My friend and I are planning to open a restaurant focusing in South East Asia food especially malaysian food in Asia. One of the country that we out first on the list is Taiwan. We are plannning to sell food like “Bak Kut Teh- a kind of pork soup” and all different variant of other food. I would like to know a few questions?
(!) How much is a shop rent in a moderate area?
(2) Does they have many restaurant selling malaysian food in taipei?
Thanks…
I for one would love to see an authentic Malaysian restaurant here. Not sure how the taste would fly. Taiwanese style restaurants do not do well in Malaysia. People don’t know the taste nor know how to appreciate it. You might find the same issues here in reverse.
By the way, I love taiwanese food…and majority malaysian does not like taiwanese food is because the malaysian prefer a much stronger taste…malaysian cuisine is more strong and deep in taste…I need some time to plan the menu up…Have you been to or ate malaysian food before?
Yes and yes.
all kinds of southeast asian restaurants have opened up here the last few years. might be a tough market now, though there is always room for a good restaurant. there was one malaysian place in the slanty parking-lot alley where capone’s is, off zhongxiao and guangfu. anyone know if it’s still there?
Question is, are you going to make Malaysian food Malay style? Or Chinese style or Indian style? Being that its cuisine is so diverse and influenced by so many culinary styles, it can be hard to focus on the right taste suitable for the Taiwanese palate.
For some things, you want a strict Malay taste (e.g. Nasi Lemak) because the Chinese and Indians do it “differently”. However, this taste is too strong for the Taiwanese palate to handle. Like you say, Malay food is deep with flavors so you might have to tone it down. There are lots of Taiwan tours that pass through the Western coast of penninsular Malaysia. You might want to consider that style of Malaysian cuisine for your restaurant. They would tend toward the Malaysian Chinese style. Have you checked out the Penang, Ipoh, Lumut, Malacca, cuisines?
There are many Malaysians who come to Taiwan to study and work so I believe there’s an untapped market out there.
Good luck,
GAAAHHHHH! So what we get is yet another Taiwanese restaurant with a "Malay/Thai/Indian etc. signboard. Great! You won’t see me there, that’s for sure. :s
I’m not at all sure about this “toning down” concept anyway – places that prepare the food properly always seem to do pretty well – look at Mykonos, Salsa Bistro, some of the Vietnamese, Indian, Thai places, Alleycats, etc. – while the ones you’d NEVER go to because the food’s Taiwanesified nearly always look half empty, sterile and uninviting.
[quote=“Isieh”]There are many Malaysians who come to Taiwan to study and work so I believe there’s an untapped market out there.
[/quote]
But not if you try serving them bland watered-down slop designed for unadventurous locals.
Well, the first few discussion that we had is starting a malaysian theme Street Food Court concept…If you have travel to malaysia, you should know slightly about that… The food that we are planning on the menu is malaysian chinese,indian,malay…covering areas in malaysia like penang, Ipoh, kuala lumpur, almost everywhere…we would introduce some malaysian food that is rare even in malaysia…Hope that the taiwanese would like it…
YES PLEASE! That sounds fantastic, but please, no culinary castration. If you make it right, they will come and come again. If you emasculate it for the locals, they’ll come once and say: “Well, not too bad, I suppose, but it’s nothing special.”
BE SPECIAL!
I agree with sandman - if you’re going to do it - do it right.
If I want Japanese food I want real Japanese food - no Taiwanese twist.
I think good food is good food wherever - just keep the quality high and the people will come.
YES PLEASE! That sounds fantastic, but please, no culinary castration. If you make it right, they will come and come again. If you emasculate it for the locals, they’ll come once and say: “Well, not too bad, I suppose, but it’s nothing special.”
BE SPECIAL![/quote]
There is always “culinary castration” (what a term heh). You can do something right and no one will come, happens all the time. The reason why Taiwanese food didn’t work out in Malaysia is because no one understood how to eat it and/or enjoy the taste. The reverse will apply here. My feeling about Taiwanese people is that they’re not particularly adventurous with their food. Not that they need to because the food selection already is so good, cheap and extremely diverse.
I think the food court idea is interesting and can work since it’s a concept that exists here. However, that’s going to be one really busy “kitchen”. Even then as you know, hawkers tend to specialize in a couple of things because no one can do all of the dishes well.
Well, my feeling is that Taiwanese people used to be unadventurous. Over the last decade or so, however, at least in metropolitan areas such as Taipei and to a lesser extent Taichung, local people have become far more accepting of foreign flavours, so that there is today far more of a market for “real” foreign food.
For example, even at the cheap end of the spectrum, I could not have imagined 10 years ago the Pakistanis in the Tunghua St. nightmarket or Sri Lankan Athula in the Bitan nightmarket having a seemingly endless queue for their rotis, which are not at all toned down for local tastes.
I say go for it. Enough Taiwanese travel to Malaysia these days that I bet you’d clean up with some real Malaysian cuisine.