Quite a few of us still remember the good days when we could walk to ORIGINES and enjoy genuine Parisian bistro cuisine. I’m afraid Cyril was just a bit ahead of time for such offerings. Now such eateries seem to be springing up everywhere in Taipei, many of them private kitchens. Ah well. Cyril is incubating outside of Linko, but once in awhile he emerges, and I couldn’t pass it up, though I was walking wounded with jet lag. It was great to hang out with Yohan and Zoe at Le Comptoir, Killian amusing himself on the stoop. This scene is as close as I get to a home hearth in Taipei. And the food was just as I expected, loaded with nostalgia. My favorite, as ever, was Cyril’s beef tartar he prepares tableside from fine-quality, hand-ground Australian rib-eye and all the carefully selected additives you’d expect. As self-effacing as he is, Cyril always seems surrounded by beautiful women, and so it was, even at this lightly attended first lunch, that a table/full of belles completed the ambience started with POMMERY Champagne and other wine-treats from the cellars of Le Comptoire. I’m sure there were wilder renditions of the event that night and the next day, but Saturday lunch was perfect for all of us there, and I’ll be watching for Volume 5. May it be soon.