Short query about the Witch House: Can you give me a short description of the place? Not the address (Xinsheng South Road, Lane 56, #7, Taipei 106 in case there are several) but more what it is like. Is it a bar, restaurant, cafe and what is the atmosphere like? Thanks in advance.
It’s also called the Witch’s Pub, Nüwu Dian in Chinese. It’s a cafe/pub that also does light meals. All the dishes have suggestive names related to breasts, orgasms and so on. Vegetarian food is available, also with a sexy name and latherings of salad cream that make you think of, er, ejaculate. They play rock music and have a lot of posters and books related to music, especially the Beatles. They have live music quite often. The decor has a lot of black - on a witch theme - pointy hats, broomsticks etc. There is a feminist bookshop upstairs.
Here is their web site - all in Chinese: [url=http://www.geocities.com/kixfish/info/witch.htm]
You could probably say it is a mixture between a bar and a cafe. They do serve a certain number of dishes (pasta, rice etc., I’ve never eaten there but it didn’t look too bad), and I think they offer a number of cocktails, apart from the normal stuff. I don’t think it was overly expensive (but not dead cheap, either), Iirc.
The owner is married to a German guy who tries to sell German board games in Taiwan. For this, he’s set up a weekly game club on Sundays (similar to what we do at Shuangyu), where people can just drop by, have a drink and try out different board games, stuff everybody knows like Settlers of Catan and less known games. The last time I went there (ages ago because I switched over to the Forumosa Game club), it was mainly Germans from all over Taipei, foreign friends of theirs and a couple of Taiwanese, quite busy.
(side note: I just checked on the Culture Express, and it says that you can go and play games from Wednesday to Sunday, 2pm to 9pm, no entrance fee but minimum consumation of 100NT$/person)
The owner herself obviously tries to distinguish her place, first by decoration (they’ve got bras hanging over the back of the chairs). But, more importantly, by offering a stage to Taiwanese groups and singers on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays (no cover bands, only original composers/performers) as well as a monthly Music and Poetry Slam.
I must admit that I’ve never been to any of the performances 
If you want to know what’s on, check the monthly Culture Express (little magazine that you get at MRT stations, cafes etc for free). Since May, the Culture Express also offer an English section in the middle of the magazine which among others features the complete monthly program of the Witch House.
I haven’t been there for a while. But whenever I went, I enjoyed it because it’s sort of spacious (not crammed!) but still cozy. Patrons would mostly be groups of Taiwanese girls, probably from NTU. But that might have changed a bit since they’ve started promoting their games more.
Thanks for reminding me, it might be a good idea to drop by there again.
HTH
Iris
Not much left to say, but:
The homepage is http://www.witchhouse.org and it’s English and Chinese, with event calendar for the upcoming live performances.