In the Beginning There was Chaos

Soon to be open

So a few things have changed. I don't live in Brooklyn. I live in Taipei, Taiwan and I am pursing food and cooking full force. I am starting a restaurant in The Taipei City Hall section of town, which is fancy to be short. I am not alone here. My pals Catherine and Michael who brought my out last spring are now my partners. I have some other expat and Taiwanese friends here. In fact the whole country is friendly, and loves to drink and eat. I feel pretty good about this move in whole.

So what kind of restaurant am I starting? What will serve? What is it called? All of these facts will be revealed to you in good time. For now lets start at the beginning. My partners found an amazing location which needs renovation. Gutting and revamping has begun. I am told it will take one month. Disbelief is giving way to reality. Construction and labor are affordable and efficient over here. Here is brief tour of what we are working with.

 The front

 The covered entrance, soon to be garden

 Seating area one

 Seating area 2

Counter and kitchen

The nightmare room, or soon to be the vip room

Business in the back 

 Please note the W Hotel in upper left, yes we are fancy.

 Hammer time

Did you see what I see? Use your imagination. Turning raw space into loved and happy space is a great challenge. If inhabiting gutted out dirty dusty buildings isn't your thing, do not proceed to shop for used restaurant equipment. If large industrial spaces with rusted odd and wonderful machines is, then please come with me. My partner, Catherine manged to locate a huge multi-building warehouse of tired and diverse food equipment. Its basically where restaurants go to die, or be resuscitated anew. I like recycling! 

The lay of the land is row after row of different equipment. You could feed all the world's armies with all this great stuff. 

Koenraad demonstrates the shave ice machine. I've been wanting to own one of these guys since I first tried mango ice last fall in Taipei. 

And then it really happened. Like meeting your love for the first time. We found our stove. The stove. The stove of stoves. A big 6 burner with 2 door ovens. These are not easy to find new or used. It was there waiting for me under a pile of soot. I am so happy.

Each oven has 4 racks. Each rack is roughly 30x18 inches. Its pretty big. I can really bake with this. I am pumped. Its going to make all the difference in the world.

Stay tuned for more clues about our restaurant's identity and menu. I'll try to write some recipe in the mean time. I have so many to share.

p.s. Kitchen equipment photos by Koenraad Hulsker. Thanks Koenraad!