Mamm Goz - Bistro Breton (closed)

Cuisine Greater Taipei Restaurants
1

Mamm Goz
12 Anhe Road, Section 1, lane 112
tel: 2709-6636
open from 11:30am-10pm
Closed Monday

They are located in the first lane to the north of Xinyi road near the intersection of Xinyi and Anhe.

Mamm Goz is a cozy little place that opened about one month ago and serves galettes and crepes from the Bretagne region of France. It is run by two brothers; Stephane who handles the bar and Fred who is the chef. Frank, who handles the PR and tables, provided friendly service. There is seating for 18 people inside and 10 on the terrace. The front of the restaurant opens up allowing the place to become very comfortable and airy. Smoking is allowed on the Terrace. There is also a small bar with 4 stools.

Galettes are similar to crepes but are made from buckwheat. This gives them a much more rustic texture. There are about 10 or so types of galette on the menu ranging from NT$300-450. Unfortunately, my choice of a salmon with leek sauce galette wasn’t available as the sauce wasn’t finished. I was looking forward to trying it because I saw Fred preparing the sauce using fresh imported leeks which looked amazing.

I switched to a chorizo (imported from Spain), emmenthal cheese, and egg galette. A spoonful of tomato sauce topped it. The chorizo was slightly spicy and was balanced by the cheese and egg. My companion had a lardon (also imported), mushroom, and cheese galette which was topped with a cream sauce. The cream sauce made the galette more flavorful than the drier chorizo galette. However, both were very tasty. The lardon had a great smoky flavor.

Note – each galette comes with a side lettuce salad. Unaware of this we ordered a nicoise salad for a starter. While the salad was made from very fresh produce, it was let down by the use of standard black olives rather than premium olives.

For desert we had a chocolate, coconut, and banana crepe that was flambéed. The sweet crepe was delicious. The crepes are in the NT$150-200 range and there are about 10 types available.

For beverages (among the usual non-alcoholic drinks) Mamm Goz has Breton Cider and three Breton Beers! The beers are all from the Lancelot brewery. They include Lancelot, Duchesse Anne, and Telenn Du.

The beers are NT$165 each and the cider is NT$110 for a cup and up to NT$420 for a bottle. The cider is available in sweet (2%), half-dry (4%), and original (6%).

The Lancelot was my favorite of the three but all are very drinkable. The Duchesse Anne is similar to the Lancelot but includes honey. The Telenn Du is a dark beer with a unique flavor. All three are worth going to Mamm Goz for the beer alone. It is nice to have some new kids on the block.

Besides the beer and cider they have a small supply of Chouchen! Stephane introduced it to us and provided two complimentary glassfuls.

Much of the atmosphere of Mamm Goz is created by Stephane. He is very friendly and talkative and loves to tell everyone about Bretagne. I had such a good time at Mamm Goz that I left with a bottle of Chouchen for home. Recommended.

2

Sounds great! Haven’t had galettes here since my old friend Francois went out of business.

I had Telenn Du last time I was in Bretagne, and the Lancelot. I liked the Telenn Du best.

Chouchen, by the way is a kind of weak mead – honey-based brew. They sometimes use seawater instead of fresh but I haven’t had any of that.

What about far? Do they do that? I love that stuff!

3

They have a prune flan so I think the answer is yes. :slight_smile:

4

Mmm, buckwheat.

5

I will second the yummy-ness of the chorizo, emmenthal cheese, and egg galette. The salad was nice and vinegary, to cleanse the pallet nicely.

My friend had a mushroomy one and it was good too, even though I am not fond of mushrooms.

They are out of the 2 non-sweet ciders, for now. Must have been popular!

In all I found it a bit expensive, but worth it for the good imported food.
(it is across the lane from my school, so I will be lunching there often)

6

Thanks for the information, elektronisk.

Looking forward to trying it out in the weeks to come.

7

This little place is absolutely wonderful. My wife and son and I just ate there and we all loved everything. My boy and I had a carrot-potato-curry soup to start and it was delicious. My boy had the chorizo galette, my wife had the lardon galette and I had the emmenthal, ham mushroom and egg galette (its the first one on the menu). My wife and I liked my galette best, but my boy liked my wife’s lardon galette better.

We then split a dessert crepe (home made chocolate sauce, bananna, roasted almonds and vanilla ice cream…scrumptious) and the prune flan. Each was outstanding.

I also had the drier, 6 degree cider and was very pleased with that.

Service was perfect.

8

I’ve been there a few times and really enjoyed it. The Saint Malo and Lardons galettes are deceptively filling. The cider is superb. They ran out of 6% stuff the last time I was there, and I tried the 4% cider and it was fine, still a bit dry, and full bodied. They also have a home-made cake which apparently is made with fourteen hundredweight of butter. Really good.

9

Discussed the menu with Stephane the other night here in a Frenxch cafe in HK. I can’t believe how spoilt you bastards back in Taipei are these days.

After talking to Miss Huang and the Thai princess, we figure we’d need a couple of weeks in Taipei before we could even manage getting around to the local fare.

Value and price. Good grief!

HG

10

I went back for the lunch. Much better value. Simple emmenthal, ham and egg galette with the salad, nice simple desert, and a drink. It the thing to do for sure.

11

Another damn restaurant awaiting my scrupulous taste buds! I’ll have to get a job or something!

Sounds reeeeeeel good…

12

Went there last night with travelgal, the atmosphere was great I met one of the owners who was kind enough to recommend some dishes. We split a bottle of 2% cider (380$NT) which was a great choice, the 2% is the sweetest cider they have and travelgal thought it was too sweet, for me it was perfect. Travelgal had the chicken and mushroom galette and I had the egg and ham one.

The size of the dishes are a bit on the small side I am guessing that they are staying true to how the dishes would be served in France, the chef used to cook galettes in France afterall, the salad contains only lettuce and while I liked the dressing I would have liked a bit more “stuff” in it. We split a banana/chocolate flambe, the chocolate sauce was my favorite part of the evening, delicious.

The total was 1400$NT for both of us, I would say a bit on the pricey side but considering the atmosphere, the quality of food and how everything is imported it’s worth going to at least once. If you like JB then you will love this place. I would go back for the deserts and cider but the galettes are a bit too pricey for me.

13

Mamm Goz was on my list for a time and I finally went there last Sunday for lunch. The guys are doing great and the place seems to be fully seated constantly. We made a reservation upfront.
Though the local Taiwanese might not get easily used to the style (and quantity) of dishes, the above average price, it has this special distinction with other places. I assume that the “clientele” resides more foreigners and wealthy younger generation Taiwanese.
As for the lunch, I selected the Salmon based galette, the half dry cider and the Treskil pancake and found myself in heaven.
My GF and here daughter were unluckily not really overwhelmed. It’ll take time for them.
We paid around 2.200 TWD for the full set lunch, with soups and drinks, so a 700 TWD for something unique is more than worth its price.

14

I heard that they were closed a/o January 2009… anyone know what happened?

15

What usually happens when restaurants close…Numbers out were higher than numbers in.

16

OK, a bit of a glib response there, citizen k.

Of course, you are correct, but I think hungryintaipei was looking more for of an explanantion, or the inside story about why this particular restaurant closed down. Perhaps the owners had posted here in the past, or regular customers might have been able to provide some additional information.

Sorry, but I don’t have anything to add about this, hungryintaipei. I did enjoy Mama Goz the times I went there, but I don’t know the reasons for the closure.

17

The owner (Stephane?) was looking to sell it through the fall of last year. Operation costs (rent and salaries) were becoming a challenge given that the novelty of the place was wearing off and the economy was slowing. He mentioned trying to focus on his import business as a result. That was the last I heard. Too bad, I would have paid a last visit, had I known it had come to closing. I rather enjoyed the Breton cider and whiskey he had there, not to mention the crepes and galettes, of course. :frowning:

18

Strange - If some of you would have been there in the last 12 months, they started sending promotions to your @mail and you would have known that they sold their cider and other Breton stuff at wholesale prices.

it is a shame - though you can’t live from the expats alone in such a style of restaurant and not enough locals continued to remember Mamm Goz.
Despite the economy.

The tent was perfectly run - and had a great - friendly managment.

19

I went there about five or six times. I liked it. It reminded me of family holidays in Brittany when I was a kid. Thing is, though, crepes in Brittany are about one-tenth the price. And while of course running a place like that is a lot more expensive here, I always felt that portions should be slightly bigger, or things should somehow be fancier, for Mamm Goz to really be a commercial success. Maybe that wasn’t possible, for whatever reason. But while I’m disappointed that it’s closed, I can’t say I’m very surprised.

20

yeah, thanks for the discussion… i guess if more of us went more frequently, then they would have had better business… but it is too bad there wasn’t a closing notice or something so everyone could go eat there one last time. i loved the goat cheese and honey dessert crepe and enjoyed a variety of their galettes.

i can’t stand the paper-like crepes that is served in a lot of the Taipei food courts.