Burritos

Biff’s Pita

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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.

Debbie's

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Debbie’s is a smallish American style diner that opened up in Taoyuan in June 2008. The atmosphere is nice and relaxed and it’s tastefully decorated, in as much as you can decorate a diner. The owner speaks English and they seem to cater both to the locals and the foreigners in Taoyuan. The place is small, but it doesn’t feel cramped and there’s around 10 tables, all of which seat four.

Debbie’s serves brunch until 14.00 although we missed that today, but the rest of the menu has a decent selection of burgers, sandwiches, burritos and some other stuff as well. The whole menu isn’t available on the website and in addition to the brunch items listed they also have pancakes. The drinks are large and they serve Root Beer which isn’t very common in Taiwan.

I ordered the beef burritos and Brenda got the bacon sandwich and a side of buffalo wings. The bacon sandwich came with a side of freshly made fries and they were really good and the sandwich was quite tasty as well. The buffalo wings were a bit dry, but came with a side of ranch dressing. The burritos were big, but not very authentic, although they had refried beans a bit of mince, sour cream and a side of salsa, so no major complaints for the price.

The total came up to NT$590 which has to be considered reasonable for what we ordered, as most western style places in Taiwan are expensive for no good reason. We’ll definitely go back and try the brunch next time. You can find Debbie’s website here. Debbies is located about 5 minutes walk from Mitsukoshi in Taoyuan.

Update: Well, we went back for brunch this weekend and both of us ordered pancakes, although they normally come with a side of some kind of meat byproduct such as sausage, ham or bacon, but neither of us wanted that so Debbie kindly offered to give us a couple of extra pancakes. The only downside this time was that it took forever to get the food, the place was quite busy, but a couple that came after us got their burritos before we got our food. The pancakes were good, although you’ll most likely have to ask for extra maple syrup as we didn’t get enough, but that was most likely cause of the extra helping we got. Brenda also ordered a side of mash, which we had to remind them about, as it didn’t turn up. The pancakes comes with a drink and are quite affordable at NT$110. We might yet be back one more time before we move from Taoyuan, as I think we’ll need a hearty breakfast on Friday morning.