The Golden Temple is one of the Restaurant Quarter’s great destinations: an extravagant dining house devoted to rare ingredients, unfamiliar flavours and the idea that a meal should feel like a journey somewhere far beyond Aranthaes.

Its rooms are warm with gold light, carved screens, lacquered wood and richly patterned fabrics. Perfumed steam drifts from the kitchens, carrying scents of spice, citrus, smoke and unfamiliar herbs, while dishes arrive in carefully arranged courses designed as much to surprise as to satisfy.

The menu changes constantly according to what its buyers can obtain. Rare fruits, unusual shellfish, imported spices, mountain herbs, preserved flowers, strange mushrooms and delicacies from distant kingdoms all find their way onto the table. Some ingredients travel for weeks under magical preservation simply because the chef considers their flavour impossible to replace.

Prices reflect both the difficulty of sourcing such things and the skill required to use them. A meal at the Golden Temple is an event even for wealthy City Tier diners, usually reserved for celebrations, important guests or occasions when somebody very much wishes to impress somebody else.

Yet the restaurant’s reputation is not built on novelty alone. Beneath all the spectacle, the food is considered genuinely exceptional. Diners who arrive expecting expensive curiosities often leave talking instead about a sauce, a broth or a single impossible mouthful they cannot quite describe afterward.

For adventurous diners, visiting the Golden Temple is one of the great pleasures of being wealthy in Aranthaes: the entire world, briefly, brought to the table.

 

Drinks

Golden Temple White
A fragrant imported white with notes of citrus blossom, pear and spice, chosen to accompany the restaurant’s lighter dishes.
10 gp
Amber Rice Wine
A smooth, lightly sweet fermented wine served warm or chilled according to the dish.
12 gp
Fireflower Spirit
A clear southern spirit infused with hot peppers, citrus peel and aromatic flowers. Served in very small cups for good reason.
15 gp
Black Plum Liqueur
A deep purple digestif made from preserved plums, spice and dark honey.
14 gp
Emperor’s Reserve
A rare aged wine imported in sealed ceramic jars and opened only at the table.
35 gp
Temple Cellar Selection
A bottle chosen from the restaurant’s collection of unusual foreign wines and spirits to suit the meal.
50 gp+
Jasmine, Spice or Mountain Tea Service
Fine loose-leaf teas steeped at the table and accompanied by preserved fruits and small sweets.
3 gp

Small Plates & First Courses

Crystal Prawns
Translucent prawns served chilled with citrus, herbs and a sharp dressing of fermented fruit.
7 gp
Mooncap Dumplings
Delicate steamed dumplings filled with rare pale mushrooms, ginger and soft cheese.
8 gp
Golden Lotus Bites
Crisp parcels of spiced vegetables and nuts finished with flower honey and powdered saffron.
6 gp
Smoked River Eel
Thin slices of sweet river eel glazed with dark syrup, charred citrus and aromatic herbs.
9 gp
Cloudfruit & Soft Cheese
A rare imported fruit with fragrant flesh and almost no acidity, served with whipped soft cheese, salt and flower oil.
11 gp

Rare & Celebrated Dishes

Saffron Pearl Fish
A delicate ocean fish steamed with saffron, citrus leaf and white wine, then finished with tiny pearls of preserved lemon.
18 gp
Mountain Stag with Black Garlic
Tender venison served with fermented garlic, dark berries and a reduction of spiced wine.
22 gp
Ember Duck
Duck lacquered repeatedly with honey, spice and fruit vinegar until the skin is crisp and almost glassy.
24 gp
Sea-Dragon Lobster
An enormous deep-water lobster with unusually sweet flesh, roasted with chilli butter and aromatic herbs.
30 gp
Sunbird Breast
A rare game bird imported from southern forests, gently roasted and served with saffron rice, preserved apricot and spiced jus.
35 gp
Silverhorn Antelope
Extremely tender meat from a distant grassland species, served pink with smoked roots and a sharp pomegranate glaze.
40 gp
Phoenix Pepper Beef
Prime beef cooked over fierce charcoal and served with a sauce made from a notoriously hot red pepper cultivated only in a handful of southern valleys.
28 gp
Royal Shellfish Broth
A clear, intensely flavoured broth made from lobster, crab, sea herbs and rare shellfish, finished with saffron and citrus oil.
26 gp

Extravagances

Golden Truffle Noodles
Hand-cut noodles tossed with butter, shaved golden truffle and aged mountain cheese. The truffles appear for only a few weeks each year.
45 gp
Imperial Pearl Oysters
Six enormous deep-water oysters topped with citrus, flower oil and tiny edible pearls of seasoned roe.
38 gp
Winter Orchid Hare
Wild hare braised slowly with an extraordinarily rare mountain orchid whose petals lend the sauce a floral, almost peppery perfume.
55 gp
Cloud Serpent Egg
An enormous pale egg from a harmless highland serpent-bird, softly cooked and served with truffle, herbs and crisp pastry.
65 gp
The Traveller’s Impossible Plate
Five tiny courses built entirely around ingredients that cannot normally be found in Aranthaes, sourced according to what the Golden Temple’s buyers have managed to acquire that week.
75 gp
Temple Treasure
A single dish created around the rarest ingredient currently in the kitchen. It is never advertised in advance and may not be available at all.
100 gp+

Feasting Menus

Seven Lands Tasting
Seven courses inspired by seven different regions, moving from delicate seafood and vegetables through meat, spice and dessert.
60 gp per guest
Golden Temple Grand Tasting
Ten courses selected entirely by the kitchen, showcasing rare ingredients, unusual techniques and whatever the chef considers exceptional that evening.
95 gp per guest
Merchant Prince’s Table
A private feast created for the entire table using ingredients acquired specifically for the occasion. Requires several days’ notice and a willingness not to ask too many questions.
175 gp per guest

Desserts

Black Sesame & Honey Cream
A smooth dark sesame pudding topped with whipped island cream, flower honey and crisp sugar.
6 gp
Golden Mango Ice
Imported mango churned into a soft frozen dessert with lime, honey and a little salt.
8 gp
Roseglass Pear
A whole pear poached until translucent in rose wine, spice and sugar, served with chilled cream.
9 gp
Dragonfruit Lantern
A hollowed exotic fruit filled with chilled cream, citrus jelly and tiny sugared flowers, served glowing over a small magical light.
12 gp

 
 

Encounters

The Golden Temple draws wealthy diners, curious visitors, merchants eager to impress, and Aranthaens with a taste for rare ingredients and distant flavors. The room is warm with spice, perfume and low conversation, and most encounters here begin with fascination rather than danger. Roll d10 for possible encounters…

  1. A visiting merchant has ordered a dish so rare and expensive that half the room is pretending not to watch it arrive. Unfortunately, they hate it on first bite and are now trying to conceal their disappointment from their guests.
  2. A server carrying a tray of intricate small plates stumbles when a chair is pushed back unexpectedly. Nothing is dropped, but one dish ends up in the lap of a very important diner, and the entire room goes briefly silent.
  3. A wealthy young couple are attempting to impress one another by ordering the strangest things on the menu. Neither has any idea what they have just requested, and both are now too proud to ask.
  4. A spice trader at the next table is loudly claiming that no other establishment in Aranthaes receives better cinnamon, pepper or saffron than the Golden Temple. A rival trader nearby takes this as a personal insult.
  5. An elderly regular quietly asks the party whether they can smell smoke. In fact, one of the kitchen’s dramatic table-side dishes is simply being finished in the dining room, but for a moment several guests fear the entire place is on fire.
  6. A foreign noble is deeply suspicious of a dish containing an unfamiliar fruit and insists on seeing the original ingredient before they will eat it. The kitchen sends out the fruit, and the table’s confusion only deepens.
  7. A musician hired for the evening has begun playing softly near one of the inner alcoves. A nearby diner becomes convinced the melody is a coded message or signal intended for somebody in the room.
  8. A small argument breaks out between two tables over who was promised the last serving of a seasonal delicacy. The staff are attempting diplomacy, but the price of the dish has made everyone involved feel far more principled than they really are.
  9. A server brings out a special off-menu plate and offers it only to selected guests. Within moments, half the dining room is trying to discover what it is, who received it, and why they were not considered worthy.
  10. In one of the best private dining alcoves sits Khamsa Oudasi, part-owner of the Golden Temple, dining with his good friend Damaia Drak. Khamsa is speaking with easy warmth while ensuring every detail of the meal is perfect, while Damaia’s presence quietly changes the tone of the room around them. Staff are attentive to the point of reverence, nearby diners are trying not to stare, and anyone familiar with either name will immediately understand that this is not merely dinner.
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