all, a decent place for leisurely lunch or maybe afternoon tea, but on the pricey side for lunch at an Italian restaurant. I'd probably end up at Primo Trattoria or even Bellini's (I've fallen in love with their thin crust pizzas lately and staring at the chef making them in the window at the Vieshow location) instead before coming back here again. Or maybe even finally check out Hello Kitty Sweets.

Anyone been before? Is there something else on the menu that I missed or should have ordered instead?


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japanese/sushi: i strongly recommend SASHI-MIYA

SASHI-MIYA JAPANESE CUISINE
No. 1, Lane 126, FuXing S. Road, Sec. 1, 3 FL
(02) 8773-4888

MRT: ZhongXiao/FuXing

website: www.sashimiya.tw/

hours: 11:30 AM -2:30 PM; 5:30 PM - 11 PM (11:30PM on Fri/Sat)

$$

Kid friendliness: booth seating available.

Visit reviewed: 7/5/2008 & 4/21/2009



You know when you are introduced to a new place by someone, and you think, this is a really cool place with good food and good prices. But for some reason, you don't go back for a long time- probably it's a little off your usual path, you're too busy trying out new places, or just eating at home. And then one day, you're with a bunch of friends figuring out where to eat for lunch and you somehow think about that place and end up back there and wonder why you don't eat there more often.




Well, in this case, my friends were craving sushi/sashimi and I went through my mental archives and cross refrenced it with my mental map, and beep, beep, beep, out came Sashi-Miya. Useful, huh? Haha.

Sashi-Miya is an izakaya Japanese restaurant that has a little bit of everything- the extensive menu has a lot of small plates to be shared, including yakitori/kushiyaki (grilled skewers), sashimi, salads, noodles, baked/grilled/stirfried and sushi rolls (NT$60-NT$980+), as well as a full beer/cocktail/alcoholic drinks menu.




The best thing about it is that it has really good prices for good Japanese food, the selection is huge and I liked almost everything that we tried. The menu not only has a picture for every single item, it also has English along with the Chinese.



The first time I went, we sat on the second floor, so we could see how big the space is. Sashi-Miya is a converted old theater with three floors and a huge screen playing films or tv. There's various types of seating, tatami or regular, or along the sushi bar. I'm sure you could find secluded seating for a romantic date, or a large seating area for a rowdy group.



From the second floor of the restaurant, you can get a nice view of the chefs busy below as well as the large screen (which is muted).



My favorites: the sweet shrimp (NT$240) and uni (NT$320).



And the tuna and avocado roll (NT$160). I could eat many of these.



Okay, let me try and break down the abundant food we ordered from my two different visits.

First, appetizers- get the agadashi tofu (NT$80) and avoid the cold tofu appetizer (NT$120). The agedashi was crispy and tasty, and the cold tofu was bland with a weird sesame sauce.




The chilled tomato salad (NT$100) was also not bad (picked off the UGH raisins and sprouts) with a sweet plum sauce dressing.



Onto the sushi and rolls. Rolls are harder to find in Taipei, but Sashi-Miya has some good ones. Futomaki combo,(NT$200) Unagi hand rolls, deep fried soft shell crab rolls, tuna avocado rolls and much more. They are a good size, unlike some other places that have good, but smaller rolls.




And the huge platters of fresh sashimi. The sashimi is fresh and generous and beautifully presented and they have different sizes of combos. I think this is the L combo (NT$580) with a lot of sweet shrimp added to it.



Did I mention how much I love uni? It melts on your tongue and it should be fresh and have a nice ocean, creamy, slightly sweet taste. You could hoard a whole order to yourself or be nice and share.



Don't like your fish raw? They have a miso marinated cod that is nicely grilled.



Gotta fit in the veggies too- I like kong ching tsai or Chinese watercress.



My least favorite are the stir fried meats. I've had the stir fried beef and the stir fried chicken and wasn't crazy about either. Something about the flavors and the toughness of the meat- just didn't care for it.



I also didn't care for the grilled shan yao (NT$220) which is a starchy tuber which texture is like a cross between daikon radish and taro. It's crunchy and a bit gooey and flavorless, but a favorite of my friend's family who brought us here.



The menu is so varied that you could eat here multiple times and not get the same thing. Or perfect for that large group of friends to eat and share food with the festive atmosphere and roomy seating. As you can see, the Chinese name is different, so look for this sign or San Si Wei Wu.



Sashi-Miya is not too far from the corner of Zhong Xiao and Fuxing. If you were coming from green Fuxing Sogo, you'd just walk straight ahead from the entrance, under the MRT subway and you'd spot it on your left.


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BTW- I enjoy making the maps to help people find the more out of the way restaurants, but somehow my maps keep getting messed with! I think Google Maps started consolidating user-created locations into 1 location, but only the Chinese address shows up and I do all my maps with English, and then I can't get the English to show, only the Chinese. I've also found some entries being "edited" by other users when added to their lists and it takes a lot of time to fix/redo the maps. Ugh. So FYI, that's why I haven't been keeping up with the maps. Don't know why Google allows you to edit other people's entries. It's annoying.