Danish food Tulip Timeout

Ah, hot dogs.  One of the few fast foods that I’ve never got on with. Maybe it goes back to being a kid in the UK of the 80’s when a hot dog meant, a limp uninspiring sausage (oo-er missus!) that had been boiled to imperfection, a boring bun, too much ketchup and if you were lucky: onions.  Getting a hot dog for lunch was for me akin to getting Al Capone for tax evasion. I mean it’s OK I guess, but…

It seems for many Taiwanese it is much the same. Hot dogs are a cheap and nasty thing you get in the 7-11, and only worth spending about 1.50USD on. Over the years, I’ve seen several hot dog places come and go in Taiwan where the business plan seemed to be “They like burgers, they like pizza, lets open a hot dog shop!”, not knowing the already mentioned association with cheap and nasty.  Local people ( who are of course the core audience) were never going to spend nearly 10USD on a hot dog. As business plans go it would be the same as “they like clarinets, they like oboes, let’s open a crumhorn shop!”  Now there may very well be people who do enjoy the dulcet tones of the crumhorn, but everyone who wants one will have bought theirs in the first two weeks. As business slows, the business moves into crumhorn repair and when that is over, for a final hurrah, they start selling bassoons.

Enter Tulip Timeout: a Danish hot dog place which bucks the trend. Dining with me today was a man who needs no introduction, mostly because it was just me, and I’m not that interesting. I’m kinda tall, and I can I write stuff. Anyhoo, everybody is now properly back to work after the coronavirus shenanigans you may have heard about. 

I’ve been here several times and always ordered the traditional pork burger, which is always a treat. Unfortunately I found today, the Gongguan branch has sadly closed so I had to hotfoot it across town to Taipei’s own den of the feckless and the wretched: Ximending. I thought I’d take one for the team and try a hot dog. If it all fails, I only had to do it once, right?

I ordered the triple cheese hot dog, and as part of the combo, fries and lemon tea. There are lots of different hot dogs available: names mentioned include the Viking, the Classic,the Thor, the Danish (which in hindsight I should have gone for just because of the challenge) the burger I mentioned earlier and now a few more traditional burgers. There are vegetarian options too, but hey I’m just one guy with a very small appetite at the moment. Drinks on offer were all standard soft drinks, so Sprite, Coke, so nothing that screamed DANISH! at me. You could upgrade the fries to cheese fries if required.

I’m probably going to come back, but it was more the location of the Gongguan branch that drew me there, because I go to that area very often. Granted, it is good stuff, the sausage was long, slender and meaty (stop it!!), everything worked- but I’m not in the habit of going over to that side of town. Although, I may have been convinced that hot dogs are not a force for evil.

That’s five! Sort of 10% done!

Price: 174NT

Ximen (No. 6, Chengdu Road) MRT exit 1