The talented chef now operates three popular restaurants in Taipei, Chou Chou, the chef's first solo venture which is a classic French bistro, Longtail, an Asian fusion restaurant and his latest venture, Wildwood Grill and Bar, a charcoal grill place at Shinkong Mitsukoshi A9.
I'm calling the shots tonight and I planned to explore the Asian flavors of Longtail, which have brought Chef Kin his first ever Michelin star in 2018.
We tried to station ourselves at the bar table so we could get a peep at the action behind the kitchen. But it turned out Chef Kin was missing in action tonight as he was hosting a special dinner at the newly opened Wildwood.
I always love dining with V coz like me, he would do anything for tasty food. Not surprisingly, when our server brought along their three menus, a la carte menu and two tasting menus, both of us wasted no time going for the more expensive tasting menu.
Both of Longtail's tasting menu comprises of eight courses.....
The only difference are the ingredients (and price of course NT$1880 vs NT$2880).
We started things off with a small amuse bouche, a refreshing cucumber gazpacho with crispy bacon on top. It's a very nice way to cool us off under the sizzling hot weather (33-34 degree today).
The first course of the menu was a chutoro ball marinated with Indian rojak and shiso. Stuffed inside the chutoro was a bit of crispy nori rice giving the fish some contrasting texture and flavor to work with.
Next dish was heirloom tomato salad with strawberry and goat cheese. The Taiwanese basil snow provided some minty notes to the mix. Pretty nice.
Charred foie gras dumplings were served with sweet corn purée, pecorino, kaffir lime and paprika. I thought the homemade dumplings were seriously tasty and there were all kinds of flavors coming in the form of sweetness (corn), savory (pecorino), acidity (kaffir lime) and spiciness (paprika), which were all rather exciting for the palates.
Stewed oyster was met with green chili sauce which tasted almost like green curry. There were also some water chestnut and vegetable fern tossed with the green sauce.
A decent dish but probably the least intriguing one so far.
Now that we have finished our four starters, time to bring on our fish course which was something I've not heard of before called beltfish. This came with a miso glaze along with some daylily shoot and anise hyssop.
This was quite a difficult dish to tackle with knife and fork due to the large number of small and large bones. It must have taken me a good 10 to 15 minutes to remove all 20 to 30 bones in there before I could fully enjoy the meat.
V and I are both meat lovers and we've been quietly looking forward to our meat course for a while because it's A5 wagyu steak from Kagoshima! We were both a little curious of how they would interpret it with gochujang (Korean chili sauce).
This was really delicious. The strip of beef tenderloin was lightly charred on both sides but what made it special was the seaweed crust giving the beef some really crisp texture and smoky flavor. The gochujang glaze was surprisingly mild but I thought the tenderloin already had enough to work with so the extra kick wasn't really necessary.
Palate cleanser was compressed strawberry with kaffir lime, yogurt and Taiwanese basil. It was doing great work to get us ready for our dessert.
My second Kaya toast in two weeks but unlike the deconstructed one at Restaurant Labyrinth from my Singapore trip, this one was a little more traditional.
They had the toast soaked in coconut milk and kaya sauce for almost 24 hours before deep frying it like a French toast. The result was a really nice and crispy crust but the middle was still moist and soft. Not surprisingly, each bite was full of rich kaya flavor. The only thing I had reservation with was the pairing of expresso ice-cream and soy caramel. Just a little too bitter for the kaya French toast but I kind of understand the coffee and toast thing.
Chef Kin is a rising star in Taipei's rapidly growing restaurant scene and it's not really difficult to understand the reason behind his success. He's so good with his interpretation of modern French cooking constantly mixing it up with Asian flavors and local Taiwanese twist. No wonder he has already tripled the number of restaurants he owns in just 12 months.
Food Rating: 7/10
Price: $$$
Address: 174, Section 2, Dunhua South Road, Da’an District, Taipei, Taiwan
Closest Metro Station: Liuzhangli / Technology Building
Tel: +886 2-2732-6616
Website: longtail.com.tw
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