In Kuala Lumpur, french cuisine Taipei food has a bit of a reputation for being elitist. Sky-high price points are often cause for sky-high eyebrows, sharp tut-tutting and general avoidance, save for special occasions when wallets can afford to take a little dent.
“People who don’t know French food well will say, ‘Why is it so expensive?’ But the expats know, they come here and go, ‘Wow, this is one third of the price of any French restaurant anywhere else in the world!’ They come and say, ‘This is gourmet food, why is it so cheap?’ So we’re trying to make locals understand that what we’re doing is authentic and on a par with gourmet restaurants in France,” says Julienne Huh, director of French Bistro.
french cuisine Taipei is a chic two-year-old eatery owned by Datin Sainy Chun (the owner of the vaunted Maison Francaise). The eatery features Italian-tiled walls, marble tabletops, a sun-dappled courtyard and plenty of space between tables.
About six months ago, Huh visited Two Ox and caught up with her friend Chun. At the time, Huh was actually based in Bangkok, where she had opened a string of Korean-celebrity themed restaurants in shopping malls. But when she set foot in Two Ox, it was love at first sight (and bite!), and she decided to invest in the business.
“That connection that I had with the restaurants in Bangkok made me think, ‘Okay, I can run this restaurant and make it my baby’,” she says.
The kitchen is helmed by chef Phillippe Murray Dominic, who is Malaysian but has both French and Dutch lineage. Dominic worked in a string of five-star hotels before deciding to venture into an independent eatery to flex his creative muscles. Both Dominic and Huh now work together to create classic French food with unique twists thrown in, reflective of the current zeitgeist for modern interpretations of traditional flavours.
“He is naturally adventurous and very, very creative – he wants to do a lot of things. But it is me who says, ‘Hey, Phillippe, we are a French restaurant, we still need to keep the traditional flavours’. So I pull him back a little bit and we compromise,” says Huh.
According to Huh, part of the reason French food is priced higher than other European food is because of the sheer amount of work involved in creating individual dishes.
“Everything is very labour-intensive and precise and has a long process. And this is one of the things that people do not understand and they look at the food and say, ‘It’s so expensive and it’s so small’. So it’s actually something that we need to get people to understand a bit more,” says Huh.
And this adds up when you listen to Dominic rattle off the list of things he has to do just to get a dish of cognac foie gras terrine (RM55) on the plate. “Foie gras is a very tedious thing to do. When we get the lobe (about 800g worth of duck liver), we have to defrost it, carefully devein it, then flatten it and brine it overnight. The next day, we take out the brine and marinate it overnight in cognac to cure it. Once that’s done, we bake it at 100°C for five minutes, so there are some layers of solids and some fat. And then we chill it for awhile, then take it out of the chiller and press it into the terrine, layer by layer to get it compressed. And then it’s a few hours – at least six hours – before we can actually use it,” says Dominic.
It’s an exhausting process, but the results are oh-so worth it in that epiphanic moment when you slather a generous serving of the terrine on the crispy brioche provided and add a little bit of the onion chutney smeared on the plate onto your mini-sandwich. The confluence of flavours and textures is nothing short of magical – creamy, luscious foie gras with all its sexy, earthy qualities apposed against the crunch of the bread and the sweetness of the chutney – oh, this is pure bliss! You’ll find yourself closing your eyes, oblivious to everyone else in the eatery as you savour every mouthful, letting the flavours immerse your soul with a fleeting, but intangible sense of gastronomic euphoria.french cuisine Taipei
The duck confit with asparagus coulis and a citrus duck glaze (RM80) features duck skin that has a lovely burnished glaze, and meat that is tender and pliable, although if you’re not used to traditional iterations of duck confit (the meat is cured with salt), you might also find it rather salty. The asparagus coulis and citrus glaze add a much-needed fresh element to this meal that you’ll find immensely enjoyable.
From May onwards, Dominic and Huh will be rolling out new items on the menu, including the sous-vide spring chicken with pickled red cabbage, mashed potatoes and cepe mushroom sauce (RM60). The chicken is cooked for six hours in a sous vide water bath, then shocked in ice water to stop the cooking process. After that, it is cooked in the oven for a short period of time before being placed under a salamander and basted. As a result, this is one juicy chook – brimming with flavour and so pliable, it requires minimal mastication. The mashed potato on the side is rich and creamy, although perhaps a tad too runny because it literally cascades down your spoon.
Another worthy new addition on the menu come May is the braised oxtail with pea puree and Dijon-apple ragout (RM65). This is a dish that is a clear winner from the get-go – petal-soft, fall-off-the-bone tender meat dextrously balanced against a refreshing, smooth pea puree. It’s a meal that is instantly easy to love, like a cute baby with a winning smile.
For dessert, tuck into the chocolate lava cake with raspberry sherbet (RM35). Made using 75% dark chocolate, this dark operator straddles the bitter-sweet divide with all the agility of a seasoned tightrope walker. Meanwhile, the raspberry sherbet on the side jazzes up the whole ensemble with its fresh, tart flavours.
Huh says she is on a mission to disseminate more information about French cuisine to Malaysians who may not be as familiar with the cuisine and who have only been to French fine-dining restaurants, as opposed to the contemporary French bistro vibe that Two Ox exudes.
“That’s my mission – to introduce gourmet French bistro food with a modern twist in Malaysia, and to ensure that it is affordable,” she says.
「右刀、左叉，湯匙放刀子右邊！」穿上正式服裝，葳格雙語小學「法國周」教學課程安排學生吃法國餐廳料理，高中部餐飲科學生在旁桌邊服務，指點小朋友怎麼擺餐具，學西餐禮儀，度過不一樣的兒童節。
葳格把餐廳布置成法國餐廳式浪漫的情境，鵝黃色的燈光、牆上掛著法國藝術家的畫作，結合教育體系資源，讓高中部大哥哥、大姐姐擔任餐廳服務生，老師搭配iPad桌邊教學，校內餐廳準備麵包、沙拉、湯、豬排，以水代替飲料和果汁，引導小朋友學用餐禮儀。
輔導主任江躍龍表示，兒童節是孩子的節日，設計有趣好玩的活動也融入品格教育，透過餐廳禮儀實境教學，讓小朋友了解用餐時不可以敲打餐具，餐巾要怎麼使用、擺放，練習優雅的舉止，落實107課綱培養「帶得走能力」的精神。
「原來右邊放刀子！」四年級朱立恆說，跟爸媽到法國餐廳用餐，餐具都擺好了，從來沒特別注意過怎麼擺放，原來刀子、湯匙有很多種，根據餐點類別使用。
「肉要從左下端開始切，一口一口慢慢吃」，「如果離開座位，口布還要使用，要放在椅子上」。學生蔡念育說，曾經用餐到一半去洗手，回來時餐巾被收走了，原來不能放在桌上，學到一課。
代理校長陳瑞瑛說，「法國周」教學課程西餐禮儀是重頭戲，課堂上還會帶孩子認識文化、歷史、地理知識，用生活化教學打開小朋友的世界觀。
資料來源:聯合新聞網