Esquire Kitchen of Taipei

We have a special dinner tonight. One of our colleague is due to leave the company for further studies and so, we decided to host a dinner for him. For some unknown reason, we chose this reataurant, called the Esquire Kitchen of Taipei, which is located in the newer business area of Kuchai Lama.

The insides of the restaurant is decorated with the usual chairs and tables, maybe inspired by the restaurant in Taiwan but I am just speculating. What became the subject of our attraction was the wall/mural which has repeated sceneries of pictures taken from Taiwan depicting some of its Tourist spots.

Anyway, I just sat there, making small talk while they ordered the food. Although the menu comes in two languages, some of the dishes were unfamiliar to me. Anyway, once the first two dish came, the rest followed within minutes. This is a good thing since we arrived early as later on, when the dinner crowd came, the place was very busy.

And so, the guest of Honour here is enjoying his

Strawberry smoothie. His face is protected from

all you curious girls who mistreat their boyfriends.

The other one was blocked just for fun.

Scrambled egg with tomato (RM10.00)

When they served it, the dish looked normal

but once you take a bite, you can really taste

the egg and not so much on the tomato. Nice

Taiwan sausage (RM6.90)

Well, its nice but the raw sliced garlic was the

best. Since wife was in a good mood, I did not

get kicked out of the bed.

Stir fried cabbage (RM15.00)

Its not on the menu but when they brought

it out, it was delicious! Normally, some would

use the dried prawns to make it taste better but

here, I was later told, it was the special Japanese

ingredient called MSG.

Claypot chicken (RM28.00)

Of Maybe, I should call it Claypot Zombie Chicken.

We ate more bones than meat but the sauce was

very good although it bordered in the salty side.

RM15.00

Prawns. Delicious Prawns.

Fresh from somewhere.

Mapo Taufu (RM16.00)

Again, this dish was excellent. It was so excellent

that we ate it all, ordered more rice and scraped

the dish clean.

Braised Pork rice (RM4.90)

You can have two types of rice. Either the normal

white rice or this Braised Pork Rice. It is so good

that the pork literally melts in your mouth. And

for that price, even if you're tempted to eat it by

itself, you soon wish to order another dish to go

with it.

Sweet potato (RM3.50)

When they came out, they were warm to

the touch but once you break it open, you

can see the steam coming out from inside.

Its nice, very nice in fact, so nice that I ate

the nice little sweet balls. I like them bland

The verdict? RM176 for 7 seven person, which worked out to about RM25 per person is a bit on the expensive side despite the free fruit dessert. If not for the price, i would ne tempted to try again, this time with noodles. But there you have it.