I don’t get to Warner Village much, but I went last night to see LOTR. The wife and I decided to grab a meal before the epic film began and we were pleasently surprised at the place we found to eat. I’m not much of a fan of food courts generally, but the one at New York, New York had a surprise.
I think the name might be Russo’s, or something like that, and they had pretensions, I believe, of being an Italian restaurant. What it turned out to be was a decent buffet meal for 450/person.
The reason we opted for this restaurant was the roast turkey sitting on the warming table next to the roast beef. Roast turkey on Christmas eve for less than NT$ 500–eat your heart out Rainbow.
Granted, the food was not up to the level of the 5-star hotel buffets, of which I have sampled many, but what do you expect for half the price? It was defnitely worth the NT$ 1,000 we paid. Part of the value was the location: 5 minutes from the theater; the atmosphere: clean, quiet; the selection of dishes: adequate, with a few surprises (roast turkey), and the clientele (few children, young couples, mid-lifers like myself trying new places to eat).
The dessert table was pretty good, even a traditional bread pudding. I saw the dessert cook (no chefs here) using a torch to caramelize the sugar on top of one of the custards.
The place is not large, maybe seating 100, but there were only half that many people there when we went. The crowd was interesting, but not pretentious. This place is not quite so fashionable as US-style theme restaurants, so it didn’t attract the hipsters looking to make a statement. It did have a fair number of youngish couples, and a few not youngish ones like ourselves, out for a nice, romantic evening without their parents’ generation looking on disapprovingly.
The wait staff were a bit overzealous, definitely better than under-zealous, about clearing away empty plates from the table. Unlike at the 5-star restaurants, none of the waiters took away a plate that I was still working on. They were wearing baseball hats, which gives the whole enterprise a fast-foody atmosphere. There is no restroom in the restaurant, you have to use the facilities shared by patrons at the McD’s next door.
They also have a bar, with wine and cocktails, making an evening spent there all the more inviting. I didn’t sample the wine, but I asked the bartender how much they wanted for a botttle. Of the three reds they had, the most expensive was NT$ 720.
Anyone else been there?