american/western: rock sauce bistro and bar (味子餐廳)

 date may 29, 2011

contact Space 45, No. 1, Sec. 1, Chengde Rd., Datong District, Taipei/台北市大同區承德路一段1號45櫃/02.2552.6836

hours [weekdays] 11:00-21:30/[weekends] 11:00-22:00

price 250-400NT (+10% service charge)

rating ♥♥♥ (3 out of 5 hearts)

nearest MRT Taipei Main Station MRT (捷運台北車站)

A large group of indecisive people is how we ended up at Rock Sauce Bistro and Bar located on the first floor of QSquare mall at Taipei Main Station. After trying to figure out what to eat for 30minutes, Gary and I decided to take charge and just picked the nearest restaurant to where we were standing that looked decent. Rock Sauce is located outside of exit U5.

When you first walk into Rock Sauce, it doesn’t look that big. There is a bar to the right and a few tables to the left. We were initially worried that they wouldn’t have room for our party of 10. We were wrong.

There is a whole back seating area with plenty of seating.

The menu at Rock Sauce is in English and Chinese. The names of the dishes are in English, but the details are in Chinese. The average dish is about 250NT. Note that there is a 10% service charge. Also note that the English description isn’t exactly the same as the Chinese. The menu has things ranging from pasta to burgers, to salads to western style breakfast. Another thing to note, according to our waiter, they don’t serve pancakes on the weekends…yeah…I ended up getting the Norwegian Salmon Sub (挪威燻鮭魚堡) for 280NT.

I love smoked salmon so I figured why not. This is not a sub, obviously from the picture. The Chinese said 堡 (burger), so I’m not sure why the English said sub. Anyways, all the burgers come with french fries, but not a lot. All of the burgers also come with a flag…me and two other people got the Denmark flag and my other friend the Canadian flag. The burger was pretty good. The bread was nice and fluffy, lightly toasted. The salmon was pretty standard smoked salmon with capers wrapped in it. All together, this made a good sandwich. Taste-wise I would probably get this again, but price-wise it’s a little on the steep size for what it is (308NT total).

My friend Daniel got the Hawaiian Beef Rice (夏威夷排飯) for 260NT. According to him, the beef was flavorful and tender. From the looks of it, it looked pretty decent. I didn’t have any, but he seemed pretty happy with it and as a fellow food lover, I trust his opinion.

Mike and I were originally both looked at the Norwegian Salmon Sub. Then we both looked at the Club Sandwich. Result, I got the “sub”, he got the Club Sandwich (總司令三明治) for 280NT. It looked like a classic club sandwich, although I’m not so sure about the lunch meat…

A few people got the Black Pepper Burger (黑胡椒牛肉漢堡) for 240NT. Everyone seemed to like it. It looked pretty good.

Overall, this place is okay. Are there better places for burgers? Definitely. Would I come back? Maybe. I don’t know that I would ever be like, OMG LET’S GO TO ROCK SAUCE, but if someone wanted to go, I wouldn’t be opposed.

american: toasteria cafe.

date 12. 23.2009

contact No. 1, Lane 72, YunHe Street, Daan District, Taipei/02.2365.3051/台北市大安區雲和街72巷1號

hours Monday-Thursday 10am-11pm; Friday-Saturday 10am-2am; Sunday 11am-9pm

happy hour Monday-Friday 3pm-7pm

price 100-200NT

rating ♥♥♥♥♥ (5 out of 5 hearts)

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UPDATE

While walking around Shida Night Market I noticed that the Shida location of Toasteria closed on June 04, 2012! Not to worry, they still have two other locations in Taipei.

1. No.2, Lane 248, Sec. 4, Zhongxiao E. Rd., Taipei/台北市忠孝東路4段248巷2號/02.2731.8004
2. No.3, Lane 169, Sec. 1, Dunhua S. Rd., Taipei/台北市敦化南路1段169號3號/02.2752.0033

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A good friend of mine found Toasteria Cafe and decided with our love of salads and paninis we had to try it. Toasteria is located inside of Shida Night Market (師大夜市) off of YunHe Street (雲和街). The cafe itself is really cute and open; go on a nice day and enjoy the open patio-like feel.

The menu has a wide variety of grilled sandwiches, at least 20. They boast proudly on their business card that they are “Taipei’s home for the grilled cheese”. While I don’t necessarily know if that’s true, they do make a pretty mean panini. The average sandwich ranges from about 100nt to 170nt and for an extra 70nt you can add fries and a drink (coke or grape fanta). My friend and I opted to share a sandwich, salad, and add the fries and a coke.

grilled jack chicken 160NT

We finally decided on the Grilled Jack Chicken sandwich, grilled jack cheese, chicken, and caper aioli for 160NT. First off, the fries were really good. They were really cripsy without being hard or oily. I’m sure they came out of a bag from Costco or something, but still they were very good. The sandwich was great. There was a nice spicy kick to it from the jack cheese which I’m pretty sure was pepper jack. The chicken was also well seasoned and not dried out. Another awesome thing about this sandwich, the caper aioli sauce on the side, SO GOOD. We didn’t put it on the sandwich, instead we just dipped the fries in it. Highly recommended.

gouda salad 170NT

For salad we had narrowed it down to either the Toasteria salad or the gouda salad. We decided to go for the gouda salad because both of us love cheese. Unfortunately the first salad that was brought out to us had a worm, like full on slug/worm, in it. We took it back to the counter and they apologized and made us a new one. Usually something like that would turn me off from a restaurant, but they were very apologetic, made us a brand new salad and gave it to us free of charge. Back home in the US you would expect this kind of service, but in Asia I’m more used to just picking certain things out and eating around it. So the free salad was a nice surprise. After that issue was taken care of, the salad itself was actually pretty good. The vinaigrette was some sort of balsamic red wine mix that was pretty good. Other then that there was three slices of gouda, red onions, watercress, and some toast. The salad is a little pricey considering its size, but in my opinion it’s pretty worth it considering how tough it is to find good salads in Taipei.

Overall, Toasteria is a great place to grab some lunch or maybe even dinner. There are definitely plenty more of the panini’s that I want to try and they have Stella Artois on TAP! I will definitely be going back for that. I read on the happy hour menu that all beers are 90NT during happy hour, so maybe I’ll go then. Also, they have buy one get one free margarita’s Monday and Tuesday according to the chalk board inside. I think next I’ll try the Spicy Grilled Cheese or the Eggplant one.