Britshake Tamsui — Restaurant in New Taipei

I had been looking forward to visit this place since it's so close to my apartment, also, both reviews and pictures looked good.

I went for the signature dish (Cod fish and chips), complete set with soup, salad, scotch egg, drink and dessert, yes I know chubby me.

Before talking about the food let me say a few things about the environment. The place looks overall nice, well lit, clean and spacious. On the downside the chairs, which sport a Union Jack, seem dirty or just plain old. Unfortunately the white part of the Union Jack is no longer white is brown which tells me they have seen better days and they were never properly cleaned throughout the years, which is a shame because they probably looked nice when they were new. Second, is there something wrong with your AC? It's so hot inside, I did come just when you opened, so perhaps the AC had just been turned on, but it was still hot 1 hour later. You should probably check that.

Food time, let's start with the soup. It was a pumpkin cream, I quite liked it, it wasn't overly heavy and thick which is usually the case, I am guessing some would prefer it that way, but not me. On the downside it was cold, could I sit where you keep the soup? It's probably colder than where I sat. I guess a solid 4 out of 5 for the soup.

Salad, I was really excited when I saw the salad, it looked so appetizing. One really starts appreciating salads more after living in Taiwan for so long. The vegetables were fresh and the amount of dressing was not overwhelming, actually I would have eaten it without dressing if I had known it was going to be a good salad. 5 out of 5 for salad.

The Scotch Egg, I am not sure about this one lads. I haven't eaten many Scotch eggs in my life to properly give an assessment. It's not my cup of tea, it wasn't bad or anything, but I could care less about it. The pickle it came with was good tho, kinda saved the dish in a way. 3 out of 5 for this guy.

The main dish. Oh boy, I am a sucker for tartar sauce and this one was goooood! Definitely biased, but I really liked it. The fish was juicy, the skin crispy, well seasoned and super tasty, the chips were okayish. I like the fact they give you this green pea pure-like thing which added more depth to a dish full of somewhat flat chips. The portion of this dish were ridiculous large, there was a chip's mountain under the fish, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered it 🤩. Tip: If you order this, I think you should remove the fish and paper from the top of the chips as soon as possible, otherwise the chips under it might get soggy. I think 5 out of 5 is deserved, it delivered what it was supposed to deliver and that tartar sauce 😋🙌

The dessert :/ this was the most underwhelming part, especially when you have it written on your menu that you handmade them. I am sorry but the cranberry cheesecake is not good, the cookie base is not yummy, the cheesecake part lacks flavor, the cranberry cover is meeeeh, the chocolate sauce kinda helped but still...it just didn't feel fresh. I think you can get a better cheesecake in the stores around this shop, maybe other desserts on the menu are better? 2 out of 5.

The drink was your average sugary green tea, you can also get sugar with black tea flavor if that's your cup of tea 😁. In summary, too sugary, didn't enjoy it. You can have it without sugar, but only hot tea, adding a non sugary cold drink option would be great. Worst case, you can get water, lots of it, they literally put the whole pitcher on your table, which is good! 3 out of 5.

Service was awesome, quick, super polite, super attentive, this alone pushes you to 5 stars on my book. Adele and the glasses guy whose name I couldn't catch where top notch!

In terms of price I think is fair for what you get in terms of quantity and taste. I paid 770 something for the whole set meal and was already satisfied mid meal. You can probably drop the egg and dessert when your order and won't miss much. Overall...

I am British and I advise you to avoid this place.

We went there yesterday. In fact we were the first customers to walk through the door at 11am. and first to order, and just about the last to get served after all the other tables filled and got their orders before us.

Enough said about the service ... Well, maybe not quite enough said ...

The waitress who served us was disinterested and remote to the point of almost not being there. My wife asked for some ice which did not come so she went and spoke to the waiter who had all the while been sitting at another table playing on his computer which he reluctantly tore himself away from to get the ice. One or two more senior staff arrived about 45 minutes later or late .. not sure which.

And the food?

The chips were not made with fresh-cut potatoes and were from a bag in the freezer. They were also served almost cold and, I strongly suspect, re-heated rather than freshly fried.

The baked potatoes were not oven-baked.

They were microwaved. They had all the flaws of microwaved potatoes: they were unevenly cooked such that much of the potato was not cooked through properly and was still hard, chalky and unpleasantly indigestible. The chicken topping was a stingy portion and cold like it had just been taken out of the fridge.

The portion sizes of the coleslaw and baked beans sides that came with the main dishes were a stingy half a mouthful. We will not be going to Britshake again, and we advise you not to go there if you want to experience British cuisine.

Do not be conned into believing that Britshake's food is typically British because it is not.

Real British food is much heartier, more substantial, and made with fresh ingredients rather than frozen. British food is also fried, baked, grilled or scrambled rather than microwaved and reheated.

Great shame, because Taipei could really do with a good restaurant serving real British food that a Brit would be proud to recommend to friends. I would be a regular customer myself, too. I really miss being able to eat a wonderful English all-day breakfast and there is absolutely nowhere in Taiwan where you can get this exquisite...

We were there today. The food was delicious as always, but I think the staffs need more training. The reasons being that As we didn’t make a reservation, we were told that we have to wait for 2 hours but in reality we waited for only half hour. I don’t know how the waiting time was estimated, but I can tell that even with the number of reservations, there are still several tables available for walk-in customers. We decided to wait as we don’t think it possible that we have to wait for 2 hours. It turns out that we were right. Unfortunately, many other customers were turned away because of that. It would be nice if the staffs be more proactive by offering waiting customers a menu or some waters to drink. We were given a table that was originally meant for 2 people, and we have 4. The question is not about the size of the table as I agreed with it beforehand. It is the way the staff arranged the seat that’s the question. Originally, she set the table with two chairs on each side, but then she set two more chairs on another side which makes it way too crowded. Then I suggested to her that we could sit more comfortably with 4 people on each side. Sorry for being direct here, but I thought it is obvious the best way and the staff should know it. After we finished the meal and I went to pay for the bill with cash on my hand. I had been standing there for a few minutes. The staff was standing there busy doing things. I didn’t interrupt her because I thought she will service me when she was done. However, even when she was done, she didn’t notice me. She was very nice, but I think she needs to pay more attention to the people and environment around her. As I said, the food was great, and the staffs were nice. Just a little bit of training and improvement, everything will be...