I understand that this will be a negative review in a sea of positive accolades so let me be specific and comprehensive about my experience.

Ambiance: The decor screams of modernist industrial design, with large woodwork pieces, like any hipster restaurant from brooklyn, or a particularly well funded chipotle. The music is way too loud, making conversation with dinner guests difficult. The silverware is kept in drawers at your table. A cute idea at first until you realize you have to repeatedly open this unwieldy wooden box in order to retrieve your silverware between every course.

Food: I'll list the things that stood out to me the most The first was RAW's take on wasabi peas, and other taiwanese convenience snacks, and they nailed it. In fact they nailed it so well, I questioned why I paid 80$ to eat what tasted like 1$ snacks I could purchase from 7-11.

Second the pork course, the pork tail sandwich was very good, but again, tasted like street food that I could purchase right outside for 1/10 of the cost. The pig ear dish was very good. The flavors melded well and the vinegar dressing lightened up the gelatinous texture of the pork.

Third, the scallop dish. The miso dressing was almost flavorless. The scallop wrapped in fried leaves was oily all the way around. The scallop inside was cooked perfectly though, and the soup that accompanied it tasted like a good french onion soup with a seafood aftertaste. I would say this dish was the highlight.

Fourth , a chicken and rice sandwich. This was definitely the low point of the night. The chicken rice was bland and oily, the chicken skin was so crunchy it felt and tasted like plastic. The sandwich form factor also made the whole ordeal inconvenient as well as messy. It's not good when your reinterpretation of a dish is worse than the original version.

Fifth, spaghetti with clams and tofu, with a clam beurre blanc sauce. This was weird and disappointing. From what I gathered from the server, the tofu is supposed to act like a cheese? This was a case where the overall dish was definitely less than the sum of its parts. Flavors were disjointed.

Lastly, beef wrapped in leek with a demi glace and some kind of vegetable on the side. They served this with a non serrated knife, making it impossible to cut the leek. The leek and beef are bland on their own, with the sauce being necessary for the dish to rise to the level of mediocrity.

Dessert was ice cream with dehydrated lemons and burnt marshmallow with a small pear. This was ok.

Service: The servers were friendly enough, though maybe a little green? It would be unfair of me to expect michelin class service so suffice to say they definitely tried to be helpful and attentive.

Price: This is by far the most baffling part of the experience. Bread and (tap)water are both extra charges. There is also a 10% service charge included in the (I've been informed this practice is becoming more and more common in Taiwan.). Upcharges were offered to us as alternatives, and we were not informed that they were extra until we got the bill. While the total was still not expensive per se, it was odd and offputting that this "fine dining" establishment would resort to these nickle and diming tactics.

Overall, I give this place 2 stars. Taipei is arguably one of the food capitals of the world, and good food is cheap and plentiful here. I would not come back again.