Nostalgia...or not

New Taiwanese restaurant Keelung was very hyped up even before its opening, where its boss also owns a few other major restaurants in London Chinatown.

Having grown up with Taiwan night market food, and even though I know it would never be the same in a restaurant, curiosity got the better of me and I dragged a friend along to Keelung.

The menu that featured a photo of the Keelung harbour listed a mixture of typical Taiwanese market dishes and confusingly, typical Chinese dishes. There was also a star-chart of chef's recommendation v.s. how to cook your food, I did not give it a second look nor did I bother to try and work it out.

We went straight for the steam buns (siao-long-bao), fishcakes, beef noodle and rice paste. My friend, an expert in beef noodle, said it was too dry and not tender enough. Steam buns was so-so - the restaurant next door actually does it better. It was juicy as how it was supposed to be, other than that, I was getting no chemistry.

I was half-expecting the restaurant decor to pair with the down-to-earth street food but the mini vineyard near the main entrance was making a louder statement that "we are obviously targeting the non-Chinese customers"; something's not quite right.

All in all the restaurant is giving Taiwanese food a bad name, and I restlessly test and prove the theory time and time again: good food lives in the memory, and it just doesn't work when you know better.

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Keelung
6 Lisle Street, Leicester Square,
London WC2 (020 7734 8128)
Mix-match dishes with ice tea for two: £35


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