Despite my better judgement, and general rule about booking restaurants with a view, I booked lunch at Shin Yeh. Shin Yeh is located a top Taipei 101, one of the tallest buildings in the world.
On certain lists which I trust, the restaurant ranked highly, plus we were only in Taipei for a short time so I felt it would be worth it to see. In general, my experience is that restaurants with a view are overprice, and the food is mediocre. They know people will come anyway, for the view. There are a few exceptions, but I have generally found this to be accurate (by the way, Shin Yeh has minimum spends for tables by the window). To start, the view IS good (here it is, I just saved you hundreds of dollars).
The meal started with some unremarkable snacks.
Then squid and various other items which all lacked flavor.
The soup broth was nice and delicate. It was sea cucumber, pork soup.
The main was a braised pork belly with “mullet roe” fried rice. The pork was ok, but dry. The fried rice was more like white rice with some ingredients thoughtlessly thrown in. Look at the rice dish below. That is not fried rice.
Some more unremarkable seasonal vegetables came next.
….and an average dessert.
Service was ok. It was not bad and not excellent like this type of restaurant should be. I was still happy to be there – in a different city, nice view, good company, and average food. I would definitely not go back. The building must have an observation deck. If you want to go to the top, I’d suggest you explore that option first. 6/10