There are a lot of cafés in Taipei, and I’ve seen the inside of a lot of them. It’s been a kind of quest to find one that’s the perfect place to study. Here’s what I look for:
- close to my apartment, subway station, or bus stop
- free wifi
- air conditioning
- music does not make me insane
- coffee does not taste like ass
- decent food
Things like sexy staff and late hours are pretty good as well. Today I was at Helen Coffee, but I couldn’t stay because the dude at the table next to me was way too loudly explaining this vacation pictures from Europe, showing a salad-eating lady the joys of his camera’s viewfinder screen. Also the music there is bad, and the bathroom is a squatter that happens to also be a deep freeze.
So I was on my way to Benny’s Café, when I noticed Mix. It looked empty but when I pulled out my phone and saw that they had free wifi, that was enough to convince me to go inside.
It turns out it’s a great location, a little closer than Benny’s, lots of natural light, good food, late hours, super nice staff… the only drawback was the squatter toilet, which really doesn’t bother me. I love that it was quiet.
When the lady at the table next to me had a tray full of food delivered to her, I decided to eat dinner there as well. The 200塊 set menus (USD less than $7) are on the expensive side for Taipei, but still cheap for me! I got a fried chicken thigh, which came with rice, soup, cabbage, edamame and corn salad, some stewed tofu with seaweed knots, some sweet bean dish in a cup (I skipped it… diabetes), four big juicy seeded grapes, and the drink of your choice. So it was a pretty good deal.
So I took a bunch of pictures (below) and went home psyched that I had found that place. On the way, I found another cafe called “Hun,” which also had free wifi, and it was even closer to my bus stop; it was just behind the basketball courts.
Five more days until I go home. It’s only 10pm now, I might go downstairs and buy some peanuts to snack on.
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