Showing posts with label drinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drinking. Show all posts

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Three Good Restaurants in Southern Taipei


Little Thailand Restaurant - 泰國小館
台北市汀州路糝段號
#219 Dingzhou Street Sec 3, Taipei
(02)2367-0739

This has to be the best Thai restaurant in Gongguan, right up there with Yangon Burmese restaurant (which is basically Thai, but "technically" Burmese). It looks like a small Southeast Asian supermarket on the outside, chock full of snacks for sale, but once you go in it's clearly a restaurant that happens to also sell packaged snacks and other items from SE Asia.

The food is really quite good - very much the same in flavor as I enjoyed during my brief excursion to Thailand years ago (I keep telling myself I'll go back, but there are so many other places to see, too!) - and they don't pull punches on the spice! The pork with green beans and papaya salad were fiery, and the other dishes were at a respectable spice level. They have the usual selection of beer, are always bustling, the walls are covered with pictures and textiles from Thailand, and I love the cheap day-market plastic clock with the picture of the King of Thailand and his many dogs ("he loves dogs and raises rescued strays," the owner told us. "Our King is so good") on the clock face.

We didn't get dessert, but they seemed to have a wider selection than is usually available.

Oh, and do get the shrimp pancake (月亮蝦餅) - it's the best I've had outside of SE Asia.


Weitzuman
台北市文山區景興路118號
#118 Jingxing Road, Wenshan, Taipei City (MRT Jingmei)

Taipei Times reviewed it before I had a chance to - although I may have mentioned it before - but we live very close to this place - maybe a ten minute walk, if that - and I have long been a devotee. It's a dirty-walled, Taiwanese-talkin', good-sake-servin' izakaya in a decidedly unpretentious neighborhood (ie, our neighborhood) with some really spectacular Japanese food and Japanese-style sunken tables.  I still have dreams about the yakitori (although the ones from Dako, above, provide good competition) and I love that this place just plain does good food, it doesn't try to be all hip, and for Japanese food it's quite affordable.

The Taipei Times said it better than I could, so I'll leave it there, but this place gets my stamp of approval!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Cafe La Boheme and Coffee, Tea or Me

On Wenzhou Street just south of Xinhai there are two cafes that we've been going to a lot lately, so I thought a review was in order - especially as they both have cats. One has cheap but strong, well-made cocktails and the other has the best hot chocolate in the entire independent country of Taiwan and I am not even joking, so all the better!

If you enter Wenzhou Street from Xinhai (or walk north), just south of a small shop decorated with hanging CDs you'll find Cafe La Boheme on one side, and Coffee, Tea or Me on the other. The placement somewhat mimics the placement of Cafe Bastille and Shake House down the road (running along Lane 86, catty-corner to the Lutheran church where you often see a guy who walks his Persian cat on a leash). Those cafes are both great - Shake House is better - and so are these two.

Shake House is one of my all-time favorites, with friendly staff, an artfully shabby space, usually decent music, great beer and, for a student beer cafe, pretty good coffee and food. Bastille has a snotty staff and horrid food - though the focaccia sandwich is OK - but good beer, plugs and Wifi. You can use Bastille wifi from Shake House, but there are no plugs.

Anyway, back to the two cafes at hand.

La Boheme, on the west side, has a velvet-furred declawed tabby named Luna, a selection of books in English and Chinese, generally good but more popular-music oriented music, beer (Belgian) and excellent food. I mean truly good: their burgers are stupendous, generous and well-made. The burger choices are unexpected: I recommend the burger topped with apples and white wine sauce.

Their fries are just as fries should be - not too salty, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. I've also had their herbed lemon chicken, which was quite good. Their hot chocolate is absolutely excellent - dark and chocolatey, you can smell it before it reaches your table. It's rich and tasty, nothing like the wimpy brews of the various "chocolate" cafes found in Taipei. If you love a good hot chocolate, go here and nowhere else. It's more like drinking chocolate than "hot chocolate" (which in my mind conjures up Swiss Miss).

It has its own wireless network and plugs, and is very "local" (foreigners do come, but they're not the norm). With green and yellow walls and a wood-floored raised area, this place is more brightly lit and comfortable like an old chair.

With its decidedly less healthy (but no less tasty) fare, it's Gongguan's answer to Zabu, whose tasty Japanese food feels downright good for you, despite the many fried menu items. That's Japanese food for ya.

It's rare to find cafes in Taipei that have a good atmosphere and good food, let alone genuinely good hamburgers, so this is something to take notice of.

Coffee, Tea or Me (also called "Cafe, Tea or Me") has two, possibly three cats. It's hard to say and only the orange cat is friendly. You have to steal La Boheme's wireless, but they have their own plugs and truly excellent coffee. La Boheme's coffee isn't bad either. They have more space, very odd books and other decorative bits and bobs, more chairs but a limited selection. You can get drinks of all sorts, from good coffee to a very limited beer selection - really just Erdinger, a few boring choices like Heineken and a vanilla-y French beer in a blue bottle. They also do cocktails, and have an impressive bar for what is basically a coffeeshop. They made me a drink at their suggestion: Jameson, some sort of bourbon and Grand Marnier with ice and I assume something that was not alcohol (or maybe not - coulda been pure alcohol). The serving was generous and it cost NT$140. WAY TO GO.

Coffee, Tea or Me's space is more artfully distressed, with dingier walls, a menu board that's impossible to read, hodgepodge chairs and tables - including one low set of chairs in blue faux velvet and another pair of antique-looking Chinese style bamboo wicker chairs. It has a great atmosphere but is not the place to go if you think you'll get hungry.

I strongly recommend both, but for entirely different reasons!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Pasta'ai 2010

Yesterday we went up to our 2nd Pasta'ai - a festival held by the Saisiyat tribe of Taiwanese aborigines. The festival is held in two locations: "North Side" in Da'ai Village, Wufeng Township, Xinzhu County, and the other in Nanzhuang, Miaoli County.

While the event in Nanzhuang is more accessible for those without private transportation, we always make the effort to go to Wufeng as, being harder to get to and less well-known (most people assume we're going to Nanzhuang until we tell them otherwise), it's almost certainly less touristy.

My first post incorrectly stated that it was held in the "Jhu Family Village" - it's near that village, but actually in Da'ai village (大隘), about an hour or less from Zhudong, and maybe an hour and a half from HSR Xinzhu Station.

Last year, we met the owner of our homestay, Ah-Q Mama, in Zhudong and drove up with her. Her husband does all the driving. This year, her husband was laid up with recovery from surgery and they were unable to help us get to Wufeng. As we've been doing recently whenever we want to go somewhere, we've been lucky enough to have friends with Taiwanese or international licenses who are also eager to go (not that we invite them because they have licenses - we've been fortunate that they've been happy to drive). So this time, we took the wonderful HSR down and rented a car at CarPlus.

Before leaving we got directions from the tourist info desk at Taipei Main Station, and I printed out a series of maps from Google between the HSR and the site, as well as the site and the homestay.

We got a little lost in Zhudong, but not anything too serious. The drive up was pleasant, as Eduardo, our friend behind the wheel, is a conscientious driver who, being Venezuelan, is used to crazy traffic. His skills are equal to that of our friends Emily and Drew, though he's less aggressive on the road and isn't one for high speeds. The road up from Zhudong is narrow and windy, but not very high up.

There seemed to be more attempts at tourism to Wufeng this time - fabric flags lined the road up from Zhudong with "PaSta'ay" written in Papyrus font.

We arrived just after dark and parked next to a "house" that people apparently lived in, despite it not having a roof. Oookaaay...all in all parking seemed to be much more difficult to come by this year, and we had to drive quite a ways from the site before we found a suitable spot. Maybe it was just as bad two years ago, but we weren't driving ourselves so we didn't notice.

Before we could even get into the building where spirit-protecting grass is tied around your head or arm as well as all cameras, a group of dancers and torch-bearers came out of the main site, singing a chant-like melody.

First the torch-bearers came through..

Then a line of dancers, some with back accoutrements with beads and metal chimes, came out, moving and chanting in unison.

I covered the origins of this festival in my post two years ago by linking to an online site on the Pasta'ai - you can read it here if you are interested. Basically, a long time ago there was (or may have been) a tribe of dark-skinned pygmies called the Ta'ai living near the Saisiyat. The two groups were intially friendly, but after some time, the pygmies began taking the Saisiyat women for reasons you can guess at, as well as stealing food. The Saisiyat attacked and killed the Ta'ai...but it turns out the Ta'ai knew sorcery and cursed the Saisiyat, who now have to hold the Pasta'ai as an offering at the end of the harvest season to atone for the massacre.

Anthropologists agree that the Ta'ai may well have been a real tribe in ancient Taiwan, and that the Saisiyat may well have killed them. Clearly they were not magical beings as the Saisiyat legend claims, but there is quite likely a historical basis for the story.


I asked a local if the designs had any special meaning: she said they did not, just anything the owners found aesthetically pleasing. Buddhist swastikas (a Buddhist symbol before it was a Nazi one), curved mirrors and embroideries of surnames are common design elements.

Making the chimes tingle in unison looks very painful for one's backside. Tired dancers with chime plates could often be found sitting gingerly with the audience while on break.

Then we entered the sacred grass-tying area.

...and waited in line with tourists and Saisiyat people alike. This year we saw more children than last time in traditional costume and encouraged to participate in their tribe's customs. We also saw more foreigners than two years ago - apparently a foreigner who married into the tribe sent out a large Facebook invitation and many people did end up coming. How they get to Wufeng, I have no idea.

Then we all got our sacred grass...



...and watched the festival from above the main area for awhile. As you can see, the dancers go in an arc or circle, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. When they go quickly, they often rush to the middle and chant excitedly before fanning out again. The dancers themselves don't seem to know what they're doing - I learned from one participant that any Saisiyat in traditional clothing can join, not just experienced or trained dancers (the chanters and people with chimes on their back plates clearly know what they are doing however - and the chime beaters dance separately from the main group).

The facilitators in yellow vests clearly knew how it was all supposed to work and were guiding the dancers, many more of whom were young Saisiyat children this year.

Before heading to the main area, we went to the row of food stalls nearby to get dinner. We started with a traditional Saisiyat dish...

Ah, nothing like old fashioned aboriginal food!



...of grilled muaji (rice gluten) covered in chocolate and rainbow sprinkles. (I was being sarcastic about the "traditional" bit).

Then we got our main dinner of mountain pig, cabbage and "rice wine chicken soup", which was so potent with rice wine that I'm pretty sure it had more alcohol in it than broth. As Joseph said, "it's like eating a bottle of vodka". I liked it, but none of us could finish it.

This year the rules about taking photos of the front of the dancers (thereby standing in front of them in what I had thought was a "sacred area") were relaxed.

I also noticed an investment in Christmas lights to decorate around the area (look above the heads of the dancers).

The dancing and chanting is to call forth the spirits of the Ta'ai, and appease them. The big tinsel and light-up things are made by different families - each family makes one. One woman told me that usually, the children will help decorate it, so as to teach them about their culture and heritage. I couldn't determine any pattern for the holders of these giant talismans, though they did dance and did seem to somewhat follow the arc of dancers. When the dancers would rush to the middle and excitedly chant, these were always in the very middle.

I was told that the semi-conical shape was...well, I couldn't really understand the woman clearly but either to bring the Ta'ai spirits down like water through a funnel, or to broadcast the families' participation to the Ta'ai, like a reverse satellite dish or suntanning mirror. It had something to do with calling souls. Note the sacred grass affixed to the top of each.

This was the friendly woman who answered my various questions about the event details to the best of her ability and to the best of my limited understanding.

Another view of the conical things.

By about 9pm, people were starting to get seriously wasted on traditional millet wine. As it was with the last Pasta'ai, you don't just buy and drink your own millet brew. You buy some, share it with others, and get glasses of others in return. We tried to minimize this, or at least sniff what we were about to drink this year, but it can't be helped to some extent. The two non-drinkers among us managed to actually not drink, though - which surprised me. It was impossible to avoid two years ago by the time 10pm rolled around. Forget teetotalling. By 9:30 we had plenty of new 酒肉朋友 (drinking buddies).

Who's this guy? No idea. He invited us to cone stay with him in Zhudong, though, and treated us to much of his millet wine - which had an aftertaste redolent of gasoline.


Some random people dressed up Brendan and Eduardo in traditional clothing - I had a touch of grease from *something* on my lens but still wanted to post these.

This year, the participation rules were also relaxed, probably in another attempt to promote tourism. Last year you could not participate until midnight. This year, you could join the dancers at 10pm.

With an election looming, even though Xinzhu isn't an election hotspot this time around, we expected a bigger showing of politicians. A few members of the DPP showed up, looking...well, like quintessential members of the DPP.

As usual, there was a not-too-quiet place for exhausted dancers to rest.


This guy'd been drinking for awhile.


Loving the Christmas lights.


Plenty of traditional aboriginal food was on offer - including these roasted birds (tiny quail? Pigeons? We had pigeon in Egypt and this tasted different.) They cut it up for you so it's easy to eat, but I'd forgotten that they give you the head with everything else. Before I knew what it was, I'd bitten into the brain. EWWWWW. I am pretty openminded about food, but I do not do innards or brain. I chucked it at a pile of accumulating garbage, missed and hit some poor woman's coat.

Oops.

What happens at Pasta'ai stays at Pasta'ai is all I can say.

We also got some amazing sweet potato fries and one drunk guy gave us stinky tofu (YUM!) and onion pancakes.


More dancing above, and a detail shot of the conical family talisman things below. The carrier had been hitting the betel nut pretty hard. Along with millet wine, buckets of energy drink in brown bottles and betel nuts were for sale everywhere.


So, at 10pm we all started dancing - not that we knew how. Last time, women would come around with wooden buckets of millet wine and ladle it into your mouth as you danced. This year that was not so common, and they had plastic pitchers of wine with shot glasses for dancers - but there was less going around. Boo.



On the upside, I didn't get heinously drunk this year (yes, I know my family reads this thing, but I gotta be honest. I got really drunk last year. It's an aboriginal festival - you can't not get drunk the first time or, for that matter, any time). Fortunately the homestay owners were not drinking and could make sure we all got back safely. It was the worst hangover I've ever had - you don't want to know the full story about the next morning. Let's just say that when the worst of it hit, only my sister was awake to hear it, and she'll never think of me the same way again.

But that was last year - when I would drink whatever was offered without making sure it wasn't, you know, grain alcohol, paint thinner, energy drink and Coca-cola mixed together...or maybe not that but not tasting much different from what I imagine that would taste like.

This year I kept my head on a little better - partly because I didn't want to feel half-dead today (I'm writing this the next day even!) and partly because we didn't have Ah-Q Mama to get us home safely. I had to help Eduardo navigate, though Mark (another friend who came with us) had biked the route and took over for me.

At one point while I was dancing, though, someone gave millet wine to Mark, Joseph and Brendan, who all surreptitiously threw most of it out as it was "not fit for human consumption" according to Brendan.

I felt bad for the woman walking around selling it from a basket on her back. She was selling it for cheaper than the stands, and clearly making money for her family, but we had some from another spectator who bought it, and it really did have a gasoline-y aftertaste. Ew.

Anyway.




We stayed and danced until about 3am before walking back to the car, after which time the eminently sober Eduardo drove us to Ah-Q Mama's with Mark's help (as Mark had biked there earlier and knew the way).

I recommend Ah-Q's homestay, "A-mue", as highly as I did last year. With a delicious homemade breakfast, great view, friendly owners, warm blankets, adorable pets and rustic setting not far from Guanwu (entrance to a national park), the residence of Zhang Xueliang, Dabajianshan and the Pasta'ai, it's a great spot for a rest if you have your own transport.

We got there at 4am - they'd left the rooms open for us - and collapsed into bed.

I awoke at 7am with a headache, took some Panadol and slept again until about 10 or 11. The coterie of dogs from two years ago was nowhere to be seen, but in their place, they had a pile of kittens.

O.M.G. 好可愛喔!! How cute is this pile of adorableness?

Pretty darned cute.


They pretended to like Brendan because they were hoping he'd open the door to the kitchen area for them. We visited for a bit, drank tea, ate breakfast, enjoyed the view, played with the kittens and puppy, and they reminded me of how ridiculously hungover I had been last time. (Also, apparently they understand my Chinese now.)

The view from Ah-Q Mama's.

Because we don't know if or when we'll be back in that area or when we'll have our own transportation, we had a look a few kilometers down the road to the former residence of Zhang Xueliang who you can read about on Wikipedia. Pretty nice place to live out your days under house arrest...

...and anyone who managed to kidnap Chiang Kai-shek is someone I can't dislike too much, even if the Mainlanders think he's a hero.

The entire experience left me with four lasting thoughts:

1.) That picture of the nice older lady I posted above? She speaks fluent Saisiyat and Chinese, but surrounding her were her children and grandchildren (of which she had many). Not one of her grandchildren could speak the Saisiyat language, despite being in touch with their culture enough to participate in the Pasta'ai. The Saisiyat are not even the tiniest or most assimilated of the aboriginal tribes - if their own language is dying out to the extent that grandchildren cannot speak their grandparents' mother tongues, then this does not bode well for the future of aboriginal languages in general (which are commonly recognized to be dying out at an alarming rate).

On the other hand, it's fascinating to head up through these villages and realize that you aren't hearing even one word of Chinese or a Chinese-related language spoken. There are still more native speakers of Atayal, Saisiyat etc. who use it on a daily basis than one would expect.

2.) Every once in awhile I get a thought in my head that goes something like this: "What are you doing spending so much time and money traveling instead of saving, buying a home and working on a career? Haven't you noticed that people are people no matter where you go, that travel is a luxury that, when you're done with it, leaves you with no material gain? Anyway, haven't you traveled enough?" Experiences like the Pasta'ai remind me that no, people are not the same everywhere you go, and that while there may be no material gain to travel, there's a lot of gain in terms of cultural exposure, wisdom and knowledge of the world. I'm not one of those people who travels without trying to learn (and retain) something about the history, politics, economy, language and culture of a place or event - so I inevitably come away with new pieces of firsthand knowledge.

Sure, I could read about Taiwan in a book - it's pretty clear that many policymakers in the US State Department do just that. (Officers travel abroad, learn languages and have a wide scope of global knowledge, but I've noticed that actual policymakers and those who influence decision-making...well...don't - even representatives posted to the countries they're dealing with). If I had "stayed home", built a career and had a more settled life in the country of my birth, sure, I could read, watch TV shows, see movies and learn online about different people in different parts of the world, but I wouldn't really know anything tangible about them, and I would completely miss out on things like Pasta'ai. How many newspaper articles, websites, TV shows and school textbooks on Taiwan mention aborigines, let alone the Saisiyat, not to mention their festivals or really any pertinent information about them? Most people don't even know that Taiwan has aborigines to begin with.

And that right there is valuable, and it's one of the main reasons, if not the #1 reason, why I continue to travel even as pressure increases to settle down.

3.) Ten minutes at a festival like this will show any nay-sayers, fence-sitters and ignoramuses who get their opinions from scant news articles rather than real world experience to what very great extent Taiwan is not a part of China. How could anyone claim that a country with a rich mixture of heritages, which includes but is not summed up by Chinese culture? This is not only not Chinese, this is something you will never see in China, something that has never had anything to do with China. Something created and continued by people who are not ethnically Chinese and hail from an entirely different cultural tradition than anything East Asia could offer, let alone China. It's unique to Taiwan, and showcases how Taiwan is unique. And, if you'll allow me to expand on that, showcases how much a unique place like Taiwan deserves to be recognized as the self-governing nation and cultural unit that it is.

Though I would not judge anyone who says that Taiwanese culture is strongly influenced by Chinese culture, and much of it originated there, I stop short at accepting that the entirety of Taiwanese culture was imported from China. As you can clearly see here, it was not - at least not entirely. This goes beyond the case for the divergent cultural evolutions (and Revolutions, har har har) of China and Taiwan - this is at the core of things, a fundamentally Taiwanese cultural facet that evolved long before there even was a "Taiwan" and a "China".

4.) There is really something to be said for having your own vehicle and the skills to drive it. I wish I had those skills (or rather, I have them but I wish I had the experience and confidence to use them in Taiwan). The freedom of being able to visit these places and participate in these festivals - and one thing that sets Pasta'ai apart from the Taiwanese temple fairs is that the audience can participate - with your own transportation is a great feeling, and I wish we had more access to it. Which means more practice for me.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Drinky Drinky

...or: Jenna's Guide To Drinking (Not Partying) in Taipei

aka "Drinking in Taipei for the Older, Quieter, More Bohemian Set"

I've been asked more than once to provide a complementary post to my previously well-received post on where to eat in Taipei, focusing on where to drink in Taipei. After all, what goes better with gorgeous food than good company and good drinks?

I will begin my review with a caveat that this is not a nightlife post - I am by no means telling you where to go out to have fun if you find yourself at loose ends, find a hopping bar scene or dance the night away to a thumping beat.

Quite the opposite, for three reasons:

1.) I'm a bit of a dork, really. I don't like loud, crowded bars. I was young once too (rather than my current ripe old age of 30 - practically a lao tai tai!) and I tried that scene and it didn't work for me. I like making friends in less frazzled settings, and then going out with them to places where we can actually hear each other talk and hear ourselves think over the music. I have a bias towards the comfy student cafes of Gongguan and Shida - while not actively a student now (I will never return to Shida - they can take their ultra-formal newscaster Chinese with "兒兒兒" that nobody in Taiwan actually speaks, pro-KMT propaganda, antiquated teaching methods and Mainland bias and shove it up their...ahem) I have a studenty mentality and thus feel most at home in these places.

2.) Hopping bars have horrible drinks. It's true: can you say that you had the best mojito of your life at Carnegie's, or that Roxy 99 has an amazing beer selection or crafts a fine kamikaze? You cannot. Maybe you think you can, but acknowledging that this may kill me in the comments, I'll come right out and tell you that you're wrong.

3.) The whole point is where to get good drinks, in a setting where you can really socialize - grinding through a meat market is not socializing, at least not for me. Unless it's a real meat market and I just got some great pork cuts and half a chicken from that betel-juice-stained dude with three teeth from Pingdong and then we had a chat in Chaiwanese (Chinese+Taiwanese) about meat.

These are places that contribute to gastronomic pleasure rather than ignore it, and you can actually talk to the person across the table at all of them. If I had to choose between good alcohol and a good place to talk with friends, I chose talking with friends, because hey, I hafta love on Taiwan Beer.

And with that - enjoy!

I categorized my listing by what's offered, with a list of pros and cons of each. You can assume that the prices are all roughly the same (inexpensive if you are OK with Taiwan Beer, about $160-$200 NT per bottle if you're after premium imported beers). I gave links where I could find them.


I want good beer!

Then go to...

Red House (Shida)

About a block closer to Heping Road than Roxy Junior, same side of Shida Road, this little bar is easy to miss. It's in a narrow old house with some outdoor seats (though it's so narrow that the entire place feels "outdoor", honestly) and is on the edge of the famous Foreign Food Street that boasts two Indian restaurants (neither of them spectacular), a lackluster Tibetan place, a good Korean place that's not really Korean but is still tasty, and...more.

Pros: Good Belgian beer selection, funky atmosphere, very intimate, they never play music so loud that you can't talk, and on a night with good weather the balcony seats are fantastic. It looks out over Shida Park where the people who had the pet goose used to hang out, and you see all manner of interesting things going on. Selections include Leffe, the Floris beers, Duchesse de Bourgogne, Malheur, Delerium, various German beers, Barbar, Kwak

Cons: They don't always stock their entire selection of beer (they ran out of Malheur 12 recently which made me very sad), the music isn't always "right" - on the day Obama won the election we went to celebrate and they were playing sad heartbreak music - and the food has gone downhill. We used to like the Thai chicken rolls and the "sha de meat stick" but now, there's really no food worth ordering.

Shake House (Gongguan)

Just down the road from Cafe Odeon, across Wenzhou St. from Cafe Bastille, Shake House has no sign to announce its name. It's very studenty and funky, with a jazz-heavy music selection that sometimes surprises you. The owners clearly love what they do, and the beer selection is pretty good. It's also one of the few places out where the food is (mostly) kind of good. Try the limoncello cake.

Pros: You always know exactly what beer they have because you get it yourself from a fridge, the sandwiches are pretty good if you are down with fried meat, and their french fries, popcorn and spicy tofu are all good deals food-wise. Also, I can't recommend the limoncello cake enough. It is really just great. Easy to talk to friends, wireless stolen from Bastille, and they have an upstairs area that they can open when too full. If you come often you get old-customer service. Decorations are brown, faded, with vintage chairs and terracotta pot light covers. Excellent coffee, which you can get with Bailey's, and other non-alcoholic options. Beers include Tripel Karmeliet, Chimay Blue, Maredsous, Corsendonk, Duvel, Gulden Draak and more.

Cons: Since wifi is Bastille-stolen, it's fine on laptops but not as good on iPod Touch or mobile wifi devices. No plugs so you need a good battery. Sometimes they play horrible music (the day we came in and they were playing liturgical chants was offputting) but when it's good, it's very good and if you get lucky they'll have the vinyl going (more often they use an iPod). Very Coltrane/Miles Davis-style music usually.

Cafe Odeon (Gongguan)

(Linked below)

Excellent beer selection - the best in Taipei, really. They have everything from Delerium Christmas to Satan Gold to a few boutique American beers. The food is lackluster, though the croque madame/monsieur sandwiches are not bad for the money. Seats are comfy (almost too comfy) and plentiful.

Pros: Plentiful, comfy seats - you can always seat everyone. Excellent beer selection. Friendly staff. Can get really hopping after 9pm on some weekend nights. If you have more than 6 people, have already eaten and want to hang out and drink interesting beer then this is the place for you. I can't even list a sample of their extensive beer selection. It's just huge.

Cons: No wifi - you can steal it with middling luck from Belly Wash next door, food is small in portion and, while not bad, also not great for the money (with the exception of the sandwiches).

Cafe Bastille (with a big "con") - Shida, Gongguan and Xinsheng Road

Snooty as hell and forever earning my ire, I still have to admit that Bastille has a really good beer selection, including some complex brews that are to be analyzed more than enjoyed. The food is atrocious.

Pros: A sleek-yet-funky European cafe feel would make even your visiting mother feel at home, and the beer selection really is good. You can choose from the fridge or pick a bottle off the wall and ask if they have it. Great wifi and usually enough plugs. Seats are comfy.

Cons: SNOTTY! Once I went into the Gongguan branch and there were no seats...OK, fair enough. The girl at the bar gave me the stinkeye ("You're not hip enough to hang out here" is what she thought but did not say) and said "Heh. No seats" and turned away. Um...how about a "sorry"? Or an estimate of how long I might need to wait? Blessing in disguise, I went to the cafe behind me and discovered the terminally awesome Shake House.

Oh, and the food is dire. Just don't eat there.

Jolly (Zhongshan, MRT Nanjing E Road)

I love Jolly. Just read my review above. Yay Jolly!

Pros: Excellent, and I do mean excellent, on-site brewed beer. It's really good. All of it. YUM. Food is also amazing, especially the Massaman Curry. They do Thai-style small plates and all of it is excellent, spicy and just...good. Also very easy to get to from Nanjing E. Road MRT. Excellent place to take visiting parents, colleagues, clients etc.. Hopping atmosphere, for good reason. Microbrewed beers include a really excellent stout.

Cons: It's so popular that it's always packed, so on going-out nights you'll want a reservation. A bit expensive, and no (I mean *no*) vegetarian options.

Zabu, Salty Nuts and Rue 216 also have good offerings - will cover them later



I want a great atmosphere with lots of lively talk going on!

Then go to...

Pavilion behind Red House (Ximen, linked below)

Gay bar central, this place has campily named bars like "G-2 Paradise", "Bear Bar" and the now closed "Manu Manu" (now it's "Mudan", with pink molded chairs). On a pleasant weekend night it's lively and fun and the view of Red House can't be beat. On weekends, stop at the artist's market on the other side of the theater. The bars always have great offers going - usually "buy 3 get one free" of whatever beer they've chosen - and there are always seats.

Pros: OUTSIDE! It is so hard to find an outdoor place to drink in Taipei, especially one that's not on a congested road with scooters spewing exhaust driving right by. Special offers are good and the location couldn't be better.

Cons: The beer, especially the special offer stuff, is usually crap (Blue Girl etc.).


Roxy Junior Cafe

You've all heard of it so I'll spare the personal review.

Pros: Despite not having tons of seating, there's always a place to sit, including some outside options. Good deals on Taiwan Beer. Pool available.

Cons: Kind of "meh", a bit cliched, the food is awful (it used to be kind of OK - what gives?) and the beer isn't good. It's just a good choice if you want a place to hang out with friends. Easier to hear others talking when outside.



Though the food is expensive and the beer selection is lackluster, we frequently have larger get-togethers at Saints and Sinners because it's lively but not too loud and you can usually get a table because there is plenty of space. Good deals on bad beer.

Pros: In a group you can do pretty well if you all order the beer on special (too bad the beer on special is never good beer), the food is pretty good, the mixed drinks are pretty good if a bit girly, pool is available, and they have something called Texas Iced Tea that's 12 kinds of alcohol served in a glass cowboy boot that they set on fire. That's fun. We always make people drink it on their birthdays. Staff is nice and if you end up drinking too much and having "the boot" on your birthday and puking into a towel dispenser (you know who you are), the staff will bring you water and a chair in the bathroom. Location can't be beat. Music is loud but not so loud that you can't talk.

Ever since The Bed 2 closed, taking its funky velvet couches and hookahs with it, this is the best larger-group option on Anhe Road if you want to avoid the usual meat markets.

Cons: They say that there's no free water after 9pm but that's not true, they'll give you free water if you are drinking (ie, spending money). Sports matches on TV can get loud, and it is a bit "typical" (ie not funky). Music is not interesting - the usual pop stuff.

Alley Cat Huashan (with a big "con" - read on) - Guanghua Market / Zhongxiao Xinsheng - with other branches

Set in the canteen of the old factory at Huashan, the brick building this place is in can't be beat. The beer and drinks are good and of course the pizza and food is all excellent (except for the Japanese green tea pizza dessert, which is meh. Get the tiramisu instead). The bar is spacious so you'll get a seat. Also has a good outside area.

Pros: Finally, a place to get a drink near Guanghua Electronics Mart! Computer nerds (not that I am one of them) unite! The old factory setting is lovely, crumbling and vintage with interesting stuff going on, and all the other good stuff above. Pizza is excellent. Good Erdinger and other German beer options, good tiramisu, you can talk over the music and on a warm night you can sit on the patio. The front is a real restaurant, the back is more like a bar.

Cons: I've been once and friends have been more than once, and every time they overcharge us on the bill and we have to fix it. This is a huge problem which should never happen more than once. If you go, check your bill carefully.

Or just go and drink at Alley Cat at MRT Zhishan or Alley Cat on Songren Road.

Brown Sugar (Xinyi)

Famous place, I don't need to say much about it.

Pros: Good seating, good music, good alcohol, the food we ordered was great, good location in Xinyi where other bars are just too...trendy or loud to bother. Great place to bring parents or clients.

Cons: because it is live music, you can't always talk over it (nor should you - it's good). Kind of expensive.


Cafe Odeon and Jolly are also good options.



I want enough space to seat all my friends!

Then see above: the ones with the best atmosphere tend to also be the ones with enough space for everyone.


I want someplace tiny and intimate, really funky and "too cool for school"!

Then go to...

Zabu (Shida, linked above)

I can't recommend Zabu enough. The beer selection is small but they also have cider, sake and mixed drinks as well as an extensive tea, coffee, smoothie and juice selection. Their food is excellent (the small eats more than the set meals) and Japanese-influenced. I love the baked rice...things - especially the salmon with citrus flavor and green curry cheese. I also love the ochutsuke - rice with stuff (I got salmon) and green tea poured in like a warm, comforting soup. The desserts are small but high quality. They play super cool music, ranging from acoustic to Pink Floyd to electronica (Skinny Puppy, Leftfield, Komytea) to jazz. Wifi and plugs are abundant, service is friendly and you feel like the trendiness is rubbing off on you just by being there, but not in a pretentious way. It's more like a little Japanese bistro - the kind you'd brag about being a regular at to your friends.

Oh, and they have two friendly cats. Yay! Win!

Pros: Everything. Great place to impress a date with funky, boho or razor's-edge-trendy tastes.

Cons: Seats are small and often uncomfortable, closes earlier than I'd like.



China White is just across from The Diner on a lane off of Anhe Road and is another good option in that area. Sleek and white and antiseptically clean, you'll feel like you're in a postmodernist minimalist high end New York cafe. Seats are small but service is friendly, and they have the best mojitos I've had in Taiwan.

Pros: Sleek, modern, great place to impress a date with high-end "Devil Wears Prada" tastes, great mojitos

Cons: it's so cool that it's almost too cool

Witch House (Gongguan)

In a lane off Xinsheng S. Road across from Taipei Gym, a bit north of the other Gongguan Cafes, Witch House has drinks named with single entendres (I won't post them here...too many family members read this), board games you can play stacked in the back and live music on some weekend nights, often by aboriginal music groups. We've been here once and thoroughly enjoyed it, though the live music was a bit slow and free-form and not conducive to conversation.

Pros: Good music, interesting drinks, games!

Cons: on live music nights it may be packed, there's a cover on those nights, and it's hard to tell if the music will be to your liking (also, hard to talk to friends over it, not that that is polite in such a small venue).


Rue 216 (Zhongxiao Dunhua)

With the ambiance of a classy French bistro, this is the ideal place to bring your culture-shocking parents who are wondering why you didn't just move to Europe but came out here to visit you anyway because they love you. The food is good (portions are French-sized though) and the cook is a trained chef, which means it's about a thousand times better than the microwaved BS that passes for food at Bastille. Small but good beer selection, intimate atmosphere, very friendly service.

Pros: All of the above. Also, friendly English-speaking service. Beers include lots of European selection, including Westmalle.

Cons: It's impossible to find - there are two places in the area with similar addresses and they're both in the confusing lanes between Zhongxiao, Dunhua and Renai. Have a good map handy if heading here for the first time.

Salty Nuts (Shida) - may be called Salt and Pepper - I can never remember

Funky and studenty and across the lane from the only good, authentic Korean restaurant in Taipei, this place looks like it's full of budding novelists and musicians. You can kick back with your low-rent, academically-inclined self over one of their many beers. Definitely get the "Hot Brownie" - a pile of delicious hot brownie with ice cream. Yum! Among the best desserts in Taipei. They have Lindemann's fruit beers, a hops-laden beer and other standard Belgian options.



Popular with travelers and young English teachers, this place has a few good "small eats" if you are feeling peckish, a small beer selection, decent mixed drinks, great location in Shilin if you are in the area, and good atmosphere. Very young-and-proud-of-it.

Pros: Good choice if you are in north Taipei, the food is pretty decent (though doesn't approach Rue 216 or Zabu standards), good atmosphere, very easy to sit and chat with friends, and there are non-alcoholic drink options

Cons: kind of expensive, beer selection is not stellar


I want a funktacular old school place that looks a little down-at-heel, with jazz and dim lighting!

Then go to...

Shake House (above)


Salty Nuts (above)

Red House Shida (above)

Zabu (above)


I want good alcohol and good food!

Then go to...

Zabu (above)

Rue 216 (above)

Brown Sugar (above) - appetizer style food only

Bread, Soup, Chocolate Belgian Beer Cafe (MRT SYS Memorial Hall in that little street with all the cafes - exit 2 I think)

This place is more a bakery/cafe than bar, but they do have a small but quality selection of Belgian beers, tasty looking food that we didn't try, and really excellent desserts that we did try. A great place to go for dessert and drinks if you've just been to the deservedly famous Harbin Restaurant nearby.

Pros: Good dessert and beer. Great location near the MRT.

Cons: isn't really a beer "cafe" - just a bakery with good beer options. They have some of the usual as well as Lucifer beer, which is actually not that good. They close kinda early.

Jolly (above)

Faust (MRT SYS Memorial Hall - on Ren Ai directly across from SYS Memorial, next to Cafe de France)

Actually a pizza restaurant but they do two things and two things only: pizza and beer. The beer is Faust brand German beer and is affordable and excellent.

Pros: Outside seating is great, awesome beer for a good price, amazing, non-oily thin crust pizza that is just to die for.

Cons: Indoor seating is not as good - when outside you feel like it could be a place to drink and relax. Inside it feels like what it is: a pizza restaurant. eat here anyway.


Honestly, I'm all about the good (non-beer) drinks.

Zabu (above)

Good mixed drinks and non-beer selection

Jolly (above)

The beer is great and they do have a full bar.

China White (above)

Best mojitos in Taipei

Addendum though I don't know the name of the place: in Shinkong Mitsukoshi Xinyi, I can't even remember which building, there is a German restaurant that also has some really good beer on offer. It's a restaurant, not a cafe/bar, but you can totally go and just have beer and good chocolate cake.

The weather is actually nice (for once) and we want to sit outside!

Then go to...

Lumiere (Gongguan)

Owned by, and around the corner from, Cafe Odeon, this cafe focuses more on tea and coffee but there is a small selection of wine and beer available.

Pros: great terrace for sitting outside, with plugs and wifi! Plugs and wifi inside and out, lots of seats, never full. Food is not "good" but if you are there and find you are starving but don't want to leave, it's not atrocious.

Cons: beer selection minimal, seats not really comfortable, tables tend to wobble


Red House Shida (above)

Roxy Junior Cafe (above)

Mountain Tea House (Maokong)
Take the Gondola to Maokong Station, exit and turn left, walk past the initial development and first group of teahouses, through a more forested area and you will come across another group of teahouses including this one (same structure as Redwood - 紅木 -Tea House but upstairs...upstairs turn left and go all the way up to the balcony).

You weren't expecting that, were you? Hahaaaa, I surprise again!

Yes, this is a teahouse, and yes, they specialize in tea...but the balcony is outside, the view is spectacular and they DO have Taiwan Beer in large bottles. So you can theoretically come up here just to drink a few Taiwan Beers and enjoy the view.

Pros: Amazing view, outside terrace, cute dog, inside is also attractive if it gets cold, food is great (get the lemon diced chicken, the mountain pig, the three cup mushroom, the sweet potato leaves, the "hong shao" tofu...all of it really delicious).

Cons: yes, it's a teahouse. But they have beer! I swear!

I will also add, grudgingly, Vino Vino to this list. The food is kind of atrocious (I actually liked the salmon fried rice I had the one time I ate there, but the set meal was a joke and nobody else who's been there and told me about it has liked it) but they have a brilliant wooden balcony looking out over the most interesting part of Shida Road and their house wine is not bad at all. Just don't eat there - eat elsewhere and come here afterwards for a bottle of house wine.

Faust (above)

Alley Cat - Huashan, Zhishan or Songren Road. Yongkang Street location has no outdoor seating.



Places I have heard good things about but haven't had the chance to try yet:

- Taiwan Beer Factory (I know, it's a tragedy that I haven't been here yet)
- Artist's Village - there's a bar here
- Insomnia (Shida - near My Sweetie Pie and Grandma Nitti's)
- Cafe La Boheme (on Wenzhou Street closer to Xinhai)
- Le Ble D'Or (microbrewery that I have heard a lot about and never been able to find - need to try harder)
- Belly Wash (next to Cafe Odeon in Gongguan, looks funky)
- That grungy student place down the road from Shida's MTC - the one next above the traditional medicine shop in that row of old shophouses.
- the bar down by Taipei Water Museum (if it's still there) - looks like it's got a huge outdoor seating area

Anyone who has been to these is very welcome to let me know in the comments and I'll check them out - I keep planning to!

I Grudgingly Accept That This Place Has Good Beer:


It's just that when we went it was all old paunchy dorky white guys dancing with local girls wearing glitter bikini tops and cowboy hats and it made me so sad because that's not my scene at all - I actively avoid that stuff. So it's too bad that their beer and cider are pretty good.

Places that should have good drinking options but, as far as I can see, don't:

- Taipei Main Station
- Zhongshan
- Yongkang Street
- Shilin Night Market / Jiantan

Tianmu: I am sure there are great places to go out in Tianmu. It's just that I live on the other end of the city so I've never really felt the pull of trying to find them. I live a bit south of Gongguan so chances to go out in Tianmu are few and far between.

If you have a good suggestion for the kinds of places I've listed above in Tianmu or the above "unknown" locations, please do leave them in the comments. I am always open to suggestions!

Soon: a list of places to drink coffee, tea or other refreshments that is not alcohol-focused as a whole (I'll cover Cafe Goethe, People Say which I've just discovered is actually called "Drop", Black Bean Coffee and a few others).