It would be great to have 914 back in town! 
Note: The MRT has been extended, and now includes Donghu.
We live in Donghu, near piwackit, but within walking distance of the wet market and lots and lots of good stores on Kangle Ave, which then becomes Donghu Rd. as you head west. For us, it’s a 2 or 3 minute bus ride to the MRT, or a 10+ minute walk, but you could live right on the MRT and have lots of bus options.
I realize you’re not focusing on the MRT, but having it right there should IMO be counted as a big plus, which is why I mention this area, which has VERY good on-foot shopping on Donghu road with a good wet market and every kind of mom & pop store, decent local food, and so on. There are groceries right by the Donghu station (Wellcome, Kangning-Donghu Rd.) and Huzhou (Songqing aka Matsusei), which also happens to have an Alleycat’s pizza (and a good OB/GYN btw) nearby, Jolly Thai food and Ryan’s sandwiches. Buono pizza isn’t far. Going a stop further to Dahu sta. (or walking 5-10 min.) puts you at Dahu park (superb place to take the kids). No idea about apartment sizes between the latter two stops but there are nice buildings there you could check out, and right behind them is Kangning hospital, which is fine for some purposes. There is also a major hospital (Sanzong) a couple minutes away by taxi from the Huzhou station, and small clinics in the area abound.
Foreign groceries are lacking, but there is a baking supply store in Donghu which has some foreign-style items, and there are multiple places for organic and health food items. Also, the availability of foreign items at ordinary grocery stores has improved over the years. There are also now multiple online sources which deliver to your home for pennies (P&P, Yiwei foods, El Toro’s deli meats and sausages, and so on), and this location puts you fairly near the Neihu Costco (which has many imported items). See also this thread on online shopping. With those sources and Costco, you can just make the occasional trek to one of the other foreign food item sources like Breeze, Far Eastern, Wellman’s or G&G.
The above strip is very near fast routes into town, like Minquan E. Rd. (to Neihu Costco, RTMart and Carrefour and an excellent baking supply store), a Hwy 1 onramp on Kangning, and a shortcut by the trash incinerator to get to Nanjing, Bade and Zhongxiao roads. Taking Kangning south also heads you toward the Nangang Carrefour and the Xizhi Costco. It’s 25 minutes by scooter to 101, and 20 minutes to Minquan-Dunhua, just FYI. We rent a parking spot for our car just in front of our apartment, which is very convenient. We have 45? ping internal, 3 large bedrooms, three balconies, and pay NT$16,000 in rent (normally $18k. 5th floor, no elevator). There is a small, mediocre park with a playground, less than a minute’s walk away, and a grocery store 1-2 minutes away. Our vet is 1-2 minutes’ walk away, as is our family clinic, stationery stores, bakeries, optometrists, hardware stores, all kinds of food places, and so on.
There’s a small ‘mountain’ at Dahu Park with a hiking trail. Wuzhi Shan is not far. There are small playgrounds and parks scattered here and there but not as nice as, say, Lotus Hills.