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Posts Tagged ‘Eateries’

It’s been a while since I’ve written about any new eateries, but last night we went to PaPa Gio’s and if you like good Italian food, this is a place you must go to.

The place used to be called something else, but changed owners and name a few months back and I was lucky enough to have a friend of mine introduce me to PaPa Gio’s.

The chef is a very charismatic Italian and he cooks fabulous food. We had sauteed mushrooms and carpaccio for starters, both were great and for main course we had the quattro  stagioni pizza and the porcini mushroom risotto. Everything was really tasty and there wasn’t a morsel left after we’d stuffed ourselves.

For dessert I had the creme brulee while my friend and Brenda went for the chef’s special, home made cheese cake. Again, everything was really good.

Surprisingly the food is also very affordable, especially considering the location of the restaurant and the quality of the food.

You can find PaPa Gio’s website here and the restaurant is located no more than 5 minutes walk from Zhongxiao Dunhua MRT station, exit 5.

As some of you might know, I’ve put together a list of eateries in Taiwan and made map links to Google maps. Then reading Forumosa last night, it struck me, why not do a map that links to anything and everything useful in Taiwan? So what I cam up with was the FindIT map (Find it in Taiwan, and yes I know there’s one i too many), a silly name, but hopefully this is something that people will find useful.

At the moment you can find it here or by selecting it from the How, where, what tab up top. I’m working on getting a front-end made that will make it a bit easier to use, but hopefully you can still work out how to use it. As long as you have a Google account you can also add your on bits to it, which was also part of the idea, as I only know where a fraction of everything here is located. Please let me know if there’s anything you think I can do to improve it and I hope this will become a useful resource for all foreigners in Taiwan, those living here and visitors alike.

Sorry about the big gap in posts, but I’ve had a lot on and not really been in the writing mood. Anyhow, I’ve posted two new burger places to the list of eateries in Taipei and they’ve both got their own pros and cons, so make sure you check them out. The yearly Swedish crafish party (kräftskiva) was delayed from last weekend to Friday night thanks to typhoon Sinlaku that decided to stop by for quite a while and which produced a downpour of about 1.8m.

It was packed last night, but the scary thing is that since last year, I only knew about 5 or 6 people, which shows what a big turn-around of foreginers there is here. It doesn’t seem like most people come here for the long term, although considering the huge ammount of English teachers and what appears to be a big influx of University students, at least from Sweden, I guess it’s not so strange that there’s a bit turnover.

I’m going to try to get my finger out and update the site more regularly, as it seems like I have a fair few readers, despite the fact that it’s not updated on regular basis. If anyone has suggestions of places that we should go and eat at, please send me an email, you can find my email address in the contract me section at the top of the page.

Some stuff is hard to find in Taiwan, at least if you want something a little bit different and stuff inside a pita bread or a wrap is usually not that easy to find here. Thankfully one lad decided to start up his own eatery here and although he started out very low key, business grew and these days there’s a pretty good selection of tasty food at Biffs. His recipes might not be traditional stuff that you normally find inside a pita, not that I’m going to say that I’m very unhappy about that, as he’s come up with some rather fitting stuff.

Biffs is located along Shida Road which is famous for its affordable eateries and Biffs holds true to that. You can get two pitas for a mere NT$120 (or NT$65 each) and the burritos which are bigger, come in at NT$79 or NT$89. Originally he only had a selection of three fillings and although I tried one back then, I wasn’t really taken by the food. However, I went back to the new place recently and boy was it tasty, juicy, tender meat, loads of jalapeno and really good sauces and marinades. I had the Tex-Mex pita and a Refried Beans & Mexican Cheese burrito, while Brenda went for the Xinjiang Cumin pita. Everything was prepared there and then and tasted just fabulous, it couldn’t compare to the early days of the business.

The selection of Pita’s include Marsala Curry, Xinjiang Cumin, Tex-Mex, Thai Tom Yum, Thai Yellow Curry and Yunnan Fermented Tofu (although I won’t be trying the last one) and the cheaper burrito is the Salsa & Chicken, although I’d suggest to add the extra NT$10 for the Refried Beans & Mexican Cheese, as I have a feeling it’s the same burrito, just with more tasty stuff in it. They also serve potato wedges starting at NT$39 although the fancier toppings you want, the more expensive it gets, all the way up to NT$65. Fried rice sets you back NT$79 and a fried rice pita goes for NT$49. Oh, and if you don’t like Pita’s, then you can have the same tasty fillings in a sub.

They’ve also got a deal with the Malaysian tea stand next to them where you can get a discount on a bag of tea (yes, you drink it out of a bag). The only downer is that there are only four seats available and two inconsiderate people had sat them selves in the two middle seats, so we couldn’t have a seat when we went there. Either which way, this is a place I will be going back to more often as the new menu has made it the best and cheapest place to get a pita or a burrito in Taipei.

You can find Biffs at Shida Road Alley 49, No. 9 and they’re open from 11.30 to 23.00 most days of the week. They also have a website here on which you can find the menu.

Update: Sadly Biffs closed its door on the 21st of February 2009 due to slow business among other things. They might be back with a restaurant sometime in the future, fingers crossed.

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