Time to see for yourselves then. Pick a few different ones, all different styles.
Iāve been going to them a long time.
I know there are lots of Japanese restaurants in Taiwan but at heart a Izakaya is what I described , a bar with beer (and sake) with cheap eats and good fun with your workmates and friends.
Whatās this about women than men in them?
Who let the women in ?!?
In Japan anyway, youāll see lotās of women just hanging out in small groups eating and drinking.
Sarcasm dude, sarcasm.
Yeah, that was pretty much the dealbreaker for me
Ichi is one that considers itself an Izakaya. They have a cool bar area downstairs, and a regular table restaurant upstairs.
I donāt know, man, Iām not so sure I could actually do yakitoris and beer in a chair with a backā¦sounds pretty uptown
If you do a google map search of å± é å± - which apparently is the characters for this kind of thing - then there are millions of the feckers, or would you believe there are 20 in Xindian? basically just a bar though right? with food.
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Thatās amazing did not know that. I would describe them more like a restaurant with extra focus on beer and saki. Food is the main draw, not the afterthought like a bar or pub, knowing it will usually be a cool fun atmosphere. There are all types and levels. Dozo for instance is a nicer one with trendy setting. Others could just be a simple place maybe even open window to the street.
Iāve never tried them in Taiwan but now I want to. The izakayas in Japan, at least the ones I ended up at, all allowed smoking inside and that ruined it for me. Do you know if smoking is allowed in the Taiwanese versions?
Iāve been to do Dozo and thatās not a typical izakaya its a huge fancy place and itās even got japanese drumming sessions.
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Smoking is allowedā¦if thereās outside seating available at the establishment.
The one I frequent on Dong Xing Rd towards the end of Nanjing East Road has a outer terrace area. On hot summer evening and warm spring evenings, lots of people like sitting out there.
I thinkā¦even with the restaurant being bar seating available, most Taiwanese will be courteous enough to smoke elsewhere.
Despite it being labeled as an izakaya (Google map search it, itāll show up if you search āizakayaā), I personally agree with this.
You donāt really get an izakaya feel to the place when you walk in. Iāve been there, itās great, I like the drum show, but just not what I would consider bringing friends here trying izakayas for the first time. I feel like Orin Ishi will pop up from one of the private boxes and send the Crazy 88s at me whenever I walk in there.
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I would still beg to differ, In my experience, theyāre a lot like a Nippponese version of the traditional Taiwan Beer House (which are all pretty much gone, no?). Food is important, yeah, but you donāt see many folks going there and getting water with their grub.
They still have to adhere to Taipeiās smoking laws, so there will only be smoking at outside seatings.
Donāt get me wrong Tango et al.
I think thatās itās great that are so many izakayas and they also have great food offerings too and make the places look like something from the late Edo era mixed with Taiwanese/Chinese style is pretty cool. This is a good thing :l).
You just want to make sure they donāt go over the cliff marked āpretensionā and 'empty your pockets at the door '.
Oh yeah and no smoking inside is also good !
Iām intrigued by this traditional Taiwan beer house.
Now do you mean the combat zone GI influenced beer houses by that ?
I donāt think there were very many of them but I only arrived at the turn of the century so pretty new around here.
Arenāt those the places with big open fronts, no air conditioning , big tables and lots of people sitting around drinking big bottles of beer eating seafood or whatever?
Thatās rechaoā¦
Technically, no, those would be categorized as Taiwanese BBQ Restaurants.
Not that thereās anything wrong with that.
@the_bear should recall, the Beer Houses were different, mostly all indoors. There was a common fashion for them to have decor resembling, for want of a better term, Flintstones furniture and interior design, mixed with stock North American Native imagery, donāt ask me why. Oversized dinosaur skeletons were also popular. They had like long tables and benches or stools. They served shit cheap beer and food, fresh unpasteurized draught from Taiwan Beer, the smallest was like a 500cc (ml) glass mug, with the 1L mug being more common. They would also offer plastic kegs (usually fake rustic looking) holding multiple litres, for large groups. Of which there were plenty. The food was all snacky stuff like deep fried oysters, the peanuts/anchovy/chili appetizer, fried rice, 3 Cups, Gongbao, stuff like that.
One of the most famous was Indian Beer House, on Bade between, uh, Fuxing and Jianguo, is that right? They had, like 4 floors, with a huge 3-storey tall T Rex skeleton, as well as urinals and bathroom fixtures that were made to look like they were made out of bones.
Anho Rd (pre-Carnoogieās) was lousy with them. One of the last holdouts was Five Star Beer House, where ChinaPa is now. Another that lasted a long time was The Big Chief, just off Anho at the curve, across from where Jasonās is now.
The building that now hosts Tickle My Fantasy used to be double its current width and house the 3 floors of Wagon Wheel, with obvious decorative highlights. They literally cut the building in half, which is why it seems so tall and skinny and has a lane running along either side of it.
They were immensely popular with office workers, who would retire there en masse after work and get friggin stonkered.
The restroom usually had a big janitor sink with a pair of long tongs on a hook and a sign (usually featuring a cartoon rabbit, get it?) requesting that vomiting be confined thereto rather than the toilets, with the tongs provided to break up any chunks and more easily facilitate evacuation down the drain.
Eventually, with the increasing urbanization of the Taipei middle class, getting blind shitface drunk became less and less popular, combined with the implementation of more effective drunk driving enforcement, and they started slipping away.
Pretty good fun, while it lasted.
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Is this combat zone culture mixed with local culture orā¦? Sounds like some of the food is similar to RĆØ chĒo, but not all.
Doesnāt sound like a mix of anything except crazy and more crazy.
āCombat Zoneā culture was completely different, it was originally set up to cater to the GIs stationed in and on the way to what would become Tianmou/Yanmin Shan. It was the closest you could get in Taipei to the Western bar experience (along with some spots on, like, Fuxing North, what used to be downtown, and Malibu on Renai circle), the Beer House thing was almost exclusively local.
I donāt think Carnegieās had anything to do with the demise of Zone activity, different demographic, for the most part.
The Shida bar scene was serving yet another different segment.