The first two characters in the name of Chu Cha Dan Fan (初茶淡飯) mean a first taste of tea and are a play on a Chinese idiom that refers to a humble meal. The name cannot be more appropriate for this restaurant that serves rare "tea cuisine" in a cozy dining environment.
Neighboring a dozen coffee houses in an alley off Liaoning Street night market, this restaurant has a door hidden by leafy greenery and a quaint interior like a 1930s Shanghai teahouse. As soon as diners enter, they are deeply submerged in a retro atmosphere created by old Chinese pop songs and walls displaying antique Chinese posters of smiling calendar girls in traditional dress. The wooden Buddha carvings, the owner's collection of jade and the flowing calligraphy that fill every corner of the restaurant all add to the classically Oriental feel.
PHOTO: VICO LEE, TAIPEI TIMES
The restaurant's special tea cuisine is the innovation of owner and chef Hsieh Chang-chuo (謝長輈), who conceived of the restaurant after years of working as a chef in Chinese restaurants in Holland and Belgium.
"Traditionally, only a couple of Chinese dishes are made with tea. The way Westerners eat seafood with white wine and beef with red wine inspired me to cook meat with a variety of green or black tea," Hsieh said. The appeal of tea cuisine is its many benefits to health. "All kinds of meat are acidic. The alkali in tea can help neutralize this, making the dish more suitable for the human body," Hsieh added.
Hsieh's signature dish is dong po pork (東坡罈肉, NT$260), a favorite among foreign customers to the restaurant. Improving on the famous Chinese dish, Hsieh stews the fatty pork with pu-er tea (普洱茶), which helps cut the grease from the meat. People who would usually wince at the sight of fatty pork will be surprised by its light and non-greasy taste, so different from the artery-clogging, soy sauce-heavy fatty pork found in most other restaurants.
Chicken in tea (茶露雞, NT$260) is a twist on drunken chicken (醉雞), another traditional dish. By marinating the chicken in tieh kuanyin tea (鐵觀音茶), instead of wine, Hsieh creates a refreshing and beautiful dish with snow-colored meat and crystal skin.
Other tea-flavored dishes include chicken in black tea, bao chung shrimp(包種蝦仁) and pu-er beef, which uses vintage 12-year-old Yunnan tea.
The restaurant also provides Sichuan dishes such as kung pao chicken(宮保雞丁) and medicinal stews like Tian Shan hsueh lian chicken (天山雪蓮雞). The latter, using chicken legs boiled in ginseng and other traditional herbs, is only served in winter.
Although it opened only 10 months ago without much fanfare, the restaurant already has a loyal clientele who crowd the place during and long after meals.
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