Patio Party Review

Wednesday Nite, May 12 - Salsa Party at Patio - 9:00pm!

 

A friend and I arranged to meet at Patio (in the Neo 19 building near Warner Village) at 8:00 for dinner followed by a night of dancing. Patio is across the city from my office, so I left 30 minutes before the meeting time... One taxi ride later, I arrived to find out that I had caught my shirt on something and unravelled the bottom hem. Having come straight from work, I was already looking considerably less than salsa-sexy!  I ran to the nearest shop (Mango) to find a quick replacement. As Taiwan stocks only smaller sizes... and being as a few years in Taiwan (everything tastes better with a little pork fat, you know?) has increased my dress size, my options are limited. 5 minutes later and with my wallet considerably lighter, I run to Patio to see if G is there yet. She isn't. The host leads me to my table. We descend into a sunken retro pit! She shows me to my circular gray fuzzy chair with a view of the geometric white balastrades and the light patterns being projected on the ceiling. She also informs me that the live salsa band won't start until 10:00- an hour later than advertised! (On weeknights, every hour is precious)

 

G arrives and we order. The food was only mediocre, the prices were what I have come to expect in Taipei, but the service... Well I would really like to know what the service charge was for! Not only did the waiter repeatedly give the wrong dish to the wrong person and forget to bring us various necessary items, he dropped food in my friend's lap when clearing the table. Hmmm...

 

Anyway, 10:00 arrived (as did many of our "salsa friends") and we moved into the red lounge area to hear the "live salsa band". Hmmm... (again). In the first set, the band did not play a single salsa song! They started with a love balad, then a cumbia number, followed by cha cha cha and a Ricky Martin cover! We were actually looking forward to the band taking a break so we could have some salsa.... but it turns out the DJ didn't have even 1 salsa CD! Salsa Party indeed! We moved the party to Barrio before the second set started! And for all you Barrio fans, Barrio has started charging cover on Wednesday nights! ($300 NT)

 

Next Wednesday, I think I'll stay home and dance in front of the mirror to my iTunes collection.