A neighborhood institution is gone in Taiwan. Xiao-hui’s Thai Style Cuisine is no more! Xiao-hui sold her restaurant to some enterprising Vietnamese ladies who have transformed the place into (yet another) Vietnamese karaoke. Xiao-hui herself has moved back to Southeast Asia, in northern Thailand.
When they bought the place, the new owners were adamant about keeping the cuisine the same, and not changing the menu. At first, they kept it identical. Xiao-hui personally trained their staff in her style of Thai cuisine. They used the upstairs rooms for karaoke rooms. Now they’ve decided to remodel the downstairs to build new karaoke rooms, due to (what I understand is) complaints from owners of the floors above.
I’m going to say it: There are already two Vietnamese karaoke places in the same number of blocks. This new place makes three. There is another karaoke place in between too, making 4 total karaoke places in 2 blocks. Do we really need another karaoke place in this neighborhood? I say no. We do however, need more good food places. Naturally I’m concerned that food will be secondary at the new place because as you can see in the photos, there isn’t much room for tables with those new karaoke rooms and the giant counter in the front. It remains to be seen.
Years ago I used the pinyin “shao-hui” for tagging photos and articles on this blog. Since studying Chinese, I’m now using “xiao-hui” as tags. I just hope it will be a place we can hang out at like the old days….
Former field engineer MJ Klein now lives in Taiwan, and writes articles that primarily feature photographs of travels of MJ and wife Hui-chen, plus daily goings on in the bustling island nation of Taiwan, and other places in Asia. Articles feature people, culture, food, situations and sometimes the trials and tribulations of traveling in places such as China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Laos and of course Taiwan.
