掌上明珠會館 — Restaurant in Zhuangwei

掌上明珠 is an interesting restaurant, located in fields of Yilan. The people here certainly know what they're doing. They utilize good ingredients with good technique to back it up. There aren't too many courses, some of which were quite large, but the meal was essentially a riff on a Japanese multi-course meal. A few standout courses to me were the hand roll, which had a nice crispy texture and the dessert, a rich strawberry mousse with nice tart strawberry for balance and white chocolate for texture. Despite enjoying the meal in general, I wasn't particularly mind blown by anything aside from the excellent pricing for the entire meal. Overall, I recommend stopping by if you're in Yilan, though don't take a journey here just for...

Loved the ambiance! Beautiful garden to explore with short walking paths and bridges around an aviary, koi pond, and chicken coop. The restaurant has plenty of architectural eye candy to enjoy as well; I loved the beautiful wood tables and benches.

The meal volume is just right for women and might be slightly on the low side for guys, as you won't leave stuffed to the gills. I enjoyed the Japanese style dishes, particularly the fried red-throated fish!

Our kids finished their meal of fried rice in 15min and ran around outside while the adults made our way through the 1.5-2 hour dining experience. Service was excellent. They even came to sweep the floor under the kids mid-meal so we wouldn't get rice squashed...

Chosen by our Taiwan colleague during our team off-site last week, it was definitely worth the visit. We were a bit behind schedule, but the restaurant was able to serve us relatively quickly without us feeling rush. I would recommend reserving at least 2 hours to enjoy your meal there if you get the set meal. The ambience and the service were great. The duck and the pan fried fish were my favorites among the dishes. The duck was tender but super flavorful. The fish, even though pan fried, was super...