I had to leave the house yesterday because they were cleaning the water towers and we wouldn’t have water from 9am to 5pm.

At least, because sometimes things get delayed and accidents happen.

I went to Monini 墨尼尼 because I remembered it as a nice place to hang around for a few hours with good food for a reasonable price. Also, I had a 600 NTD coupon burning a hole in my pocket that was going to expire on the 15th.

Hate to say that it no longer is any of that and I likely won’t be going back much in the future. Not for a full meal anymore anyways, but maybe for a take-out of their mushroom crab risotto.

Mozzarella sticks (165 NT$): Crunchy but oddly flavorless otherwise. Couldn’t really taste the mozz and the breading had a bit of that “been in the freezer for too long” flavor. I love mozz sticks, but this was barely edible even with the marinara sauce.

Spicy Mexican pizza (318 NT$): This was surprisingly picante. I think they didn’t use marinara as a sauce base, but something like Tabasco. Or it was tomato sauce plus the liquid from the pickled jalepenos? It wasn’t bad, per se, but it was slightly too spicy for me and I didn’t much like the taste of the sausage they used. I think it was a kind of Chinese sausage, not hot dogs, so deffo on the sweet side.

Corn chowder (65 NT$): This wasn’t bad? I liked it anyway. But it very much tasted like soup from a packet. I’m not sure if they used something like Knorr, but I had a spoonful that had a bit of not fully rehydrated onion in it.

The Mexican pizza was too spicy for me, so I ended up upgrading to a set meal and packing the pizza itself up for Kev. It’s an additional 169 NT$ for your choice of a drink, a dessert, a bowl of soup, and a roll with tuna spread.

They have a series of drinks ranging from 120 NT$ to 180 NT$ and you can pick any of those if you do the 169 NT$ upgrade.

I chose the citron tea (120 NT$) last time I was there with family and it tasted oddly of Tang, so I went for the English milk tea (150 NT$) this time.

I asked, and it’s not made with fresh milk, which was what deterred me last time because I’m not a huge fan of powdered creamer.

Welp, it’s worse than that. I think they used instant milk tea because the whole thing tasted wonky and extremely artificial.

I think that their move away from milk tea made with fresh milk was disappointing if understandable in the current economic climate, but instant milk tea is just ridiculous for something they were going to charge 150 NT$ for.

Arguably barely anyone would just drop in for a cuppa and a dessert and pay full price, but you never know. And now they’ve completely cut off that possibility.

Lipton tea bags are cheap! Powdered milk is totally affordable if you’re charging 150 NT$! Even using a higher quality powdered creamer would’ve been fine. But …oddly no?

Maybe it was how meh everything previously was but I felt that the roll also didn’t have that “delicious fresh bread” taste it used to have. The tuna “sauce” seemed mostly the same as before, but it was very ???? to begin with. Not a bad ???? per se, but it definitely is “cheese product” kind of “hyper-processed to the point where you can’t really tell how it began and what’s in it”.

There’s some kind of pork product in it at any rate. I know because the last time we were there with someone who couldn’t eat pig, they replaced it with something else.

I had their creme brulee for dessert (although they called it 奶酪 which I translate as more of a blanc mange) and it was fine in that “this was probably made with a mix and tastes of artificial vanilla but it’s not inedible” sort of way.

I brought the crab and mushroom risotto (328 NT$) home for my mom and I had a spoonful and it still seemed good, but who knows. I’ll try again sometime when I have spare cash to burn and need a place to sit for a while.

But speaking of which – when I went yesterday, they had their music piped up loud to the point where I feel like it would’ve interfered with conversation and it definitely was sensory overload to the point where I had my headphones in the entire while. Makes it less of a good option for hanging out.

Grade: 60, maybe? If they mess with the crab risotto then it’s all over.