a tale of two touch screen restaurants

Poor Mr Dickens must be turning in his grave right now.

One Saturday, I managed to make it to two touch screen restaurants - Takeru, Chatswood and I-Taiwan, Chinatown.

No photos from Takeru but I would highly recommend the bento boxes at the bargain basement price of $12.50. Other popular choices were the curries and pastas (I love Asian-style pasta). The other good thing is it's tucked away in the back corner of Victoria Plaza (next to Chatswood Chase), so it's not as packed as other more prominent eateries around the Chatswood shopping area. By the time we left though, people were writing their names on the queueing sheet commonly featured at popular Japanese eateries (Makoto and Ichi-ban Boshi spring to mind)

That night, we went to the new Taiwanese restaurant in the Chinatown pedestrian mall. I didn't even know what it was called, so told my friend that "it's the restaurant that's painted black outside, next to the CD shop, near the Goulburn Street end of Chinatown". These poor directions inevitably led to my friend calling me and us having one of those hilarious conversations where you're standing in close proximity, talking to each other on the phone -

F: "I'm in front of the Dixon Centre"
V: "Me too! But where? I can't see you?"
F: "ummm, just in the front?"

V and F turn around and it turns out they're within 5 metres of each other, just facing in opposite directions. Cue rolled eyes from chapflap and V's boyfriend.

We only discovered that the restaurant has touch screens upon entering, and that it has an upstairs seating section. The seating was very comfortable, with booths designed for chatting over pearl milk teas and shaved ice desserts. But main meals first, of which I only took one photo:

Mince pork noodles ($8). There are also sliced pork noodles. And lots of other types of soup noodles, in true Taiwanese style. They went down well with a serve of Taiwanese pickles ($4).

When you order the shaved ice dessert, they bring you a little order form to select your toppings. $5.30 for 3 toppings and only 50c more for another one, but I was afraid that my excess dessert consumption would disturb my enjoyment of the Joey Yung concert we were going to that night.

The result of my order - lychee, paw-paw and fig jelly. They put coloured sprinkles on the ice :) It was delish.

V forced (tee hee, ok, "encouraged") her boyfriend to order a hot drink just so we could look at the cute cup that they came in. This was the hot milk tea, which V's boyfriend said was very sweet. Before the meal, we also had various cold drinks which I can't remember now. All I know is that I had the cold milk tea with herbal jelly, having deprived myself of Chatime at Chatswood earlier that day on account of the queue.

I-Taiwan is a good option for catching up with friends and playing with touch screens, particularly if Wagaya is booked out (as it was that night, most likely with fellow Joey fans! Anyone else out there also in attendance? How cool was the Kowloon bus out the front of the Entertainment Centre?)

Takeru
Shop 10, 369 Victoria Avenue (enter through the ground level and walk straight through to the back corner)
Chatswood NSW 2065

(02) 9412 1203

Open 7 days from noon to 7pm

Also in the city, but that didn't feature touch-screens the time we went (about 6 months ago)

I-Taiwan
52 Dixon Street (which is, as I described, next to the CD shop near the Goulburn Street end of the pedestrian mall. Good luck finding it with such directions!)
Haymarket NSW 2000

(02) 9212 2220


Not sure of opening hours