Mandarin Café bids farewell to French bistro style; lunch set upgraded, salad bar unlimited

▲ Located on the fifth floor of Mandarin Oriental Taipei, Mandarin Café (Café Un Deux Trois) is moving away from its previous French bistro dining style and will now offer classic international cuisine. (Photo courtesy of Mandarin Oriental Taipei, the same below)

Reported by Huang Shiyuan / Taipei

Located on the fifth floor of Mandarin Oriental Taipei, Mandarin Café (Café Un Deux Trois) is moving away from its previous French bistro dining style and will now offer classic international cuisine, including Western and Asian dishes. The lunch set has also been fully upgraded — guests can choose one chef-recommended main dish and enjoy an unlimited selection of appetizers and a salad bar, all for NT$1,200 per person.

Chef-recommended main dishes in the lunch set include roasted duck breast (NT$1,800), Australian wagyu cheek (NT$1,400), cuttlefish risotto (NT$1,200), and Provençal grilled vegetables (NT$1,200). By selecting any one of these chef-recommended main dishes, guests can also enjoy an unlimited selection of appetizers such as green apple abalone and green asparagus salad with basil vinaigrette, Thai beef salad, grilled artichoke and white fish salad with ricotta cheese, Sichuan spicy chicken salad, and more.


▲ Taiwanese beef noodle soup. (NT$570)

The new à la carte menu includes Portuguese seafood stew, American burgers, sandwiches, Italian pasta, French onion soup, Taiwanese beef noodle soup, Hainanese chicken rice, Indonesian fried rice, and Singaporean laksa noodles. For the familiar Taiwanese beef noodle soup, the chef selects U.S. Prime-grade boneless short ribs and U.S. beef shank, which are braised with great care. After braising, the beef undergoes a “trimming” process to remove excess fat, then is sliced against the grain into 4 cm x 4 cm pieces, each 1.5 cm thick, maintaining a tender texture. The broth is made by slow-cooking beef bones and tendons along with onions, celery, and carrots for eight hours — a truly classic Taiwanese beef noodle soup.


▲ Portuguese tomato seafood stew.

Additionally, for the Hainanese chicken rice, the chef tried eight different chicken breeds before selecting the corn-fed capon, which averages about 2.5 kg. This breed has richly yellow and shiny skin, abundant fat, and particularly sweet and tender meat.