The menu of Forever Green has a photograph that would make most diners forever ill. It shows a salmon head staring balefully at the camera from a tureen of broth. Outside of that everlasting image and the listing of a few dishes I personally find opprobrious (mainly in the porcine offal category), Forever Green can be a delicious experience. On the good side, both floors of this eight-year-old restaurant are unpretentiously those of a Chinese inn. Bamboo furnishings, wooden rafters, old jars and pottery, and delicate latticework all make for a most comfortable venue. So comfortable, in fact, that even on a blustery Tuesday evening, lines and lines were forming to get in at 8pm - presumably lining up until the 5am closing. But they come for the food, not the decor, and the menu is a fearfully long one, with more than 100 dishes graphically spread out. Fortunately, only the most diehard glutton would choose half of them (the sliced pig heart, salmon-head soup, etc), while the long menu of sashimi dishes is probably just as good in a Japanese restaurant. But look carefully and you can find plates that are neither exotic (to non-Taiwanese) nor distasteful. In fact, two of us wasted 20 minutes trying to maximise the experience. My guest, a Cantonese who had eaten in another Taiwanese restaurant, was impressed by the very lack of Cantonese flavours. For, besides the use of every part of the animal, the Taiwanese enjoy their very sweet sauces, their chilli sauces, porridges and endless soups. The supervisor, Stephen Leung, speaks excellent English and guided us to 'really traditional' dishes. The tastes were indeed unusual. We both agreed that a simple plate of Taiwan-style beancurd was better than anything made by the Cantonese. The beancurd was lightly fried, but very soft on the inside thanks to the addition of egg. The smoothness, along with a faintly sweet Taiwanese bottled sauce, made us realise how good this usually bland dish can be. What was the sauce? They would not tell us, but I remember having a similar Fukien sauce and was told it was made with wine sediment and fermented rice. The most disappointing dish had been pointed out as authentic Taiwanese. Called 'Choi A', it was much like your typical sang choi (Chinese lettuce) quick-fried with crunchy bits of garlic to give extra punch. Taiwan oyster dishes are always a delight, and there was a choice of oyster rolls, grilled oysters or deep-fried oysters. We picked oysters fried with soya beans, and it was the right one. These are tiny oysters quickly fried with green onions, soya beans, and a taste of coriander. But the individual ingredients cannot give an idea of the absolute juiciness of the dish together. The oysters and beans somehow harmonised to the most 'comfortable' tastes. The most appealing picture in the menu is of handmade Taiwanese noodles. These were thick noodles that I would guess were made of buckwheat, although they insisted these were rice noodles. In the middle of the soup plate was minced pork with chillis on top. Mixed together, the texture was rough-and-ready, the pork and chillis adding the pungency. I had been recommended the 'three cups chicken', and would firmly recommend it with one caveat. Those who don't enjoy tiny Cantonese bite-size chicken nuggets (the kind you bite off the chopstick, spitting the bone in the saucer) may find the effort boring. Nonetheless, the harmony of 'three cups' was interesting: one was Chinese wine, one was chicken broth, and one was 'Taiwan sauce', probably the faintly sweet ng may sauce in so many dishes. Together, they coated the large plate of chicken, along with fried onions and garlic chunks. It was delicious, but the effort in peeling even the most tender pieces from the bone was arduous. The problem was probably that only two of us were eating: so many other dishes looked interesting that we wanted to make another trip. We saw clams frying on a brazier, relished juicy junks of grilled eel, even saw that dish the British consider their own: whitebait. The Taiwanese put whitebait into a broth, which is typical. Truth to tell, there is a reason why Taiwan (and Fukien) dishes are not terribly popular abroad. But Forever Green has so many choices - and the price of $339 for five hearty dishes is hardly expensive - it is worthwhile for more than curiosity. FOREVER GREEN TAIWANESE RESTAURANT 93-95A Leighton Road, Causeway Bay. Tel: 2890-3448. Hours: noon-3pm, 6pm-5am. Overall: ***. Value for money: ****
