Taipei, Taiwan (Spring 2024) - Day 4

Peter Better Cafe

After picking up some sidewalk breakfast sandwiches, we had some morning coffee at this spot. Good cup of espresso here along with a lot of people hammering away on their laptops.

Ba Fang Yun (八方雲集)

This dumpling chain can be found all over town. It’s like the McDonald’s of dumplings. It might not be the best that you have had, but it is ridiculously cheap and convenient. I usually get the potstickers. The place can get crowded especially during lunch as people pop in for a quick and cheap meal. I think each dumpling costs around $0.20 (it used to be cheaper!).

Coffee Roaster (昊醇咖啡 #舒芙蕾)

Got caught in some pretty heavy rain after the dumplings so popped into this coffee shop to stay dry. The place was completely full but as soon as the lunch hour was over it emptied out. Everyone apparently was in here to get away from work for an hour.

Omar Tasting Room

The Omar brand of whiskey made by Nantou in Taiwan is a much smaller outfit than Kavalan. The whiskeys are harder to find - especially the cask strengths and limited editions. I discovered that they opened a tasting room so we decided to check it out.

It was not like Kavalan where everything was available for tasting but you could select a few. I was also able to pick up a bottle of one of their limited editions to take back home.

Shilin Night Market

I was hoping to hit a few night markets during the stay but in the end we only wound up hitting the Shilin market. It is the biggest (and most touristy) one but not my favorite.

I wanted to see if COVID changed it at all and I think it did. There seemed to be less shops and I think definitely a lot less food options. There seemed to be a handful of carts that just repeated themselves around the market.

The best food we tried was the garlic Chinese sausage in a rice bun. Everything else was a bit meh.

Noob Tent (in Shilin Night Market)

There are some new things popping up inside the night market. This bar is opened by some younger folks and is a cocktail bar around a camping theme. The seats are in camp chairs or on the ground and there are some in tents or a van.

MUD

This is a bar within walking distance of Taipei Main that I used to visit for a good cocktail. Not exactly a speakeasy but the entrance is not obvious as you have to go down the alley to find the door. They also have instituted a minimum fee now so I had to order a second cocktail to get the bill above the threshold.