Ren Jian People Cuisine Creative, Taipei

Whoa - this place was full of surprises, even just when trying to figure out how to enter the restaurant. Located at 191 An Ho Road Section 2 across from the Shangri-La Far Eastern Hotel (2735-2288), we found ourselves upon two huge forged metal doors with no doorknobs, prompting us to say "open sesame." Seeing as how that didn't work, we noticed a doorbell on the side. When the doors opened, the hostess greeted us and told us that next time, we need to stick our hand in this (literal) hole in the wall on the side, where a sensor would detect our hand and open the door. OK, a sheer novelty, I thought.

Inside, it was a very chichi type of decor, which felt a bit odd. But when the dishes came, my impression took a rapidly ascending turn. The food, while mildly fusion-y (normally a dislike of mine), was pretty darned good, be it in the dry sauteed string beans, or the deep fried shrimp in mayonnaise, or even the little Sloppy Joe-like ground beef sandwiches. They were all pretty well done, which was very surprising considering some of the horrendous fusion places I had been to in Taipei before. Even though the ma la tendons were cut into thick cubes (they should be paper thin), they were still really good with a Korean-like sauce rather than the traditional Chinese red chili oil.

The biggest surprise was the "deep-fried salsify," or niu bong tiao. Suspecting a poor translation into English, I discovered that salsify is actually a real plant - sometimes known as an oyster plant. It didn't really taste that much like oysters to me, but these long strips (a bit like leeks) were lightly greasy and salty - so much that I wish they could sell them like a bag of potato chips. Awesome.

Wow. I was impressed. I would actually come back to this place - and it's a good place to take business visitors to. If you want, you can also retire to the lounge area nearby, where they offer "tube wine," or basically little vodka-based shots frozen in test tubes. This is an amusing place for sure, with some interesting (and decently good) food to boot.