Xindian and Muzha are Eastern places. The Western restaurants are in Sanchong and Banqiao.
Actually it’s a bit of a drag to go to ChungXiao/XinYi/Nanjing/Minsheng as most XinDianers will tell you, especially weekdays. I go to GongGuan or ShiDa area quite often and that is okay I guess but still a bit of a hike, but many people live further out than DaPingLin, basically a restaurant there could service the whole hinterland going out to AnKeng.
There are three Belgian beer pubs around Gongguan but non is serving authentic Belgian food, not even close to Belgian food … I think it’s not fair to the Belgians in Taiwan … and other western misfits 
Oh … and all are in decline …
i live in Bitan, and traveling in is no problem. i notice that western food whinges seems to be very much a Taipei/ Countyite concern. Really, we have it so much better than you would believe.
Yep, travel is no biggie, but still, old lazy me, you know, I’d like something else in the neighborhood. I am quite fond of local food, and we have great Thai and Japanese around. Nevertheless, I still have high hopes.
What I referred to by Starbucks effect, is the overall benefit it has on nearby cafeterias. Where do you go when Starbucks is full? How coffee becomes popular in an area?
We have Subway, Route 66 -not doing as well, I might say-, Pastaria…used to have Rosemary’s Kitchen, now we have this big fast food complexes on top of the MRTs… Expanding possibilities, I call it.
It’s like Shida. It is not what it used to be. Sure, it’s lost a bit of the cheap character, but some things go, some things come.
Never in a month of Sundays. Sure, a restaurant there would be nice – maybe once a month or so, as there are loads of other nice restaurants in this town – but only if it were really, really good and very special. I’m not a freak in that concept, either. Think of YOUR absolute favourite eatery. Now honestly, how many times per month do you go there without getting bored with it? Twice. Surely not every week, unless you’re INCREDIBLY unadventurous – two of my favourite eatieres are in Hsintian, between Dapinglin and Chichang. Absolutley top grub and very, very cheap. I go there maybe once a month, each place. Even if every single foreigner in the area went once a week (and they WOULDN’T. There is NO DOUBT about this), that is NOT going to make your ends meet. You’re not even beginning to come close.
And by the way, it takes me 15 minutes to get to Gunguan from where I live in Bitan, tops. 10 minutes if traffic’s light. 20 minutes to Shida area.
And because traveling into Taipei for those of you living in the Xindian area is no problem, why would you stay in Xindian …
Ankeng is another case, for now … but still …
The fact is that during the week I had mostly women and children coming in for diner, most hubbies were at work until late and had their diner probably in outside Sanxia (Taipei, Banchiao …) lunch I served only from Friday-Sunday as the other days I couldn’t compete with the surrounding hole in the wall places … even with lower priced lunch specials … I learned that after trying almost 1 1/2 years …
Many people go to western restaurants for special occasions …
I had students from Taipei University come in on a regular basis and even though they were students, they spent money, drinking Belgian beer, having the most expensive dishes …
Even going to Taipei from Sanxia isn’t that much of an adventure anymore, it takes 45 minutes to go from my door by bus over Yongning (MRT) to Taipei train station … 50-60 minutes to Gongguan (depending on the connections in shimending and CKS) … when I take my scooter I even gain 5-10 minutes …
So, opening a western food place outside of Taipei, in Taipei county is a big gamble …
The negativity…ah well. It’s nice to have a couple of restaurants in the area you live that you could walk to or not have to drive through the crappy pollution or cram onto the MRT for.It’s not a whinge or a big deal to me. Just giving some folks who own restaurants some ideas. XinDian is a very developed neighbourhood with a lot of luxury apartments and new taofang coming on stream.
It’s not negativity … it’s plain logic … and knowledge, experience …
Or pragmatism. Or savvy.
Of course its nice to have good restaurants within walking distance. I’d love it, personally. But I sure as hell wouldn’t put MY money into it because I know the risks, so why would I expect anyone else to?
Belgian Pie, the chief and Sandman are all absolutely right on all points. Those that hypothesize about numbers and traffic and the laughably verbose English teacher demographic (mostly mouth and no money) have no idea. There are barely enough foreigners to keep western retaurants in Taipei City itself sprinkled with more than 10 to 15% of non-local customers at best, even on weekends. Even those places that are/were hugely successful in attracting a western clientele during the week, were heavily reliant upon business traffic from hotels from non-resident customers; anywhere from 50 to 90% on weekdays. Compared to other major cities in Asia, the expatriate population (with the income to spare) in Taiwan is miniscule and as far as I can recall, shrinking. There used to be more foreigners with higher disposable incomes but that began to fall away a few years ago. Some used to post about actual restaurants on these boards. Now it is just about sandwiches and burgers.
In essence, it is a non-starter. Belgian Pie is absolutely right in being ‘negative’; he more than most should know. Ignore his advice at your own peril if you are considering setting up shop outside the centre of town.
Even if one did have the start up capital, one would be advised to heed the words of Richard Branson (I think) who when asked how one becomes a millionaire running an airline, answered with “Start off being a billionaire”…or something like that.
BroonAgrees
Excellent post BroonAle. Yes, the foreign population in Taiwan - even in Taipei - is tiny. Any business, whether food-related or not, catering to that demographic is asking for a spanking. Lots of such businesses, the likes of Bike Farm, those computer guys in Guting, Fluffy Matthew’s DVD thingee, seldom last more than a few years.
As Sandy or Maoman recently said, Taiwan is not becoming a backwater, it already is a backwater.
Yeah, the kind of people who would beg strangers for a sofa to sleep on if they were traveling in California. 
:upyours:
At least I have the bloody money for a car and the gas to drive 800 miles (one way) to buy a radio.
BroonAuberge
Fair goes to BikeFarm – the laoban quit while he was ahead, not due to lack of business. But his business was an anomaly. The restaurant game has one of the highest rates of attrition of any business, anywhere in the world. Cut your profit bases even more by relying on a really tiny minority of the population and I can’t even begin to imagine what your chances of succeeding past the first year would be. 10%? 15%? Surely not even that! Them’s not odds I’d be interested in playing.
Bike farm’s down? That bloody hedonist. He always does whatever he damned well likes, that bastard. Bless him.
HG
Ok, as I’ve just (a week ago) moved out to Xindian, it would be nice to get some pointers to those good eatiers mentioned in this post for one. I already know my way around the Gigabyte area and eaten in Subways there several times, as even something simple like that makes a nice change once in a while.
What I would like to see somewhere in this city, is an affordable imported grocery store, not one that marks up cheap crap by 10000%. I mean, take the Breeze Centre super market for example, they’re selling Lidl tinned tomatoes for NT$120 a tin, they cost something like 12p a can in the UK or NT$7. Sure, I understand that there are shipping costs, staff costs, rent, and so forth, but that’s an insane markup for something really cheap.
I’m not asking for stuff for nothing, as I know that’s not how the world works, but I’m hoping for a place with more reasonable prices than the established super markets here, as most of them charge an arm and a leg for stuff that cost a pittence.
Carrefour seems to have been getting better, but I’m not big on french things, nor can I read the french or chinese lables, so I guess I’m screwed in that way, although they have some ok imported stuff at times, like delmonte chili sauce and a few other tidbits that I get there.
I buy a lot of stuff in Costco, but I’d love to have a shop that would sell “normal” cuts of meat for decent prices, although I just saw a halal butcher near shida road and I might have to check that out more closely.
Yes, it would be great to have some kind of western restaurant in the Xindian area, but I have to admit that I think several of the posters are right, even though I can afford to go out and eat, I wouldn’t go there more than once or twice a month, even if the food was excellent, partly becase I like a varied diet and partly because I cook a lot on my own. I try to support the restaurants I enjoy to eat at and in a way I’m sad I moved from Taoyuan as there was an excellent Singaporean style restaurant there which I’ll miss sorely, but at least they seemed to do ok, but not great judging from how few customers there were there at times. Oh, and we just found Debbie’s there as we moved, which is a very affordable diner with devent grub, which actually seemed really popluar with the locals, as it was allways full, so full in fact we couldn’t get a table one time. For some reason all the big crappy chains are popular here like McD, KFC or TGI’s, but I think the food in TGI’s has become worse and worse, they might just change their name to Thank God it’s Chicken these days.
I was sort of jokingly saying to my girlfriend that maybe I should start selling swedish meatballs on a stick in some nightmarket, as they seem very popular with all our friends, foregin or local, but I have a feeling that it wouldn’t be a huge success. I don’t know why the locals are so much against trying foregin food, it’s not as if hotpot is anything special and I really don’t get their taste for intestine. Then again, I wasn’t big on the “english” food in the UK either.
If anyone would be mad enough to open up a decent eatery in the Xindian area, count me in for at least twice a month, but I don’t think it’ll be more unless it’s something really good, although I couldn’t even think of what that’d be right now. All I can say is good luck to anything that sets something up. The Dapinglin area seems like a good bet though, as not only is Gigabyte there, but also VIA, CyberLink and Ikonik to mention a few and they all have a fair amount of foreginers working for them who would most likely love having an alternative place to eat at. Maybe the thing to do is to have two menus, one that caters more for the locals and one more for us waigourens…
Well said, Swede.
Who said anything about only catering to foreign customers? Actually, my own business scheme aims for world domination! 
What I mean is we have to win them over. C’me on, somebody had to start selling coffee. Somebody had to bring in the first “Macau tart”. Someone had to open the first COSTCO. We shall prevail! Good for us and good for them. Win-win situation.
As to the Swedish meatballs, I am thinking now the kabab sandwiches are everywhere, may not make you rich but give people a taste so that when they pass by something bigger but exotic -Sabasaba- they do not feel completely alien. “Oh, it is something along the lines of…” always helps. You can market them as “similar to Japanese taco balls”. :lick:
Finally, I reccomend the Sandong dumplings in the alley next to Subway. Try the “zha yang mien” or the little veggie dishes. I’ll make a new topic about good eateries “in the suburbs”.
[quote=“Icon”]Well said, Swede.
Who said anything about only catering to foreign customers? Actually, my own business scheme aims for world domination! What I mean is we have to win them over. C’me on, somebody had to start selling coffee. Somebody had to bring in the first “Macau tart”. Someone had to open the first COSTCO. We shall prevail! Good for us and good for them. Win-win situation.
As to the Swedish meatballs, I am thinking now the kabab sandwiches are everywhere, may not make you rich but give people a taste so that when they pass by something bigger but exotic -Sabasaba- they do not feel completely alien. “Oh, it is something along the lines of…” always helps. You can market them as “similar to Japanese taco balls”. :lick:
Finally, I reccomend the Sandong dumplings in the alley next to Subway. Try the “zha yang mien” or the little veggie dishes. I’ll make a new topic about good eateries “in the suburbs”.[/quote]
And of course the mighty Athula next to the bridge at Bitan
I beats me why this cheap hotpot places are so big … uh, they’re cheap, that’s the magic word, but offer low quality frozen food … and you can stuff yourself to death … then the new thing coming, or is already there are places that serve up the bland, boiled fatty goat meat … and the goat is hanging on a hook in the store … goat is medicinal meat, cure the common cold if you believe in Taiwanese culture …
Anyways, I’ve a few ideas I’m going to work on in my new place …