Now *that's* how you start a Sunday!

It's just before noon, and I am happily digesting a late breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, toast, and fruit. Oh, and a big-ass glass of home-made iced tea. At NT$180/CAD$6 it was a bit pricey, but it was well worth it.

(That square patty that looks like sausage is actually hash browns. The toast comes plain, but there is a pat of whipped garlic butter in a small ramekin on the plate. And, sadly, no jam or marmalade were on offer.)

I had this delicious repast at The Door, an American-style diner that is - happily! - just down the lane from my apartment. They serve breakfast all day and have the usual options - classic breakfast dishes, omelettes, and bennies. The lunch and dinner sections are fairly typical as well, with burgers, sandwiches, and pasta. I definitely need to go back and try more dishes. The Buffalo Chicken Melt sandwich is tempting me!

I read about The Door in the blog a hungry girl's guide to taipei when I was researching food and restaurants in Taipei. However, I didn't realize it was in my neighbourhood until I did a Google Maps search this morning for nearby cafes and restaurants.

I must admit, I felt kind of bad about going there. It's such a cliche - Westerner has a Western breakfast at a Western-themed diner. However, I'm still having problems ordering food in Mandarin and I'm afraid of the local food stalls selling eggs and ... stuff I don't recognize. It was nice to have a stress-free meal with familiar ingredients and predictable tastes.


The review of The Door mentioned that service was a bit sketchy. It wasn't bad, just slow - and the reason for that was fairly obvious. The place was hopping and there was just one server to manage all of the tables. Around 11:00am another server showed up for the lunch rush and there was a definite up-tick in the speed of service.

One thing I really liked about the place is that you're allowed to help yourself to tea, coffee, water, and iced tea. These are all available at the counter. Some diners seemed completely at home serving themselves - they even went behind the counter to grab Tobasco sauce - but others requested top-ups from the server. They, of course, had to wait a bit while the server shuttled orders from the kitchen to the hungry diners.

I didn't get a picture of it, but there's a patio outside with a couple of tables. It's "fenced" in with rough wood planks, and there are lots of creeping green plants. It looked quite lovely in the morning sunlight. As I left, I noticed two other whiteys having brekkie on the patio, which eased my Western guilt a bit.