As the sun slips away over Taipei there are many good vantage points to watch the sunset from the mountains that ring the city, including Hua Yuan Dong Tian, which nestles in the hills of Yangminshan and is just five minutes from Shihlin MRT station by taxi.
The restaurant has been open for over a year and a mark of its popularity is that it's already undergoing renovations to provide an extra two floors of restaurant space that will increase the number of seats to 500 from 300. This is not surprising, given the panoramic view of the city and the fact it faces the sun as it sets.
Though the scenery is the main draw, the restaurant caters well to its target audience of couples, business friends and families. Late-morning coffee, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and a good bottle of red wine for drinking until the early hours are all available at a reasonable cost. Specialty teas include the milk tea variety (NT$180 to NT$200), herbal teas (NT$220) and even a spot of England's Earl Grey.
As for the food menu, it tends to reflect the current trend toward pasta dishes and set meals. The cream of mushroom soup came without those annoying clumps of flour that scream "packet" and with plenty of what appeared to be "fresh" mushrooms.
The smoked salmon and pasta main course (NT$320) was a colorful affair, with the black spaghetti smothered in a basic white sauce that had a tutti frutti-type look due to the number of colored ingredients embedded: including pink salmon, carrots, red and green and yellow peppers, cucumber and parsley.
Other main courses on offer included fillet steak with liver gravy sauce (NT$680), fillet of fish with shark fin sauce (NT$580) and an intriguing dish of charcoal-grilled lamb chops with fresh grape sauce.
For dessert, there was cappuccino cheese cake (NT$80) and an array of waffles, which sounded like fun and are also on offer with the tea-time menu from 2pm to 5pm. As already mentioned, however, the snacks, food and wine at this restaurant are really secondary to the scenery.
Hua Yuan Dong Tian's pleasant garden setting is still under construction, but has a nice mix of plants, seating and stone features that add to the ambience of watching the world go by in Taipei far below. Gentle piano music from Scott Joplin adds to the atmosphere. Sunset is perhaps the best time to visit, but the night time view is better than in the day as the air clears and a sparkling vista of lights spreads out before you into the inky distance.
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