Original Title: Chocolate & Love is BLISS
As many of you already know, Chocolate & Love closed its doors in September. Gone is an era (well okay, a year) of great live music, excellent patrons and staff, good conversation, great parties and cool events.
Without getting into details, I will say that the reason that Chocolate & Love had to close in the first place was because of a bad partnership. Barry Smit, one of the two owners, unwittingly got screwed by his partner with whom he thought he had an excellent relationship. Aahh the many faces of the Taiwanese businessman.
On to more cheerful, even blissful events:
Barry has worked hard over the last month to get the bar back and to continue with what he loves doing - playing music and having a good time with his friends / guests / patrons at the bar. So, with the same great staff and management and with the addition of some new partners and some major renovations, we are pleased to announce the upcoming opening of BLISS at the same location, 148 Xinyi Rd, Sect. 4.
I don’t want to spoil the surprise and tell everyone what the renovations will be so you will have to show up for our grand opening party which we are hoping will be in the first half of November.
What I can tell you is that we have introduced a full menu for BLISS which includes both East and West sections. From the East we are offering up ten Cantonese dishes including things like beef onions, pineapple shrimp and spicy chicken. From the West we are serving up snacks like chicken wings, clam chowder and poutine (as Canadian as we can make it) to real juicy gourmet burgers to main dishes such as river trout. And as a special addition we will be introducing fondue ~ meat, cheese and chocolate.
We will still continue to provide live music 4 to 5 nights / week and will be open from Tues to Sun from 6pm to late. For those of you that can’t find live music past midnight in Taipei, you can now find it at BLISS until 2am. Food will be served from 6pm to midnight every night.
The bar will be managed by myself, Reese Richards and Barry. All the original staff will also still be there. Barry and I will do our absolute best to ensure excellent food and service each and every time anyone comes to BLISS. With 12 years experience in the restaurant / bar industry in Canada, I plan to bring the quality of food and service you would expect from North America restaurants to BLISS.
In addition to poutine, you can expect some other Canadian favorites such as CC / Crown & Ginger, real Mott’s Bloody Caesars and I’m even working on getting Barry to learn some Tragically Hip tunes to play with his band. Barry will also contribute some Dutch specialties to the menu.
Please send Barry an email at barrysmitt88@hotmail.com so that we can send you an invitation to our grand opening party when we get closer to solidifying a date.
Maybe a Forumosa Happy Hour, once things are running smoothly? 
