Taipei's Zhongshan Neighborhood: Hangin' Out with the Crowds in One of the City's Coolest Corners

TEXT　Rick Charette

PHOTOS　Ray Chang, Vision

For decades, Ximending has been a mecca for the city's hip younger folk seeking food, shopping, and entertainment pleasure. Today, however, a new kid in town is giving it a real run for its money. A glorious rejuvenation has taken place over the past near-decade in the youth-and-family-friendly zone around MRT Zhongshan Station.

Our first stop for this article is the Xinzhongshan Linear Park, which runs from MRT Zhongshan Station north to Shuanglian Station.

Xinzhongshan Linear Park

For all the reasons I'll be rolling out in the following paragraphs, this area has become a must-visit hit with local visitors and travelers from abroad. One of the anchors on which the area's renaissance has been built is Xinzhongshan Linear Park. Thin and pathway-laced lengthwise, very green, dotted with a constantly changing array of whimsical art installations, and a favorite youth/family gathering spot for people-watching, it was created in 2017 along an old railway right-of-way for a line that ran to the north coast port of Tamsui and Taipei's Beitou hot-springs resort area.

During the city's annual Christmas celebrations, which start in late November, the park becomes a fairyland of light, with a giant Christmas tree check-in spot at the Nanjing West Road entrance, trees festooned with bright lights, and light-tunnel galleries. Many of the chic shops along the park's sides also join in with personalized lighting art.

Eslite Spectrum Nanxi

A second anchor for the station area is Eslite Spectrum Nanxi, opened in 2018, an elite high-rise shopping mall focused on crafts and design. It stands overlooking the linear park on Nanjing West Road's south side. "Eslite," a proudly homegrown Taiwanese brand, is synonymous with cultured living and interior-design comeliness. Eslite Spectrum outlets are usually built around a swank Eslite Bookstore.

On the fourth floor is Maji Treats. "Maji" is another cherished island-grown brand name – seller of artisanal Taiwanese foods, seasonal produce, and artisanal crafts (the first two categories primarily sourced from small organic-farm operations). Maji Treats also has a fine restaurant showcasing Maji ingredients in delicious Taiwanese home-cooking-style dishes.

Eslite Spectrum Nanxi

🚩14, Nanjing W. Rd., Zhongshan Dist.

📞(02) 2581-3358

🕝Sun-Thu 11:00am-10:00pm

Fri-Sat 11:00am-10:30pm(bookstore opens till midnight)

Next, we will explore a grid of narrow lanes right beside the linear park, where intriguing stores align.

Everyday ware & co is a soigné select store on the second level of a multi-f loor former residential building right beside the linear park. The theme here: every practical item in your home can be a fashion statement, enhancing the aesthetics of your life, and the owners bring in carefully curated creations from around the globe to introduce new aesthetic concepts to the Taiwan consumer.

Buy fewer things, buy higher quality, buy proud craftsmanship. Items range from new products with sleek modern looks to vintage treasures with retro stories.

Everyday ware & co

🚩2F, 25, Ln. 20, Sec. 2, Zhongshan N. Rd., Zhongshan Dist.

📞(02) 2523-7224

🔗www.everydayware.co

🕝2:00pm-10:00pm

Chifeng Street

Slender, gently winding Chifeng Street is on the other side of the linear park. Over the past decade this and the narrow lanes shooting off it have been filling up with creative, often endearingly eccentric, select and concept shops, cafés, izakayas, eateries, dessert shops, thrift and vintage shops, and other indie ventures.

The symmetrical street/lane grid was laid out by the Japanese during their rule in Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. Many of the townhouse-style Japanese dormitory residences in which Japanese public servants lived still survive today. Post-WWII this area became known as"iron street" or "scrap dealer street," home to a legion of shops fixing and selling imported used automotive components. A platoon is still running, providing such magnetic scenery juxtapositions as shopfront windows stacked high with car stereos beside a sleek plant-fronted café. Let's now visit a clutch of the most popular new cultural-creative faces in the neighborhood.

Down along one of Chifeng Street's peaceful offshoot lanes, just a short walk from busy Nanjing West Road, Par Store is on the basement level of an old residential building. The choice of subterranean digs is deliberate, the owners considering theirs an "underground" commercial operation. This concept store's stock: vinyl records, band merchandise, and indie magazines by Asian creators, from around East Asia. There's also a small performance space, for use by self-sustaining bands and individual artists. Par" is short for Petit Alp Records, a recording label founded by one of the owners, a band musician.

Par Store

🚩B1, 1, Ln. 3, Chifeng St., Datong Dist.

🔗www.parstoretaipei.com

🕝Mon-Thu 2:00pm-8:00pm

Fri-Sun 2:00pm-9:00pm

Tella Tella Cafe, a few doors from Xinzhongshan Linear Park down another quiet lane, is announced outside with a cute lit-up sign of a young cartoon girl wearing a bright-red beret. It's on the second f loor of another oldish low-rise residential building, reached via narrow, steep stairs.

The interior is a time-travel journey to 1960s Taiwan, with Taiwanese, Japanese, and Western accoutrements. The coffees are refined, but the big patron-pulling menu items are the shakes, slushies/sodas, and meat curries with rice.

Tella Tella Cafe

🚩2F, 22, Ln. 49, Chifeng St., Datong Dist.

📞(02) 2550-3077

🔗instagram.com/tellatellacafe

🕝11:30am-8:00pm

You'll invariably see a line-up of folks patiently waiting outside Mian Xian Ding, located right at the linear park's edge diagonally across from Tella Tella Cafe, non-regulars among them checking blogger must-try recommendations on mobile phones. Mian Xian Ding is a mian xian (rice vermicelli) specialist, and is set up mimicking a Japanese yatai, literally "shop stand." All operations are right along the brick-columned sidewalk arcade, diners either sitting on stools in front of the bar-like service counter or street-edge at metal drums-cum-tables painted up as monster-sized Kirin Beer cans.

The culinary focus here: mian xian rich with the freshest Taiwan seafood jewels. All the marine ingredients used are Taiwan-sourced, notably the famously plump and sweet oysters of the southwest coast's Dongshi Township and neritic squid from the Taiwan Strait's Penghu Islands.

Mian Xian Ding 面線町

🚩25, Ln. 49, Chifeng St., Datong Dist.

📞0932-055-466

🕝Wed-Sun 11:30am-7:30pm

Next, we will go underground, to the Zhongshan Underground Book Street. Entry can be made directly from the concourse level of MRT Zhongshan/Shuanglian stations.

Zhongshan Underground Book Street

Billed as the "longest book street in Taiwan," this most unusual of tourist attractions runs between Zhongshan and Shuanglian stations directly below the linear park and directly above the metro-line tunnel. This is another Eslite project, meaning elevated aesthetics – both inside the varied commercial operations and in the long pedestrian tunnel corridor itself. The"street" is set up like an Eslite Spectrum outlet stretched out lengthwise, with very long and thin Eslite outlets (general books and children's books) that will remind you of the interconnected carriages on metro trains, along with Eslite music (which boasts an extensive selection of vinyl records), artisanal crafts, and stationery outlets, chic cafés, and more.

Among the lengthy street's other allures are occasional special theme exhibits and a section with a long wall of mirrors along one side for teams of young folks to practice their dance moves, funky karaoke pods on the other, and direct open-portal links to the adjacent Jazz Square sunken plaza.

Finally, we head to a museum showcasing contemporary art. It is one block south of MRT Zhongshan Station. From Zhongshan Underground Book Street, you can take exit R4 for direct access to the museum.

MoCA Taipei

The prestigious Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MoCA Taipei) landmarks the southernmost fringe of the Zhongshan neighborhood. Opened in 2001 as Taiwan's first museum dedicated to contemporary art, it concentrates on the themes of art, design, and architecture, with no permanent exhibits.

The museum is housed in a two-story red-brick building built by the Japanese in 1919 originally served as an elementary school for Japanese children, with some Taiwanese admitted, thereafter doing service as Taipei City Hall from 1945 to 1994. The architectural style is a Victorian/Edwardian hybrid, with perhaps the most visually compelling attraction of the melodiously symmetrical design being the bell tower rising from the roof 's center.

MoCA Taipei 臺北當代藝術館

🚩39, Changan W. Rd., Datong Dist.

📞(02) 2552-3721

🔗mocataipei.org.tw

🕝Tue-Sun 10:00am-6:00pm