Curious Table Restaurant, Taipei, by Tim Hsu

In a city like Taipei where there is a huge assortment of dazzling but arguably everyday restaurants, most pretty affordable by today’s big-city western standards, there’s definitely room for more playful artistic takes on menus.

So at Curious Table, a plant-based restaurant hidden away in the second basement area of Taipei’s Regent Galleria Mall, home of top fashion labels like Chanel, Hermes, Bvlgari, Louis Vuitton, just off Zhongshan Road, that’s just what Executive Chef Tim Hsu is providing. Chef Hsu is also at the helm of the Michelin Bib Gourmand and Green Star restaurant Little Tree Food (Da’an Road).

The staff at Curious Table Taipei, with Chef Tim Hsu in black at the back

There’s an overall theme to the vegetarian menu which combines the artisan/craftsperson’s trade with the ingredients, almost like invoking Irving Penn’s “Small Trades” photo essay as dishes on the table. To get his head around skills the different trades involve, Chef Hsu spent time learning from betel-nut beauties, painters, to try and bring a clearer representation into his food.

Another theme is exploring the different cultures that have formed “Taiwanese Cuisine”, from Mainland China (in the tea and tofu dish) through to Japan (in the “eel” dish), though to the aboriginal people (the mushroom in nasturtium leaf), and the modern working person (in the betel leaf representation).

To start: an alcohol-free “cocktail” made with alcohol-free white wine, pomegranate juice, tropical fruit, and soda water.

A warm large’ish bread roll (or tiny loaf) of wheat and rye sourdough bread made and baked in the kitchen at Curious Table. Not especially sour, a gentle crispness to the crust. The restaurant mentions a quote from Louisa May Alcott who wrote in her diary entry for April-May 1872, “Goethe puts his joys and sorrows into poems, I turn my adventures to bread and butter” and while Alcott was probably referring to the cash kind of “bread and butter”, it works for me as a more grounded analogy about simple foods like bread and butter.

Butter with an edible bamboo charcoal salt “black cat” (for curiosity…) stencilled onto the top. The butter is seasoned with Cambodian Kampot pepper that you can see in the speckles here.

Piper Betel, Green Olive, Hibiscus, Gouda, Pomegranate

Betel-Nut Beauty: Piper Betel-Nut, Green Olive, Hibiscus, Gouda, Pomegranate. This is a symbolic snack that represents the practice of betel nut eating in Taiwan, with the “beauty” part a reference to the women who sell the nuts in Taiwan in roadside kiosks. In Taiwan, especially for indigenous people, an offering of betel nuts is said to express welcome and acceptance. It is usually the first present or exchange at a gathering, so a welcoming start to the meal at Curious. The actual nuts become an addictive habit when wrapped in one of the betel plant leaves coated with a dash of slaked lime (from crushed seashells). So this pretend nut is flavoured with green olive, gouda cheese (a reference to be the slaked lime) and pomegranate (an imitation of the blood-red effect of eating a prepared real betel nut). At the back is a small cup with coconut milk.

Tomatoes, Green Mango, Celery, Chickpea, African Marigold, Smoked Oil

The Bartender: Tomato, Green Mango, Celery, Chickpea, African Marigold, Smoked Oil. It’s a deconstructed-reconstructed “Bloody Mary” idea served in a metal goblet to represent the bartender’s use of tomatoes in a cocktail.

The Florist: Zucchini, Seasonal Flowers, Ricotta Cheese, Polianthes Tuberose, Peanut Sprouts, Water Bamboo, Okra, Borage. Raw courgettes are one of my favourites salad vegetables (I eat them raw for lunch almost every day at home). The peanut sprouts (never eaten them) were amazing, peanuts are a very common addition in Taiwanese cooking so very apt here. The tuberose, again something I’ve never knowingly eaten, is related to the asparagus (you can see the vertically-sliced pieces tucked into the courgette, centre and right, in the photo above) and are delicious.

The Artist: Vegetable Crisp, Butter Pumpkin, Black Garlic Baba Ghanoush, Turnip, Sugar Snap Peas, Pistachio. What you have here is a vegetable crisp on an easel, and vegetable purees as colours you can apply to the crisp with a small artist’s palette knife.

The Musician: Accordion (red) Black Corn, Miso, Pine Nut, Chive, Bell Pepper Oil; Flute (tube at back) Sweet Corn, Cherry Tomato, Endive, Fermented Butter. The red “accordion” crisps are a bit messy to eat, beautiful and inherently great flavour from the mixed grains, but a less successful idea overall, more taco-shaped than accordion. The “musical” aspect of the dish is more Musique Concrète than a symphony, with the sounds the crunching and chewing make providing acoustic ‘musicality’ that John Cage would have admired. What it does do very well is celebrate how amazing corn is.

The Farmer: Mushroom, Nasturtium, Lima Bean, Wasabi, Sweet Chili, Baby Asparagus

The Farmer: Shitake Mushroom, Nasturtium, Lima Bean, Wasabi, Sweet Chili, Baby Asparagus. Under the nasturtium leaf is a type of shitake mushroom grown Dongyan Mountain Forest on hardwood logs, and it’s thought that the wood, humidity, and altitude combine to give these mushrooms a distinctive flavour. The mushroom has a slightly sweetish teriyaki-sauce flavour, is thickly-cut and resembles a slice of duck meat wrapped in a thin pancake wrapper, atop a layer of wasabi-mixed chopped beans and asparagus.

The Tea Sommelier: Homemade Tofu, Pandan Leaves, Sugar Cane, Siberian Ginseng Tea, Mushroom, Burdock

The Tea Sommelier: Homemade Tofu, Pandan Leave, Sugar Cane, Siberian Ginseng Tea, Mushroom, Burdock. Very curious dish. It’s an idea taken from a book called “紅樓夢” (Hónglóu Mèng), known in English as “Dream of the Red Chamber” or “The Story of the Stone.” It’s one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels, written during the Qing Dynasty by Cao Xueqin. In the book 賈寶玉 (Jia Baoyu) is hungry and impatient for his main meal and opting for a quick fix of rice soaked in tea with some pickled vegetables. So here it is a dish of tofu, set in the bowl, with hot tea poured over the semi-pickled vegetables. Like a broth on vegetables, but on another level, amazing.

The Eel Master: Organic Rice, Aubergine, Hokkaido Natural Hidaka Konbu, Sesame, Soy Sauce Koji, Homemade Teriyaki Sauce. As eel it’s a dish I know well from Japan, but here as a vegetable dish it’s astounding. Chef Hsu notes that there’s an old English legend that a horsehair dropped in a river will turn into an eel, and that in Japan mountain yams were thought to actually be a kind of eel. So here aubergine is coated in a teriyaki sauce, roasted with seaweed, and served on steamed rice.

Described as a “meat sandwich”, vegan, made with vegetables trimmings from producing the other dishes; served in a crisp pastry case.

Not on the menu: a “meat” sandwich bun filled with leftover vegetable trimmings from the menu. In one of Taipei’s markets there’s a famous pork bun sandwich at a cafe called Mrs. Liu’s Tongguan Roujiamo, where they make a bread called Lao Tong Guan. Food 52 has a description of the original here. This version is filled with braised vegetables bound into a kind of burger. Delicious. Love the gentle recycling element to the use of vegetable trimmings.

The Fruit-Picker: Pineapple, Kumquat, Apple Cider Vinegar, Barley Malt Syrup, Clove. A sorbet of pineapple and kumquat, very straightup and bright tasting.

Chocolatier: Maraschino Cherry, Homemade Tangerine Sauce, Chilli Chocolate Ice Cream, Rye Malt Crisps. The chilli and tangerine sauce is an interesting take on Hakka savoury tangerine sauce that has a slight chilli heat typically added to it.