#22 Fusion Cafe
Posted on May 27, 2007
Filed Under Chinese, Taiwanese | 2 Comments
Announcement: We have a smorgasbord of entries coming up from my long weekend in San Francisco, and it was better than I could have ever imagined. To give you an idea how crazy it got, I found myself eating raw oysters from the shell for breakfast this past Friday morning.
I LOVE San Francisco! Stay Tuned. We’re going to eat San Francisco for the entire month of June.
Okay, we did a beer house, we did small eats, today we’re going to go a little more high end Taiwanese. Fusion Cafe is still distinctively Taiwanese but the food is what you would find at a sit-down restaurant in Taiwan. There’s a lot of overlap on what’s considered Taiwanese and Chinese food, so don’t be surprised if you see something here that you might have ordered from a Cantonese or Sichuan restaurant.
The tea is quite fragrant and nicely presented, sitting above a candle that keeps it warm. Unfortunately it’s from a bag and it’s some Western brand. Still, very pleasant.
First up we have stir-fried fish filets in spicy bean sauce. Slightly spicy and stir fried with garlic, the main attraction of this dish is the wonderfully simple and flavorful spicy bean paste, you’ve seen the paste before at Boiling Point as a sauce for the stuff in the hot pot, and I think it’s terribly underused, something this flavorful, distinct and simple should get more playing time.
Next up we have a very standard dish, the 3-flavor Chicken pot. You’ve previously seen the squid version of the 3-flavor pot. The chicken pot is the original version of this method of preparation and calls for tons of ginger and garlic, which I totally endorse.
We also ordered a plate of steamed bacon, you’ll see this again soon when I visit Spices in San Francisco. Dip the bacon in the spicy garlic sauce and you’re going to have a Chinese Mardi Gras in your mouth.
For something more heavy hitting, we ordered the house special beef. Tender beef, wonderfully flavored and just a bit sweet. This was excellent.
For something a little lighter and more health conscious, this is dried bean curd (tofu) stir-fried with pork and veggies.
To finish it all off, this is a basil and egg pancake. I love the taste of basil and this simple dish translates it without any fuss and pomp.
You can have large tables of up to 10 here, it’s not a huge place but the food is pretty authentic and the menu might scare you if your Chinese isn’t too good, it’s written entirely in Chinese in beautiful calligraphy. The House Special Beef was definitely worthy of its name. Other dishes are all pretty solid as well.
Fusion Cafe
510 E Live Oak Ave
Arcadia, CA 91006
(626) 447-6488