Ephernité — Restaurant in Da'an District

Beautiful plating of the food (five stars) and good technical cooking skills (five stars). The service was good (four stars), but the whole experience was boring. Then neighbouring table was watching baseball on the smartphone. Most of the food was bland, not enough flavour compared a Michelin restaurant in France. I am not just talking about missing salt. The caviar did not taste anything when it was mixed with the other ingredients, and the truffle was totally tasteless even by itself. East Asians really like token fancy ingredients (e.g. caviar, truffles, lobster) so I can understand the chefs thinking. The lobster was cooked to perfection, but the sauce was bland. How can you make bland stock when you have a lobster shell? After three dishes you want the experience to be over. The duck breast was nice and cooked perfectly. Gazpacho was nice but the clams did not taste anything, when combined with the other ingredients. Palate cleanser with tasteless foam. Microscopic pieces of cheese. Bread was free flow and nice but nothing special. First, I had high expectations that it might be an up-and-coming place, but not true. More like overflow from fully booked Michelin stars. Net 5.700 per person.

Comment to the chef's response: In my experience, not many chefs like to receive negative comments from a layperson. Hence, I did not mention anything during the meal. The problem is not fixed by adding salt, even though that would be part of the solution. In general, tasting menus have become very popular in recent years and customers are learning to demand more. I don't know about Taipei and I would not comment on your restaurant on the booking sites used by Taiwanese customers. That would be unfair. Maybe you should designate one meny for Chinese and one for Europeans. The European menu would remove the expensive token ingredients, but instead showcase more Taiwanese produce. Then use your excellent cooking skills. The more expensive Chinese menu can include all the fancy ingredients, have milder cheese and maybe less salt if necessary. Just an idea. Thanks for showing that you can appreciate feedback and I wish you...

We have been here in 2017 Jan and had a good impression, therefore in 2019 Jan we went again. It's a big disappointment. The total price of the wine and dinner was a shock. While making the reservation, you need to choose the course with certain price already, and also you need to provide the credit card detail to guarantee that you will really be there ( if you are no show, they can still deduct the money from you). On the day they called me to confirm the reservation again, I said for sure we will be there, I wouldn't want to mess up my credit card with you. Those points already give me some bad feelings. As they positioned themselves as an European restaurant, they didn't offer wine pairing package as an European restaurant should be, (because we come from the EU), on the contrary they told the customer to choose the wine. I don't think many people in Taipei will have the full knowledge of the French wine and no one can remember all the price just by a look at the menu, in the end, the restaurant slaughter the customer's pocket. The food is nice, but together with the wine paring, it's not worthy the price like 400EUR, even a one Michelin star restaurant wouldn't be this pricey while they have no star at all. If they aim themselves to be the high end, find dining restaurant, there's still long way to go and good luck, because sorry to say, for sure we will not go again to be fooled. If any one want to know the good Michelin star restaurant in Amsterdam area please...

Food: 4 out of 5. Delicious.

Rhythm: 4 out of 5. Understandably long based on its French setting.

Services: 3.5 out of 5. Seems understaffed. Every time I needed service I had to stand up or wave for attention. Also, the system to get an reservation is terrible. I have to call and make a deposit (of the entire bill) ahead of time to be able to secure our seat. Not to mention the entire process takes more than a week!

Environment: 1 out of 5. During our time there, my date and I could CLEARLY hear the chef cursing and harshly condemning the help in the kitchen. I understand that might be a culture specifically common among the culinary world, however, it was our special night. The experience of hearing someone swearing words such as "Fu__ you!" was not needed.

Price: 2 out of 5. Besides having need to pay the whole meal ahead of time, this place prints "tea and delicacies" on the menu that was individually printed for each guest as if this was included. No, it was not! Not to mention the price for each glass of wine was not specified AT ALL. One glass of wine + 2 bottles of sparkling water + 2 cups of tea = whopping sum of 2700+ NTD. Just...