Traube - Binningen

Had high expectations about this Sunday brunch but at the end was just an average experience. Lack of variety and strange tastes. Not my prefered brunch type of cuisine.

First off it is hard to find restaurants at 10pm that will feed you in Basel area usually they are closing down. We arrived at 10pm, they said, oh we were just about to close, but now you are here we will feed you. That got them lots of brownie points. We were the only guests and with the chinese lanterns glowing softly above our table it was a very romantic setting. A single other diner, family friend, Chinese, was there eating noodles while his violin case kept him company. The room is special there are oil paintings on the upper part of the walls grape harvesting scenes, that are protected and cannot be painted over. Wood panelling covers the rest of the walls, and chinese characters have been painted on these. The floor is linoleum. Its an interesting hodge podge that somehow works and feels cosy and inviting. Susie Wong (yes that is her name) has been in Switzerland for many years and running a restaurant for 17 of them. Originally from Hong Kong, she speaks Mandarin and Cantonese, and arguably knows what Chinese food should taste like, however feels that Switzerlands not ready for it yet. She started offering chinese food in Switzerland when nobody was looking for an authentic chinese food experience. Its hard to find an authentic food experience in Basel I checked all the forums and found three in Basel that were recommended, one of which was closed monday night. Nothing in Germany or France though, and one forum contributor suggested flying to London. Susies website was touching and you can park there, the menu looked ok online and we thought we'd give it a shot. Also with the watch fair on we figured the restaurants in Basel would be fulll. So the hostess was gracious and welcoming, the dumplings were good, not home made, but ok. The shrimp dumplings did actually have shrimp in them. My partners sweet and sour pork was disappointing, I've never liked it anyway but this didn't work too well. The szechuan beef although I asked whether it was spicy, had only the tiniest hint of chili, the meat was good and tender, it came with mushrooms, peppers (not cut uniformly), bamboo shoots it was tasty, nice, but nothing like any szechuan beef I have ever had before in London or Szechuan. The food was average, the way we were treated was special. So why did I give Susie a four star review? 1) Well she kept the restaurant open for us even though she was closing, 5 stars for customer focus. 2) The kitchen door was open we could see her chopping the vegetables for our meal, all ingredients were very fresh, this in itself is pretty unique 3) We were truly treated like honoured guests, not like paying guests, this made the experience unique and memorable We discussed why the szechuan beef was so mild Susie told us that the Swiss don't like spicy food so overall if you want to see an old Swiss building with oil paintings of grape harvests this is your place, if you like being taken care of you could do worse, if you are not a fan of hot hot food, and not a purist, and are happy with chinese type food adapted for swiss palates, you will like this place. If for you its all about the food, and only about the food, then keep on scrolling. There is a market for authentic regional chinese cooking in Basel, it would be great if someone moved into that space.

Wir (2 Freunde) waren an einem Freitag Abend im Garten... und von 20 - 2230 die einzigen Gäste. Essen war OK aber nicht überragend. Bedienung sehr persönlich und nett

Zugegeben, die Wirtin ist sehr freundliche und das Ambiente schon fast etwas speziell. Die Speisekarte ist aber wohl zu umfassend, so dass es einfach unmöglich ist, alles frisch zuzubereiten. Ergo werden wir wohl eher kein zweites Mal hier einkehren, asiatische Restaurants mit frisch zubereiteten Speisen gibt es bessere

Sehr gutes, authentisches chinesisches Restaurant. Nette Chefin und es wird frisch gekocht. Wir gehen wieder!