There is a new Irish pub opening next to Dan Ryans. Does anybody know when it opens , who owns it etc? I hope it is not as bad as Seans !!
Moderator: The Shannon is located at #6 Dunhua North Road, Taipei. Their telephone number is 2772-0948.
Irish pub next to Dan Ryan’s? Modeled after Sean’s? I can just see the Chinese girls dancing around their handbags on a crappy little dance floor while some loser western circuit band cranks out crappy renditions of 80s songs on a tiny stage. And more girls barfing up their Dan Ryan’s ribs in the ladies’ room after trying their first pint of Guiness …
its being stapled together in true Taiwanese shop refurbishment style as we speak so it should be ready quicksmart. At least it wont have the smart arse, foot tapping student twats that frequent "Irish" bars back home. hope they offer a competative rate for guinness that undercuts the other "Irish" pub in Taipei. Cant wait for my girfriends reaction to my Sunday morning bathroom odours.
Shannon has its soft opening this Friday, it got put back from last friday. Grand opening is sometime later.
I for one will be giving it a quick once over on friday night
Cool … so what’s the deal? Free beer on soft opening? Half-price? Any idea what they’re gonna be charging on a regular basis for a pint of the dark stuff?
Shannon’s claims it will stock Guinness, Harp, Kilkenny and Murphy’s. Prices are rumoured to be in the NT$230/pint - not sure if tax and service get added as per Seans thieves.
They are also talking about food - roast beef, lamb, pork, turkey etc, with very exotic vegetable - potatoes…!!
Also anyone hear anything about a new bar opening across from Carnegies? If looks are anything to go by it’ll be a sizeable place.
Went for a pint on Friday evening. As expected, its more Disney Irish than real Irish, but having said that, its not too bad, I don’t think. Has some nice little “snugs,” a bar you can stand at and some nice seating areas, including a “Victoria Room” with chesterfield sofas, etc.
Really, its no worse than an Irish theme pub in Edinburgh, Paris or Barcelona and if that’s good enough for you, then you’ll probably quite enjoy the Shannon.
Only soft opening, so the food menu was described on their chalkboard as “limited,” with the full menu coming online later in the week.
Beer was far too cold (to be expected) but a creamy pint of Guinness drawn from a tap – I sure as hell wasn’t complaining, even with the NT$253 price tag :shock:
I also sampled a pint of their Kilkenny and it was also too cold but not a bad drop… not a bad drop at all, at all.
Sandman, Guiness is NT$235 + 10% service charge. Works out to NT$258.50 per pint. So in real life, prices are pretty much the same as Sean’s. At least in Sean’s they give you peanuts to guzzle and bread with your soup or stew.
I had a (miniscule) bowl of Irish stew there on Saturday afternoon, but was too afraid to go to the bar manager (or was it the beadle) with my empty little bowl and ask for more.
And what’s with forgetting to do the ceiling? I hate places that have all the mouldy airconditioning pipes and mains wiring and shite hanging out of the roof in full view of all to see.
But I thought that ceiling design was SUPPOSED to be like that! 
I totally agree with you, though, but I think that’s more to do with the fire regulations than anything else. I did like the section inside the door with the faux fireplace and all those cushions. Quite comfy. One of the laobans told me they actually applied to have a real fire there, but were turned down flat.
I also don’t give monkey’s rectum about service charge or any of that crap – Far as I’m concerned, the price of my pint means the amount of cash I have to lever out of my sporran. In my case, it was NT$506 for two pints.
I even have the receipt to prove it.
Did you see what else they had on the menu? What were the food prices like?
Maybe they only spply the service charge to beer you have with a meal. I actually ordered a packs of cigs and they even put a service charge on that too.
Yeah, also on the menu was that classic Irish dish … cheesburger and fries. And Maybe a (narrow) choice of soup and deserts.
I hope the “real” menu is going to offer a decent variety of traditional Irish and English fare. Sean’s sold out to the peasants and swapped their steak and kidney pies etc for lasagna and spaghetti. Miseable buggers.
Five quid for a pint of Guinness ???
And you think the Irish are mad.
I went there Friday night too.
Too expensive, ok decor and lots of foreigners. I might go there again - however I still prefer the German place, which is right behind this one.
Agree with Peter. At Nt$ 230 plus 10% not 235 then Sandman is right at 253 NT for a pint of guinness, far to expensive for my taste other than once a blue moon. The guinness was barely much better than you can get out of a can, which can now be had at a two for one happy hour in the tavern. Also far to cold.
The little place behind the Shannon that serves German weissbier is much better priced altogether, although i hear it maybe forced to close shortly due to local residents complaining about the noise ( i ask you!).
Lots of local bigwigs are coming there, so I think that he’ll be able to keep it open.
I check up on him later this week in order to hear if that rumor is true.
Do I know you? There aren’t so many whites in that place, however rumor has that it’s full of babes now??? (Haven’t spotted so many though)
in a nut shell, the irish theme is just a pretext, this new establishment is yet another place where young(ish) Taiwanese females meet foreign expatriates, or vice versa. the price is high because they want to eliminate the clientele who cannot afford such price.
Foreign ghetto along the lines of the Zone, but without the tackiness.
Not the English teaching type, evidentally—most of them wearing blue oxford shirts, middle-aged, balding male specimens.
One or two groups of impossible-to-classify-as-‘babes’ no matter what your sexual persuasion is, taiwanese gals.
The wait (and wait and wait and wait) staff, clad in silly waistcoats and tams, were inattentive pubescents. And the relatively pricey menu lists high-cholesterol, largely un-irish, artery-hardening dishes. Who knows the taste or portion size, but I was sufficiently health-conscious enough to avoid ordering even though I’d not eaten dinner.
The white stucco walls made me think that the owner has plans to turn it into a Mexican eatery if the Irish idea doesn’t pan out. We’ll see…
I resent paying service charge when there’s almost no service, or even toilet paper stocked in the rest room of a virtually empty establshment.
Yup, that seemed to be a fairly accurate review, although you still had to read between the lines to get an idea of the ineptitude of the staff – “the restaurant is just getting on to its feet” hence, cold soup. Also, the prices were wrong, as I have to pay NT$253 for a pint.
However, this review seems to be an exception to the rule in the local English-language rags, which usually carry “reviews” that are no more than puff pieces for their advertisers.
To see what I mean, check out the TT’s review of that Shida shithole, Curria.
I must say that totally unauthentic authentic look gives me the he-bee-gee-bees about a place like Shannon’s, and then to suffer the indignity of having to falk out 700NT for a salad, a beer and a soup- I just felt as if I’d been raped by a broom stick when I walked out of the place. Although, I did experience a mildly transendental moment staring out the front windows, but all in all it was pretty contrived-give me a Tokyo hole in the wall bar anyday.
Who said it?: You’re a corker Shannon. You’re a real corker.
Taipei Times ad today for The Shannon: “Shannon prices fall as WHO restrictions are lifted.” Aside from the ad copy being only slightly less entertaining than an Irish limerick, does it signal that the end may be near for the place?
Hakka, was just saying this to a mate the other day. We were the only ones sat in there on a lunchtime. I think that their biggest mistake was in not providing the sports coverage that has done so well for the Tavern in the past and doing well now for the Brass Monkey. When they first opened i chatted with the manager about getting live sports going they said it was going to happen but they ended up with Philippines satellite which doesn’t have the coverage. Seems like they just don’t care that much anymore.
Better go get a couple of those Kilkennys before it goes. Seeya!