news: 2024 TATLER DINING AWARDS - TAIWAN

2024 Tatler Taiwan Dining Awards

The last few years haven't slowed down restaurant openings in Taiwan, nor the awards ceremonies.  You might have heard of newer awards popping up, like 500 Plates (or Wu Bai Pan) with 100 judges from different industries each choosing 5 faves and then a tally to see which ones got the most votes. 

Another is Tatler Dining Awards, which started a few years ago for Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Macau.

Held at Mandarin Oriental Hotel Taipei, today was the inaugural Tatler Dining awards for Taiwan, with 3 categories- 15 Tatler Recommended restaurants, Tatler Top 20 and then Best of 2024.  Most of the restaurants are in Taipei, with a few from Taichung, Taitung, Kaohsiung and Pingtung.

Quite of a few of these restaurants are on my to do list- restaurants to eat at and restaurants to latergram. Which ones are you looking most foward to? 

15 TATLER RECOMMENDED RESTAURANTS 

1. A Cut

2. Akin

3. Fireplay

4. Inita

5. le beaujour

6. Sinsera 24 (Taitung)

7. Mipon

8. Meowvelous

9. Ding Wang 

10. Ji Jia Zhuang

11. Danny's Steakhouse

12. Xiang Se

13. Le Palais

14. Molino de Urdaniz

15. Yonshin 

I've been to 11 of the 15 restaurants, and I really need to try Inita this year! 

2024 TATLER TOP 20 RESTAURANTS 

1. Akame (Pingtung)

2. Coast

3. de Nuit

4. Embers

5. Ephernite

6. Frassi

7. JL Studio (Taichung)

8. La Vie Thomas Buhner

9. Le Cote (Taichung)

10. logy

11. Longyue

12. Mingfu 

13. Mountain and Sea House

14. Oretachi No Nikuya (Taichung)

15. RAW

16. Restaurant A

17. Sho (Kaohsiung)

18. Silks House

19. Tairroir

20. Zea

2024 BEST OF THE YEAR by Tatler Dining

Best New Chef

L'Atelier Par Yao

Best New Restaurant

Restaurant A 

Chef Alain Huang

Best Interior Design

Inflorescence

Best Sommelier 

logy

Best Pastry Chef

Yu Chocolatier

Chef of the Year

Chef Max Wo

Silks House at Regent Taipei

Most Influential 

Chef Andre Chiang RAW

Best Service

Sens

Best Restaurant of the Year

logy 

Chef Ryogo Tahara 

my kitchen: EASY LEMON CAKE LOAF

Easy Lemon Cake Loaf

Makes 1 loaf

Thank you Broma Bakery for the recipe! 

Happy leap year! February 29th!

Last night, I was craving cake. And I had all the ingredients in the fridge, mostly. So it was the perfect time to try to make a lemon loaf for the first time.  This recipe from Broma Bakery was very easy to prepare and make, and I skipped the glaze because 1- the cake was sweet enough on it's own for me and 2- I didn't have any powdered sugar on hand. 

This recipe was SO GOOD. We ate almost the entire loaf the first day, though it came out flatter than I expected (maybe because it needed that extra 1/4 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of sugar. lol). (Can you see how moist it is?) 

EASY LEMON CAKE LOAF

INGREDIENTS

• 3/4 cup granulated sugar*
• zest of 2 lemons (about 2 Tablespoons)
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice (about half a lemon)
• 1/4 cup greek yogurt or sour cream **
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour ***
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

INSTRUCTIONS

1. 1. Preheat the oven to 175 C / 350°F 
2. 2. In a large bowl, combine the granulated sugar and lemon zest. Use your fingers to rub the sugar and the lemon zest together. 
3. 3. Add the melted butter to the sugar and mix well. Add the vanilla extract and each egg, mixing well. 
4. 4. Add the greek yogurt, milk and lemon juice. Mix to combine. It will look curdled and lumpy, and that's normal. 
5. 5. Add the all purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix until the batter is smooth. Do not over mix.
6. 6. Pour the batter into lined loaf pan and bake at 175 C/ 350°F for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until a chopstick inserted into the middle comes out mostly clean. Cool slightly before cutting, but it's quite wonderful warm as well. 

RECIPE NOTES AND CHANGES

* (originally 1 cup)

 ** (originally sour cream)

*** (I misread the recipe and used 1 1/3 cup of flour instead of 1 2/3 cup but the cake came out wonderfully moist and rich but not too dense. will try it next time with the right amount of flour to compare.)

my kitchen: EASIEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE RECIPE

Easiest Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 12-24

Credit to I heart eating blog 

Happy new year everyone! 

I’m always trying to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe (and oatmeal chocolate chip) that’s not a fussy recipe and is tasty. I scribble recipes into a notebook and try mark notes afterwards what I thought of the result. This one had a bunch of hearts from last time and it may be my cutest batch yet, so it’s a keeper. The cookie didn’t seem to flatten much with softened (not melted) butter during baking, but were easy to take off the pan after short cooling. The taste is soft but still slightly chewy and crispy on the edges. 

EASIEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE RECIPE 

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar packed
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• My Optional add in - 1/4 cup oatmeal for 1/4 of the flour 
• 
  
• 1.  Preheat the oven to 190 C / 350 F
• 2. Microwave the butter for about 40 seconds. Butter should be completely melted but shouldn't be hot. (I had some butter that left at room temperature for another batch, so I used that today) 
• 3. Mix butter with the sugars until well-combined.
• 4. Stir in vanilla and egg until incorporated.
• 5. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt. (Spoon in flour rather than packing it in)
• 6. Mix dough until just combined. Dough should be soft and a little sticky but not overly sticky. (Do not over mix) 
• 7. Stir in chocolate chips. (And oatmeal. Add chocolate chips on top of scooped dough if needed) 
• 8. Bake for 7-10 minutes, or until cookies are golden brown on edges and bottom. 9. Sprinkle sea salt or salt flakes on top. 

my kitchen: ONE BOWL BANANA BREAD WITH YOGURT

One Bowl Banana Bread with Yogurt

Makes 1-2 loaves

Another day, another banana bread recipe. Today’s hit recipewas from Sally’s baking addiction -My Favorite Banana Bread with 4.8 stars and 1200 plus votes. I picked it because I wanted something more moist and had some yogurt on hand (and a lot of browned bananas) and the recipe was a hit! It’s moist, not too dense, nice crust and I added chocolate chips and (and nuts to half of it) and used a square cake pan instead of a loaf pan which reduces the baking time by 20-30 min. 

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (leveled)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup (or 1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature 
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1/3 cup plain yogurt or sour cream, room temperature
• 2 cups 
• mashed bananas (about 4 large ripe bananas)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips (I used a mix of semi sweet and milk) and added some almonds and walnuts 

1. Preheat oven to 350F or 180C 

2. Best butter and sugar on high until creamy, about 2 minutes. Then mix in eggs, one at time on medium speed; then yogurt, bananas, vanilla until mixed

3. On low, mix in dry ingredients. Sally’s recipe whisks dry beforehand but I just added one by one with flour last so it’s just one bowl. Don’t overmix 

4. Scrape sides down and mix in chocolate chips and/or nuts with spatula. I mix in 2 kinds of chocolate chips and then add nuts only to half of the side so there’s options. 

5. Bake for 60-65 minutes in loaf pan or 30-40 minutes in a square cake pan until top is browned and center is set. If you bake in loaf pan, cover the top halfway so it doesn’t burn. 

6. I can never wait for it to cool one hour. I cut it right away and try it and there’s nothing like eating it hot out of the oven! 😆 Store in fridge after 2 days, if it’s not all eaten by then. 

Enjoy! 

news/michelin: 2023 MICHELIN TAIWAN STARS REVEALED

Wow! This year, Michelin decided award two new restaurants with 3 Michelin Stars, changing the predictable result of Le Palais being the only one in Taiwan holding 3 stars since 2018. 

The first restaurant the Michelin Guide honored with new 3 stars was JL STUDIO in Taichung, and Michelin mentioned it’s the first time Singaporean cuisine + chef has gotten THREE STARS!! Huge huge congrats for Chef Jimmy Lim, who looked visibly shook (not shiok, haha) and taking in the moment, and the JL family! 

The second milestone of the day was chef Kai Ho receiving his first shiny THREE STARS for TAIRROIR, putting modern Taiwanese flavors on the Michelin 3 star map for the first time ever. Congrats Chef Kai and your team!!  

Ten other restaurants received new Michelin stars, including chef Kunihiro Hagimoto’s playful INITA, which has been on my to eat list for too long, and ZEA, a modern Latin American restaurant by chef Joaquin Elizondo that I enjoyed very much when it opened, and MUDAN, a refined (and expensive but still very difficult to book) restaurant serving an amazing tempura tasting menu. 

 

Congrats to all the chefs and their teams! Here is the 2023 Michelin Stars for Taiwan- Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. (Will add more tomorrow, typing this out from East Coast 230AM!) 

2023 MICHELIN GUIDE TAIWAN

★ MICHELIN ONE STAR

Danny's Steakhouse 

de nuit 

Fleur de Sel (Taichung) 

Forchetta (Taichung) 

Fujin Tree Taiwanese Cuisine & Champagne 

Holt

Impromptu by Paul Lee

Ken Anhe

Longtail

Ming Fu

Mipon

Mountain and Sea House

Oretachi No Nikuya (Taichung) 

Paris 1930 de Hideki Takayama

Shin Yeh Taiwanese Signature

Sho (Kaohsiung) 

Sur（Taichung) 

Sushi Akira

Sushi Nomura

Sushi Ryu

Sushiyoshi

T+T

The Guest House

Tien Hsiang Lo

Ya Ge

Yu Kapo

Golden Formosa 

2023 NEW ★ MICHELIN ONE STAR

A Cut

Ad Astra

Ban Bo

Haili (Kaohsiung) 

Inita 

La Maison de Win (Taichung) 

Zea

★ ★ MICHELIN TWO STARS

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon

logy

RAW

2023 NEW ★ ★ MICHELIN TWO STARS

Liberte （Kaohsiung）

Molino de Urdaniz

Mudan

★ ★ ★ MICHELIN THREE STARS

Le Palais

2023 NEW ★ ★ ★ MICHELIN THREE STARS

JLStudio（Taichung）

Taïrroir

MICHELIN GREEN STAR ★

Embers 

Little Tree Food

Mountain and Sea House

Yangming Spring

NEW 2023 MICHELIN GREEN STAR ★

Hosu

Thomas Chien (Kaohsiung)