Good Cho | 好丘

Location: 台北市信義區松勤街54號 (nearest MRT Taipei City Hall, I would suggest to take the Bus such as #22 from Taipei Main Station)
Telephone: 02-2758-2609
Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-21:30 (closed on Mondays), Sat-Sun 08:00-18:00

Good Cho's is a small market bistro located at the Xinyi Public Assembly Hall (信義公民會館) that is actually a former military dependents' village back in the 1950's and was re-opened as a public space only 10 years ago. 

By entering Good Cho's you are met with their small home-made products market and that is really the first impression you get: home-made, fresh, nothing of that generic food stuff. 

We tried a Bagel with a sweet potato croquette (forgot the Chinese name), it also had a special ume-mayonnaise and some fresh cucumbers. This Bagel-set  takes longer to make (30min.) but it was so worth the wait!! With an additional 150NT, you can make it into a set menu that comes with a salad or soup and dessert (rice pudding, muffin or scone). 

We also tried the 咬咬女士 (200NT) which is a toast with cheese and ham in the middle, and on top, melted cheese and an egg and salad on the side. Crunchy crust, melted cheese and the toast is just perfect, I definitely recommend ordering this simple, but savory dish. By ordering this set, you can get 30NT off in whatever drink you choose. I drank the White fungi with Goji drink (100NT - 30NT = 70NT!). 

Good Cho's also sells individual bagels at 30-60NT, scones at 25-35NT and muffins at around 40-50NT. All hand-made and fresh! 

Visit their website for more information: http://tw.streetvoice.com/users/goodchos/

Eating Time

Location: 台北市大安區永康街18號 (near MRT Dong Men)
Telephone: 02-2351-3663

Eating Time is a little bistro&grill located by Yong Kang street serving a wide variety of dishes from sandwich, burgers, omelette, eggs Benedict  classic breakfasts, sweet breakfasts and so on... They usually come with a potato side dish and a drink (refill-able).

We decided to try out the BLT sandwich which is essentially toast with bacon, lettuce and tomato. The toast was way too oily. When making a BLT, to complement the bacon on the inside, the toast should be drier in the sense of being naturally toasted and if you really really want to add the extra fat and extra calories to it, you could spread some butter on the inside, but not on the whole piece of toast. (I still find butter in this case totally necessary). Sandwich also lacked the mayonnaise punch which is one essential component in a BLT. 

We also tried the burger which was good, the meat was juicy, the cheese was oozing with creaminess, but one thing they missed was to soak the red onions in ice cold water to remove a bit of the onion-bitterness. 

Last, but not least, we tried the Philly cheese steak sandwich which in my opinion it was the best one out of the three, but it should definitely consider changing its name to steak sandwich as it is not even close to the real Philly cheese steak in Philadelphia. 

Visit their Facebook page for more info: http://www.facebook.com/EATINGTIME