Taoyuan Nights

Tequila Sunrise – 42 XinSheng S. Rd., Sec 3, (02) 2362-7563, Hours: 11:30 am-2 pm/5:30 pm-10 pm. Near Gongguan MRT station.

If you felt like eating Mexican food, Taipei might perhaps not be the first place in the world you’d pick to dine. And rightly so, this meal would unfortunately seem to indicate – the food in Tequila Sunrise felt a bit flat, greasy and uninspiring, and they kept forgetting to bring items that were listed on the menu (yummy, dips with salsa and guacamole and sour cream… only… where is the guacamole and the sour cream???). It took quite a few attempts to persuade them to bring the stuff we’d ordered. Thankfully, a chance to spend some time with my friends more than made up for the not-quite-up-to-par quality of the food that was served.

Annie, Daisy and some reasonably tasty enchiladas.

I particularly recommend against the ‘bargain’ tea+soup+salad deal offered with the main courses for an extra $80 TWD. The soup was ‘Lumpy cream of mushroom, ala floaty things’ – a true Mexican classic, mes amigos! Salad was limp lettuce covered in artery-bursting pink sauce stuff (though to their credit, they did swap it out for a dying lettuce covered in an olive oil vinegarette for me, hurray! :) ).

It tastes as good as it looks.

The worst thing on the menu has to be the ‘crazy chicken’. It’s a pretty dried out chicken – and a damned expensive one at that. Sure, there is a little bit of salsa and a few sad-looking slices of jalapenos that were almost literally screaming out “kill me, end the misery” – but basically, it’s a not-very-tasty chicken. Worse still, it appears this particular chicken may have died from malnutrition long before it reached the kitchen. I decided to make the best I could of it. My friend’s enchiladas were pretty tasty, but a little greasy, and thankfully they shared them with me.

Ambience: The background music was suitably atmospheric, and the walls looked kind of nice particularly as you follow a long and winding path to reach your table – but then you sit down at the table and find it rocks around like Axl Rose on a particularly rockin’ day, while you’re trying to eat your munchies.

Mexican food is not traditionally served on a bouncy castle simulator, to the best of my knowledge. I checked a couple of other nearby tables, and yup, they’re all about as stable as Margaret Thatcher.

Summary: Not a fantastic place to eat; price wasn’t too horrific, but the food and even the tables were definitely not up to par! I’d give it just 4 Speedy Gonzales out of 10 – for the Enchilada, wall decor and olive-oil swapout service, combined with a decent salsa.