around town/hsinchu: longing for a little style.

In most ways, we really can't complain about our life here in Hsinchu, Taiwan. We've found a great apartment that we're making into a very 'us' home, we're eating delicious and varied local foods, we've met some fantastic people, and we're enjoying shopping for produce at the little market up the street from us. I am much happier settled here than I have been in a long time. But if I am allowed one complaint, this is it: I wouldn't mind being surrounded by a little more style.

I definitely don't mean that it's totally missing. I'm constantly checking out well dressed guys and girls, and there is some incredible shopping here. Where it's mostly missing is in eating out. Cafes in Taiwan seem to have missed out on some style lessons, particularly on the lesson concerning minimalism. As soon as we enter a new restaurant in Taiwan, we always glance around for the requisite tchochkes, and we are always disappointed to find them. And especially, I should point out, Christmas related ones. Even restaurants that serve great food seem to make a least one big misstep: a wooden Santa Claus, a kitsch statue of a man playing a saxophone. It's certainly worse here in Hsinchu, but honestly, I'm rarely that wowed by interior style in Taipei either. Anyway, it's all a compromise. I can eat fantastic local food here, I just can't do it in great surrounds. I'll just have to use my vacation time carefully, and hit up some style centers abroad.

Pictured above, sadly, is not in Hsinchu. It's Square One Dining, a cafe my sister introduced us to last time we were in LA. It had great coffee, a tempting brunch menu including muesli with seasonal fruit and decadent waffles, and a nicely styled patio. And on this warm late-September morning, I wouldn't mind being there now.