Seafood heavy week.
Belle Vie is still alive and kicking. Octopus and ?parsnip puree, warm goat cheese and mesclun salad, and salmon/spinach/beurre blanc. Steaming means no crispy skin on the salmon, but everything was still very nicely prepared. I esp liked how the spinach didn’t have the mineral-y taste or weird tooth residue that it often has. Beurre blanc was thinner and more lemon-y than I had anticipated (so maybe I’m misremembering the sauce?).
Please don’t be an idiot like me; make sure to replace the paper salmon cover w/ foil when reheating. 
(don’t judge, folks; it’s been a long year)
Some scallops and burrata from Bristol Farms.
The Providence Maine Lobster Bake has been discussed elsewhere. I’m linking to @PorkyBelly’s review and pics b/c he’s a way better photographer. 
I’m a sucker for nice packaging, so I’ll include these pics:
Yes, the lemon comes in its own bag w/ a stretch wrap. Classy.
BTW, that whipped creme fraiche goes great w/ everything (incl a random baguette I had sitting around… No, seriously).
Thanks to @hanhgry, I tried
Breakfast combo (dao bing, turnip cake, savory soy milk), fan tuan w/ purple rice. Not pictured: passionfruit tea, half sweetened half soy milk, taro milk tea.
To me, part of the enjoyment from a Taiwanese breakfast is the interplay btw sweet and salty and the mixture of texture. The quality of the ingredients is there, but the food is way, WAY undersalted, so you miss the fundamental interplay. The chili sauce (which is fantastic) and the soy sauce-garlic are mandatory to bring out the full flavors. And the turnip cakes are TINY (like half the size of what you get for dim sum?). I think I got dao bing mixed up w/ sao bing, so I’m not sure what dao bing is normally like. The dough actually reminds me of an unsweetened version of the batter my grandmother used to make chinese “pancakes” (I have no idea what they’re called in Mandarin).
Savory soy milk was a bit odd. My memory is that the you tiao should still have some integrity, even when soaked in the soy milk. In this instance, the you tiao had turned completely mushy. I’m not sure if that caused the soy milk to have this very odd, almost doughy particle texture. Flavor was very good (esp w/ the chili oil), but only AFTER I finished the dish did I notice the separate package w/ vinegar. Drat.
Is it common for fan tuan to have a tea egg inside??? The tea egg was good, but it doesn’t make any sense inside a fan tuan, IMHO, where the flavor and texture of the egg get overwhelmd by… everything else. You tiao was also lacking chewy and crispness.
Hot and sweetened soy milk was very good. I was a bit surprised that the half sweetness was as sweet as it was. Passionfruit ice tea and an additional fan tuan were complimentary b/c the order was finished late (so these folks get an A+ for customer satisfaction).
I don’t know whose idea it was to put chunks of actual taro in the tea; there’s no way to suck it up through a straw, so it ends up clogging the straw (and not adding any flavor to the tea).
The place is very promising but could use a bit of fine tuning. Will be happy to try it again.
