N.Y. Bagels Cafe

Address: No. 145-1, Section 4, Rén'ài Rd, Daan District
Telephone: (02) 2752-1669
Hours: Mon - Sun 24 hours!
Price: $$

Perhaps you've overstayed your welcome at On Tap or maybe Luxy is closing and you really want to wait for the buses and MRT to start running again. Not because you can't afford a cab because you've blown all your money on last night's shenanigans, but because ... you know, you still look fabulous and why waste an outfit? Why waste an outfit indeed. Walk a block away, withdraw money from the nearest ATM, and head over to N.Y. Bagels Cafe (don't worry, you still look fabulous!).

N.Y.BC is a great place to buy a bagel with cream cheese and a coffee. It's not the most authentic thing out there, but it's one of the only 24 hours joints in the city (7-11, Family Mart, and McDonalds don't count). There are some things that N.Y.BC does well: bread bowl clam chowder, cheese fries, pancakes, and a blue cheese burger. I would personally vouch for almost any of their burgers. 

On this occasion, I ordered the Chipotle chicken sandwich on an onion bagel ($230 NT). The sandwiches come with your choice of bread (a roll, French bread, or your choice of bagel), fries, and unlimited refills of coffee (and maybe Coke or tea). As I turned on my computer and hooked up to the free Wi-fi, I got my cup of coffee. Black. I asked for milk and they brought me a little decanter; but three cups of coffee into my meal, I realized it wouldn't suffice. In other news, I'm slowly learning to love black coffee.

My Chipotle sandwich arrived and I was warned that it was "extra" spicy. The sandwich consisted of chicken breast, brie, chipotle sauce, string beans, lettuce, and tomato. Paired with the onion bagel, this sandwich had a slight kick to it (though I still added Tabasco). If you're walking off the effects of Luxy, this sandwich has your name all over it. If it's 1:30 in the afternoon on a Tuesday, you should be sober and slightly disappointed.

I ordered this sandwich primarily for the brie and the chicken. While the chicken was a little on the skinny side, I was happy nonetheless. The brie, however, was applied to the sandwich as though Taiwan was in the midst of a brie crisis. The five, count them, FIVE string beans added a weird dynamic to the sandwich. I was interested to see how they would work with the other components and was disappointed when they didn't. Completely superfluous ingredients. Unfortunate.

The onion bagel was a redeeming factor for this sandwich. I was beginning to think I should've just ordered a bagel or two. I'll go back to N.Y.BC since I've had great experiences there in the past ... and it's close to On Tap and whatnot. As far as the Chipotle sandwich goes, I won't be ordering one of those anytime soon. The menu is in Chinese and English; the waitstaff speak both; the service charge is 10%; and the website has photos of almost every menu item.