RAW — Restaurant in Zhongshan District

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...

The dining space is casual and the food is definetly one star worthy, very excited to experience some familier ingridiants in a different light. Except the tofu and fungi dish, which we really struggle with the earthiness (muddy even? ) the dish focus on. The two stars missing are solidly on the very awkward dining experience we happened to have that night. Although I could go into details of how the whole service was abit uncomfortable, I will cut it short on two major event that really ruined the night for us. We were rushed to finished our first dessert course as the kitchen is closing (we arrived on time for our booking). We're were pretty full by then and wouldn't like to be rushed, so we asked if we could make the dessert to go. We were offered no alternative but to find them there and finish quick. The table next to us, two American white man, were still on their fish course at this point. The staffs also took extension time displaying extra ornaments on the table (the whole chicken for the chicken dish) and chatting with them about their traveling plan. I assume they might be guests from the culinary industry. When we finally stuffed two more dessert courses down, we got given the bill and waited for at least 10 minutes and spoke to two staffs that had waited on us that night, we were told someone would take care of it. No one did.

Some background here, my brother is a restruant owner in Manchester, my partner works in a stared resturant in Berlin as a chef. I understand how difficult it is to provide a consistently good dining experience and we are normally quite relax since we could see it from their side.

I just came to a very uncomfortable place at the end of the night with my mother sitting there, having been rushed with our food when the next table is still dining. And waited to pay for the bill when we spoke to two staffs politely. Eventually I stood up and approached someone by the bar to paid for the bill.

If someone from RAW worked on the 14/12/2018 could perhaps confirm that those two American white male guests who stayed passed closing hour, are from the culinary industry, I should be able to get over the nasty after taste that is still lingering in my mind. Long shot, but well, I'll...

We were lucky to book this place and were excited to try this place, despite the mixed reviews.

Food definitely lives up to its Michelin 2 stars. Creative, artistically presented and delicious. Every dish was designed with attention and detail.

The restaurant really drops the ball with the service, hence the two star rating. When we first arrived, the servers were very friendly and warm. After sitting and placing our orders, I then found out we were sat right by the entrance of the bathroom (originally thought it was an area for private dining rooms). Entrance did not have a door, so our table would the first table to absorb all the wonderful air coming out of the bathroom.

Naturally I requested to change tables. Our server said they would need to check the availability of the other tables and other reservations times. Which is fine and understandable. However she repeated this twice, as if we didn't understand the first time? When she came back to inform us we could change, she told us that we need to make sure we put our requests at the time of the reservation. This comment really ticked me off. So this was our responsibility? Told the server it was our first time at the restaurant (since reservations are near impossible) so we do not know the layout of the restaurant. How was I supposed to know a Michelin 2 star restaurant would put a table by the bathroom entrance?

After we switched tables, the same server continued to serve us. Luckily not for long because everyone in our group could tell she wasn't happy (because we didn't like her unnecessary comments). She was more rude to us than we were to her. I wouldn't accept this level of service at any restaurant we go to, let alone such a high profile one like Raw. Another server became our main server (we didnt get a chance to request the switch, maybe the original server did?) and her attitude was drastically different, for the better.

This is such difficult place to book. It would be nice if people working here could show more appreciation towards the customers. Food was definitely Michelin quality but...