Hana village kitchen — Restaurant in Alishan Township

What a great place- you would think you are in the middle of nowhere, but then there's this gem surrounded by beautiful nature.

Apart from REALLY good a la carte items, they also have a bakery and other homemade morsels in the adjacent store. The garlic bread is soft, fluffy and uses a bunch of real garlic, the raisin bread is my favorite with a crust that you will have a hard time to find elsewhere in Taiwan, when you knock on the bottom of the bread it makes the most beautiful sound of a perfectly baked loaf, also the "original flavor" longish bread is very tasty and goes very well with some salted butter.

The main dishes are bigger than expected but we finished all of them anyway because it was SO good, perfectly seasoned and with fresh ingredients. The salad dressing together with the thinly sliced cucumber reminded me a bit of Greek Tzatziki (which I like) and together with the melon it has a very interesting and tasty twist, very refreshing and with lots of herbs.

The pumpkin soup is served piping hot as it should be, with a smooth mouth feel and profound flavor.

The grilled veggies with some tasty chili oil and cheese on top of some hearty, creamy polenta/couscous was fantastic, too.

All dishes are beautifully presented, so it's also a feast for the eyes.

The pickled kumquat from the store is so nice, not too sweet, refreshing and healthy.

Make sure to bring enough cash so that You can try out everything, as prices are on the higher side.

Service is swift and very friendly.

In every case, definitely worth a visit- or actually...

I mean, we waited over an hour to be seated and another hour for our food and I'm still rating it 5 stars, so that should tell you something. This is WORTH an extra drive. This is WORTH a wait (especially with friends because this food is great group sharing food!). We live in Taichung, and this would be a great restaurant for Taichung. So for the middle of the mountains, it's FANTASTIC. Highly recommend the platters (meat and fruit/bread) as well as the seasonal salad. The pizza was definitely good, but not as exciting as the other things, especially for the pizza price. I think the pizza sauce needs a little more flavor (more sweetness and definitely saltiness, especially since they don't use much cheese so it ends up lacking a little punch. It still gets nice flavor from the wood oven, though). The fruit tea was also great, but don't forget to stir in the sugar! Overall, the location, the mountain backdrop, the rustic decor and food presentation, and the quality of the food make this dining...

This is more fusion braai / Mediterranean (Italian) family fare than anything else like straight South African / Afrikaans braai or modified Taiwanese ingredients foods. Not that I expected the staff come up or even the menu to come up and say 'n Verskeidenheid braaivleis met slaai om te deel, vars vrugte in ’n deelbak, en pizza om saam te geniet.'

Location quite hidden as it's like in a random spot up the mountain pass, architecture and ambience is perfect for the type of foods served. Raw ingredients appears to be either self grown or at least all very fresh. Only negative thing I'll add is that the wait staff is relatively indifferent... not that they're rude, but more along the lines of servers in a busy night market where you're not paying much and there's lots of people waiting; such isn't the case here cause compared to local foods in these mountains it's not cheap, and since it's mostly reservation only, there's no rush since every...