851: Eric Sze’s Cookbook Puts a Question Mark on Taiwanese Food on Purpose

Eric Sze (0:08)

My goal is for people to stop treating Taiwan like a transfer hub, and just stop in for two weeks. It's always like, I'm staying in Taipei for like three days.

Give us the full two weeks, and then you will see the beauty of Taiwan.

Matt Rodbard (0:22)

This is TASTE. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard.

Eric Sze first joined the show mid-research for his debut cookbook, Taiwanese? The book will be released later this month, and I speak with the Wenwen Chef about his deep research around Lu Rau Fan, what authentically inauthentic really means on the page versus the plate, and how his sparkling book brings fresh perspective to Taiwanese food and culture. At the top of the show, it's the return of Three Things, where Aliza and I talk about what is exciting us in the world of restaurants, cookbooks, and the food world as a whole.

Clayton, we are back. How are you doing, my man? I'm doing well. We just returned from California. We were filming a bunch with our friends at Rezzy, and we launched our latest season with them. So many great conversations to share in the coming months. I love California. I love it. We were up in Napa and Sonoma.

I wanted us to talk about restaurants that we visited that we just loved. I have three to go over from Napa, Sonoma, and San Francisco. We spent a couple of days there as well. And again, amazing conversations, like really great stuff. We're going to be rolling out. I went back to Valley, which I had mentioned with Aliza on Three Things a few months ago. I got to make a return, but I didn't have lunch. I had dinner with you and Dan, our producer, in the backyard. It's a dreamy place. Just absolutely loved it. A little reminder of the restaurant, it's in the city of Sonoma, right on the historic plaza. It's a restaurant from chefs Emma Lipp and Stephanie Rieger, and Lauren Feldman and Tanner Whale do the wine. They're four really interesting characters. They all worked in New York. Most of them worked at Scribe, which is right down the road, in the pioneering millennial-coded winery.

So the restaurant really feels like it has some New York inspiration and influence, and Lauren's going to be on the show in a few months, and I just love the conversation with her. But we should talk food, because I think the dinner menu is really when this restaurant comes to life. I mean, you can have breakfast as well. They have a coffee bar in the front. It's open. It's kind of an all-day cafe. I want to start with this tuna and peach tostada, which I loved, and it was a, you know, the tortilla was made locally. And I thought it was like the perfect summer, late summer bite. And, you know, we were there in September, which is, or October, actually, both September and October, two months we were there. We were there for two months.

Aliza Abarbanel (3:13)

We spanned two months.

Matt Rodbard (3:14)

Spanned two months. I think it was a great time to visit, because it's kind of that late summer produce.

So I love that bite. They also did a really nice, like, it was an anchovy with this chili oil. Spanish anchovies, that was great.

Aliza Abarbanel (3:30)

Took me right back.

Matt Rodbard (3:31)

Took us back to our trip to San Antonio in Spain. We did mortadella, a big slice of mortadella, kind of doing wine bar staples. But I really think the menu really starts cooking for entrees. I mean, we had, what do we have? We have this great wedge of braised cabbage. That was delicious.

We had this chicken and grapes that I liked. Oh yeah, we had salmon with a succotash of sun gold and corn. Perfect late summer produce. And we had sticky duck toffee pudding at the end to close.

Love what they're doing there. I mean, it's kind of like this wine bar with like international flair. There's like a little bit of Asian ingredients, a little bit of new American style. And it's just a cool restaurant. I really like it.

Aliza Abarbanel (4:21)

I think it was our first meal, right, when we got?

Matt Rodbard (4:24)

Yeah, when we landed, we were shooting up in Sonoma and Napa. It was our first, the first shoot, so.

Aliza Abarbanel (4:29)

It was a nice first meal.

Matt Rodbard (4:31)

Next spot I want to talk about is a place that I'd been to a couple years ago. And I remember also I shot a cookbook with Ed Anderson, terrific photographer, lives in Petaluma nearby. And he had mentioned this, like he was like, Matt, you have to go to El Molino Central whenever you're in town. And I was in town and we went there. And we had the most amazing dinner at this, it's in Boyce Hot Springs, which is just pretty close to Sonoma. And a little background on the restaurant, it was opened in 2010 by Karen Taylor.