Taipei City - 朱記

Value for money: 8/10

Cleanliness: 9/10

Service: 8/10

Quality of food: 8/10

Overall: 8/10

This place is ideal if you are wanting somewhere where you can sit with a group of friends and have some good, clean, Taiwanese food.

Whilst this location is fairly new for 朱記, they have been around a while in many other locations.

Clean and accommodating inside.

At lunch, it can get busy, but you shouldn't have to wait too long.

peanuts with tiny fish and chilli to the left, then taro and also seaweed far right.

They have a good assortment of 小菜 small plates, I'd probably take one of each quite happily.

Bitter melon to the left, edamame beans to the right

This little area is for your sauces. However, they just have one pot of spicy chilli oil, a bowl of sugar (for the congee) and a flask filled with water.

Not quite the Korean idea of kimchi, more a Taiwanese version with less chilli,sweeter and with more vinegar.

We took these two small plates - pickled cabbage 泡菜 Pàocài and Lotus root 蓮藕 lián'ǒu. The lotus root was great. Although the flavour is quite mild, it has an enjoyable texture and an earthy sweetness to it that cleanses the palate nicely.

Spicy pork wontons

鮮肉餛飩炒手

Xiānròu húntún chǎo shǒu

$110

These were solid. In fact, I could've done with two portions of these just for myself. We asked for them with just a little spice, as they gave us the option - 小辣 xiǎo là. They were slightly sweet and nicely spiced (I will go for spicier next time, though - spicier 中辣 zhōng là, hell sauce 大辣 dà là) and inside there is a good amount of pork without it being heavy.

Noodles in soy bean sauce

炸醬麵

Zhá jiàng miàn

$95

These were the biggest let down of the meal. Whilst they looked incredible when they arrived and smelled amazing when mixed, the flavour was really boring. Usually there is a nice meat sauce with some tofu or some sesame with cucumber, carrots and/or beansprouts. Here, the flavour lacked on all fronts. It's a shame, because the noodles were really quite good.


Beef pancake roll牛肉捲餅
Niúròu juàn bǐng
$130

It's been a while since I've had one of these. This was a good one to enter back into the game with. The beef was nicely cooked so it wasn't too dry, the cucumber and scallion helped to keep the roll fresh and crispy, too. The spicy chilli sauce complemented it all very nicely.

Fried beef pocket

牛肉餡餅

Niúròu xiàn bǐng

$45

Not bad, but I won't be ordering it again. I can't help but feel like the meat inside was a bit greasy. Be careful when biting into this hot pocket as the meat juices will squirt out in all directions and they are damn hot! The flavour of the beef was good, but the whole thing just tasted a bit greasy, really.

Opening Times:
Monday - Sunday
11:00 - 21:30

Tel:
02 3322 2156


台北市大安區永康街6巷10號

No. 10, Lane 6, YongKang Street, DaAn District, Taipei City

Happy Eating!

Taipei City - Cafe Kuroshio

Value for money: 9/10

Cleanliness: 8/10

Service: 10/10

Quality of food: 7/10

Overall: 8/10

It was raining. Then, it rained some more. Then, it rained a shed load more. What to do? Go to a Cafe and relax because it's the weekend (and they have free WiFi)

Haven't we become a bit obsessed with going to cafe's and whittling away time doing work? I still like it, so for the haters out there - close this page (but come back later for posts about my wonderful food reviews).

Now, this cafe isn't going to set the world on fire with new and incredibly challenging dishes/drinks. However, it is going to do exactly what it says on the tin: serve good coffee and cake, in a friendly, comfortable and relaxing atmosphere.

Not sure what a 'Chess pie' is, but hey ho (seriously, though, check your English. If you want to include English in the menu then by all means go for it. But type it out on a search engine or check out a dictionary).

It was still very early when we arrived...

They sound good, right? We had just eaten at Jing Ding so we weren't hungry in the slightest, but, next time I will definitely check them out. 

The menu:

They have a decent variety of different Latte's, actually. Rose Caffe? Interesting. 

And beer, too: 2 thumbs up.

熱貝里斯巧克力

Baileys Chocolate

$150

An interesting caffeine (but still naughty with the added Irish liquor) free hot drink here. It was nice, but not amazing.

美式咖啡

Americano Coffee

$115

To some: boring. 

To me: standard.

I almost always get the straight up coffee with no added milk or sugar wherever I go. I like to taste the coffee, itself (and often the milk can be of questionable quality and doesn't help the coffee beans in any way to shine).

This Americano is quite nice. There's most definitely a good amount of coffee in here with a nutty aroma and taste. It's slightly sour (I quite like this aspect of some coffee) and overall fairly decent.

The bottom line:

Some Cafe's can pretend to be something they aren't. But this one doesn't. There are no frills, nothing elaborate and it's not pretentious in any way. I spent 3-4 hours in here, and felt comfortable doing so.

Cafe Kuroshio on Facebook

Happy eating/drinking!