Golden name cards featuring cutout butterflies give you some idea of what you will find at Tickle My Fantasy, one of the newer bars around town.
It is the kind of place where girls sip halves of lager at the bar waiting for company and groups of friends sit round a bottle of whisky to pass the time.
Aileen (莊毓華), the bar's manager, used to run a boutique from the same address, but decided to move the clothes shop to a smaller premises and rejoin the catering trade. Many of her customers from a well-known restaurant she ran nine years ago returned to her.
"My place is like a flower," she says, and "like butterflies, bees and birds, people are attracted to it and each other and keep coming back."
During the week, a steady flow of customers pour in after office hours -- mainly professionals, dressed casually to add to Aileen's friends and acquaintances. The music is mostly soul or Eminem-style rap. Music is more upbeat on weekends, when the good-time crowd come out to play.
She says the three-month-old bar is doing a lot better than she expected and says the name expresses the spirit of the bar. "Tickle My Fantasy is not just one word, it's a conversation opener and means different things to different people. When I go out to find my fantasy, I dress up and go somewhere smart. That's how I visualized this place and it seems to work."
There is a large bar to sit around, soft seating, muted lighting, and an intimate upstairs area. Food is Italian/French with pasta and salad dishes for around NT$300. Drinks start from draft Orion at NT$200, with a house special, Flavors of Butterfly, six shots of spirits ranging from Peach to Creme de Menthe in test tubes.
Tickle My Fantasy is located at 8 Anho Rd., Sec. 2 and is open between 5:30pm to 2am, later on weekends. Major credit cards are accepted.
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