Seeking oneness with nature
When the Hero Restaurant moved to Taichung from Nantou in October of 2016, Hsiao Tsun-yuan, the original owner and chef, brought in Lin Kai-wei, who had been a classmate of his in the Department of Chinese Culinary Arts at National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism, to create a dual head chef system, making the whole team more complete. The two had both decided even in university that in the future they would go in the direction of fusion dishes. Hsiao has been through a baptism of restaurants including Du Xiao Yue Taiwan Seafood Cuisine in Yilan, L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Taipei, and the Bulgari restaurant in Tokyo. Lin, on the other hand, after graduation went to the Institut Paul Bocuse in France for advanced training. Even early on in his career, when he was head chef at the Yet-sen Mansion restaurant in Taichung, he was attracting attention. “When I was at Yet-sen, you had to use high-grade materials to show your stuff. There was no emphasis on local ingredients, but some dishes had a Chinese flavor to them.” Lin adds: “Today it’s more comprehensive.”
Of the seasonal dishes at Hero, the one that really catches Ascend’s attention is one made with local prawn, Yunlin white asparagus, wild mullet roe, and lily bulb purée. The basic idea comes from the Chinese dish of lily bulb, asparagus, and shrimp, but unlike in the traditional dish, where all the flavors are blended together, Western cuisine is particular about preparing ingredients separately, and respecting the flavors of the ingredients themselves. Allowing all kinds of textures and characters to mix in the mouth makes the entire dish carry a message of freshness and richness.
The Hero Restaurant has its own vegetable farms in Nantou and elsewhere, and the whole team participates in the planting and harvesting. Ascend makes a point of mentioning the two foreign chefs so much appreciated by Hsiao Tsun-yuan: the Frenchman Michel Bras and the Japanese Eiji Taniguchi, head chef at L’Évo in Toyama, Japan. Taniguchi started out from French cuisine, but combined it with local ingredients from Toyama and worked with local handicraft artists, to create refined local dishes.
Version 2.0 of the Hero Restaurant has felt its way through the initial teething troubles that any new business faces, and has passed the test of several large dining events. With the upgrade in its resources, things have moved much closer to the ideal that is in Hsiao Tsun-yuan’s mind. For example, the dessert on the day of our visit was ice cream topped with Musann Blanc grapes. These are wine grapes from the Weightstone vineyard and winery, which is also based in central Taiwan. We later heard that they came from the last bunch of this year’s harvest. In addition, Hero uses ceramics made by Nantou ceramicist Lin Yongsheng.
What about the core dishes? Ascend gives the following evaluation: “Compared to the past, the flavors are much more rounded.” He also points especially to the last item on the menu: minced pork on rice. “In the past they had starches like Italian pasta and risotto as main courses, but now they serve the rice last, in order to place more emphasis on the fish and meat ingredients. This is more like the Japanese format.”
Lovely Casual Dining Room’s service manager Joelle Chen and head chef Nicola Cheng.