Location: Kohaku (Kappou), in a lane off Yixian Road, Taipei.
Travel notes: Kohaku is a high-end Japanese restaurant hidden in a private residence in Taipei. The head chef is Shinji Tsuhara, a Japanese chef with two Michelin stars. It's only been open for a little over a month, but counter seats are often hard to come by. Thanks to Brother Paul's invitation, we dined here tonight. Since this is one of the restaurant series invested in by Paul and his partners, they specially reserved a private room for us. Before the meal, they present and introduce today's ingredients—about 90% are imported from Japan. Besides common items like A5 Wagyu beef, sea urchin, and saikyo-yaki, some dishes tonight were unique, like grilled sesame tofu. The meal ended with two fragrant kamameshi (traditional Japanese pot rice). Paired with two different daiginjo sake and a 13-degree yuzu wine. The ladies I met during the dinner were all very interesting—one is chartering a private plane next month to see penguins in Antarctica, another has already tried many Michelin-starred restaurants in Taiwan and Japan... We kept toasting and chatting with laughter—a wonderful gathering. Thanks to Sister Samantha for …
