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Lan Ji
It's a hole in the wall, but a can't-miss spot for Taiwanese hotpot. Order yours with any number of meats and/or vegetables and choose your desired level of spiciness. Special pots with dividers in the centre allow companions with different tastes to still share the same pot.
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Lanka Curry Restaurant
One of the less flashy (and less expensive) South-Asian restaurants in Taipei, Lanka has been serving excellent curries, sambals and dhal dishes for nearly two decades. If you're feeling especially adventurous, try the fish-head curry (the priciest item on the menu, but well worth it). Whatever you get, order their special appetizer, 'Lunu Dehi', it's diced onion mixed with lemon pickle.
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Lavender Garden
At the bottom of a long, steep stairway that (eventually) leads up into Yangming Mountain lies this excellent restaurant set inside a two-storey home that's surrounded by an aquatic garden. Amazing health-oriented Chinese dishes such as 'health tonic hotpot with ten Chinese herbs' will give you strength for the climb ahead. Then again, as Lavender Garden's deserts are delicious as well, you might want to save the meal as a reward for the climb down.
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Lawry's The Prime Rib
This institution from Beverly Hills has now landed in Taiwan with its huge roast-beef dinners and a signature 'spinning bowl' salad prepared beside your table.
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Liaochen Niuroumian
On a lane loaded with street-food stalls, come here for its famous beef noodle soup and ignore the basic atmosphere.
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Momoyama
One of Taipei's top Japanese restaurants, Momoyama is located on the ground floor of the upmarket Sheraton Taipei. The stunning décor might remind you of Kyoto, especially if you book a private tatami room (at extra charge). Popular with politicos.
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Ostrich
Welcome to Ostrich, Taipei's first and only (at least to our knowledge) restaurant specialising in the tall and gamey bird. Ostrich steaks, ostrich burgers and ostrich noodle soup are all on the menu at this upscale restaurant just around the corner from Core Pacific City. (That's the mall shaped like a large ostrich egg. Coincidence? We think not.) Ostrich also serves drinks and has a good selection of wines from California, Australia and France.
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Paris 1930
This restaurant in the Landis Hotel is consistently rated as having the best French food in town. Dinners will often run over six courses. There's piano music and a refined atmosphere, and the hotel's Art Deco setting provides a suitably sophisticated backdrop.
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Sababa
This excellent new eatery serving falafel, hummus and other middle-eastern food is already so popular that the kitchen exhausts their supply of delicious home-made pita before we get there for our typically late dinners. But it would be selfish to not list Sababa just to keep the pita for ourselves.
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Shabu-jan
Lots of places around Taipei claim to serve shabu-shabu , a Japanese hotpot of thinly sliced beef which you dip into sauces, but Shabu-jan (Japanese name, Shabu-zen) has the home-country pedigree to go with it.
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Sweet Dynasty
Though specialising in Chinese desserts, Sweet Dynasty also serves a wide variety of mouth-watering dishes such as Shanghainese prawns, braised beef ribs with bitter melon and other Chinese classics. Desserts, of course, are amazing, so top off your meal with a slice of taro cake or a dish of mango pudding. Lines can be long, especially on the weekends, so make reservations or be prepared to spend some time people watching on the sidewalk outside.
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Tainan Tan-tsu-mien
Odd though it may seem to have rooms decorated like Versailles and Vienna in Snake Alley, that's what you'll find here. Select your own fish and seafood out the front and the chef will suggest a preparation method (grilled, steamed, fried etc). Don't forget to try the shop's namesake noodles (made with ground pork).
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Taipei Story House Tearoom
Taipei Story House Tearoom is part of the Taipei Story House and serves excellent snacks and tea.
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Vegetarian Paradise
Because of its location (right across from Shida University), this is usually the first vegetarian buffet many newly arrived students visit. The owners haven't let success go to their heads though, and they still serve the same sublime vegetarian cuisine as they did when some of us came here as students, way back when. Price is by weight.
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Very Thai
Very dark and very cool, this mod-Thai spot has black-on-black décor and lovely dishes. It's open, you guessed it, very late.
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Xiangyi Vegetarian Heaven
Easily one of the best vegetarian buffets in Taipei, this narrow two-storey restaurant is usually crowded, with the ground-floor seating generally taken by the monks who eat here daily. A beautiful assortment of Taiwanese vegetarian cuisine is cooked fresh and served to the lilting sounds of Buddhist songs coming from an overhead boom box. The restaurant has no English signboard, just look for a yellow sign above the door or follow the sounds of soft Buddhist chanting.
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Yang's Bakery
This 40-plus-year-old, northern-Chinese style place is unpretentious to the max and has no English menu, but that doesn't matter. Order yourself some dàguōtiē (long-rolled dumplings, steamed then fried) or yángjiāshuǐjiǎo (pork dumplings) and you'll see what we mean. Yang's is also a good place to get yourself a bowl of niúroù miàn (beef noodle soup), one of Taiwan's most famous dishes.
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Yonghe Congee King
One of our favourite postdrinking-binge breakfast joints, Yonghe Congee King is clean, well lit (but not too bright) and serves perfect post and prehangover foods such as home-made dòujiāng (soymilk), luóbuógāo (turnip cake) and qīngzhoù . If this doesn't settle your stomach, consider laying off the Taiwan beer and Whisbih for a while.
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Yuan Shu Vegetarian
Since its opening in 2005, this restaurant has received a fair amount of press coverage for its new-school renditions of traditional Taiwanese favourites. Vegetarian meals are prepared in the classic Buddhist way, not merely meat but also garlic and pepper free. Hotpots are a specialty as are the pumpkin rice noodles and delicious tofu dishes. The sign outside reads simply 'Vegetarian'.
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Yuan Thai
A nice little Thai restaurant behind Ximending's Red Pavilion Theatre, Yuan Thai is a stone's throw away from the serious youth bustle of Ximending without actually being in the middle of it. Though a bit plain in ambiance, the restaurant gets points for price and quality, and is a good place to get your Pad Thai fix.
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