Tasting Journey #107 - 天外天無煙燒肉

天外天無煙燒肉
台北市民權東路一段78號
02.2592.3400
http://tianwaitian.com.tw/yakiniku/about.html


Its funny how when we get visitors from the headoffice, they always have recommendations for a place to eat in Taipei.  I'm always interested to try out these "non-local recommended" restaurants, but at the same time, they could be a gem since the visitors were probably brought to those restaurants by suppliers.  These places need to be decent, and of certain quality for suppliers to be bringing their guests to right?

 

The restaurant is clean, well-lit and air-conditioned. I can see why foreigners enjoy this place.

 

天外天 is an all-you-can-eat BBQ place that comes with hot pot and haagen dazs ice-cream.  Buffets in Taipei are quite competitive, and usually come with lots of decent selections.  I'm not sure why there tends to be hotpot at the same time as BBQ here, as this seems to be a trend.  I find that customers usually just focus on the BBQ grill, and the hotpot just keeps boiling empty broth over and over.  Maybe it's a marketing scheme to offer more options, or maybe it's the restaurant's sneaky way of minimizing the amount of meat consumption on the BBQ end.  In addition, like all other BBQ restaurants, they also serve come cooked dishes as an option.

Lots of dessert selection, though my focus is mostly on the Haagen Dazs ice-cream and the meiji popsicle sticks.  Bottomless beer too!  To start off, they serve you their "standard" BBQ package before you start your a la carte orders.  This "standard" package is a tricky way to fill up your stomach.  The meat are sliced too thick, and are hard to grill.  The meat selection in this package is also only so-so.  Luckily, the portion's not large, so there's still plenty of room to go for the more decent stuff.

Overall, the experience is good.... I guess no restaurant can go too wrong, as long as you have the company right?