Picnicking on the Urban Lawn – Popular Sandwiches Near Taipei University of Education

Text & Photos /Ah Mon

A while back, a very unique café quietly opened inside Taipei University of Education. Its name is Tropical Deli Café. From Taipei Metro’s Technology Building Station, it takes only about 4 minutes to walk here. When you spot the MoNTUE Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art (the building in the photo above) in the distance, you’ll know the café is just ahead.

Tropical Deli Café doesn’t have an eye-catching, bold signboard. Even at the entrance, there’s only a small light fixture displaying the café’s name. Unless you’re specifically coming here, you might actually walk right past it without noticing. This Taipei café really is low-key and understated.

The moment we stepped into Tropical Deli Café and saw the interior for the first time, we couldn’t help but exclaim in amazement. The branches and vines in the corners and on the ceiling give the whole café a jungle-like vibe. Coupled with many potted tropical plants, it creates the illusion of being in a tropical rainforest. Yet, the interwoven wooden boards, cement blocks, and other building materials also lend the space a slightly ruined atmosphere. The multi-layered artistic design delivers completely different visual impacts and impressions—it’s such an artistic café.

In the bustling and noisy urban area of Taipei, it feels like a surreal existence. One can only say this café has a lot of personality and is sure to attract many artsy and art-loving friends. Moreover, these installations are so photogenic that you’ll find it hard to stop taking pictures. These art installations were designed by director Tsai Ming-liang, with time as the artistic theme. Drawing inspiration from natural organisms, they are given new forms of life, presenting a unique aesthetic of ruins.

Upon closer inspection, you’ll notice the café has quite a large space, but not many tables and chairs for dining. The café hopes that visitors can engage in a dialogue with these director-designed art installations within this coffee space, rather than following the purely profit-driven route of packing in as many seats as possible. The wooden tables and chairs have simple designs but are also functional for stashing guests’ bags, and they’re quite comfortable to sit on.

Unlike many mainstream cafés, Tropical Deli Café is themed around imagery and installation art. As such, the walls also play videos and projections, allowing guests to gain more insights and broaden their perspectives in this artistic space. After finding a seat, it’s time to order something to eat.

Tropical Deli Café specializes in open-faced sandwiches. Hmm—I’d never heard that term before. I asked a staff member for a brief introduction. Open-faced sandwiches originated in Denmark, Northern Europe. They are a type of portable light meal where slices of rye or black bread are topped with fresh salmon, lettuce, cheese, meat slices, and more. They’re nutritious and visually appealing. After hearing the explanation, I felt I’d really learned something new XD.

Ordering is simple. Just go to the counter near the entrance and tell the server how many self-select meal boxes ((DELI)) you’d like. Each self-select box comes with two sandwiches and two side dishes, priced at $270 per box. However, the meal boxes do not include drinks. If you want a drink, you’ll need to order it separately. There are various options like coffee, Taiwanese tea, and sparkling drinks—quite a selection—and the prices are quite affordable, similar to most cafés. Also, there’s a minimum spend of $200 per person, so it’s recommended that each person orders at least one meal box to meet the minimum. Additionally, there’s no time limit on how long you can stay.

If you’re not very hungry, you can also opt for handmade cookies paired with a drink—it makes for a nice afternoon tea.

If you’re a student at Taipei University of Education, there’s also an exclusive discount available, but only between 12:00 PM and 1:30 PM.

After telling the staff you’d like a meal box and completing the payment, you can head over to the adjacent food selection area to pick your desired items. Each dish has a card next to it with the name written on it. To choose a dish, simply pick up the corresponding card and hold it. The sandwich cards are white, and the side dish cards are green. You can select two of each color, totaling four dishes, and then hand all the selected cards to the staff, who will start preparing your meal.

Every sandwich and side dish looks delicious, and you’ll probably want to try them all. But since you can only choose two sandwiches and two sides, I hesitated for a while at the counter before finally picking these four. My friend chose four different dishes too, so we could swap and try each other’s—haha.

The café offers free drinking water, so you don’t necessarily have to buy a drink. You can also just order light meals if you prefer.

On the other side of Tropical Deli Café is Taipei University of Education. The campus has lush green lawns that are perfect for a picnic with your meal box. The café even thoughtfully provides fantastic picnic mats—completely free of charge. So, of course, we grabbed our meal boxes and headed out for a picnic. Being able to picnic in the city is truly a delightful experience.

The staff handed us the prepared DELI meal boxes. Wow—these boxes have a very minimalist design with no excessive packaging or color schemes. Because they’re square-shaped, they’re easy to carry and hold.

This meal box was chosen by my friend. Looking clockwise, the items are: Niçoise sandwich, Tandoori chicken sandwich, mushroom stir-fried in balsamic vinegar, and chestnut pumpkin salad. They all look exquisitely made and delicious, making it hard to decide which to eat first XD.

This meal box is the one I picked. Looking clockwise, it includes: grilled mushroom sandwich, salmon sandwich, octopus salad, and vegetable baked egg. I personally prefer mushrooms and seafood, so I went with this combination. There are two ways to eat open-faced sandwiches: either wrap the filling directly in the bread and take a bite, or separate the layers and eat them one by one before finishing with the bread. But for the best texture, it’s recommended to eat the bread together with the fillings.

Niçoise Sandwich

Made with boiled eggs and sliced fresh tomatoes as the main ingredients, along with parsley leaves, it feels like a very nutritious sandwich. Taking a big bite, I suddenly discovered there was also tuna salad hidden beneath the parsley—I hadn’t noticed at first. And it seems this tuna salad isn’t from canned pre-made products because it has a bit of mustard-like texture and aroma. Pretty amazing.

Tandoori Chicken Sandwich

This sandwich might be the most labor-intensive of the four today. I was stunned when I heard the process from the staff XD. The chicken breast is first marinated with unsweetened yogurt, then grilled at high heat and sliced, and finally topped with fresh onion slices and sprinkled with paprika and Indian spices. So it has a bit of a spicy kick. The white sauce on the rye bread is a mayo made from apple cider vinegar, soy milk, and plant oil. Hmm—it’s truly a complexly made sandwich. In terms of texture, I think this one is the best of the four—crispy yet chewy, leaving a memorable impression.

Salmon Sandwich

Made with fresh smoked salmon paired with homemade spread and black olives. It looks fairly standard, but the first bite surprised me. Typically, smoked salmon is paired with capers and black olives for flavor, but this sandwich actually includes wasabi in the spread, giving it a mustard-like aroma without being overly spicy. A very unique preparation—and surprisingly delicious. I really liked it.

Grilled Mushroom Sandwich

The mixed mushrooms are quickly stir-fried and then mixed with black vinegar, giving it a slight tanginess that doesn’t overpower the mushrooms’ natural aroma. It’s also paired with two different kinds of cheese. Eating all these ingredients together gives the sandwich a more layered texture. Mushroom lovers are sure to fall for this one.

Honey Lemon & Cranberry Vinegar – $120

Since the weather was a bit hot, we later headed back into the café and ordered two more drinks. The sparkling drinks were all uniformly priced at $120. The ratio of honey to lemon was well-balanced—slightly tangy and sweet with a refreshing bubbly texture, making them quite cooling. The cranberry fruit vinegar drink, a pink-hued sparkling beverage, had a slightly layered color, so you needed to stir it before drinking. It was more on the acidic side but very refreshing and appetizing—so much so that the more you drank, the hungrier you’d get, XDDDD.

Garlic mushroom stir-fried in balsamic vinegar, chestnut and pumpkin salad

After finishing most of the sandwiches, it was time for the sides. The chestnut and pumpkin salad was quite generous—the pumpkin pieces were cut large and tasted quite sweet and fresh. It also included some nuts and croutons to add texture. The dressing was made with mustard seeds and a Japanese-style sauce, giving it a slight mustard aroma that made it increasingly appetizing, XD. The garlic mushrooms stir-fried in balsamic vinegar were probably our favorite side—they featured king oyster mushrooms cooked with saba vinegar, resulting in an incredibly tender and juicy texture that had us going back for bite after bite. It was the fastest side to disappear and comes strongly recommended as a must-try.

Octopus salad, vegetable frittata

Compared to the previous two sides, I found the octopus salad and vegetable frittata to be more straightforward. The chewy slices of octopus were paired with grapefruit, lettuce, and Italian salad dressing, making for a refreshing bite. The vegetable frittata was packed with lots of ingredients such as potatoes, mushrooms, bacon, tomatoes, and broccoli.

Overall, in Taipei’s high-rise-filled urban area, finding a spot for a picnic isn’t easy. The sandwich meal box from Tropical Tropical Deli Café, paired with the green space at Taipei University of Education, makes for a fantastic picnic plan. We recommend Tropical Tropical Deli Café to everyone—gather your friends, grab some takeaway sandwich boxes, and experience the joy of picnicking with loved ones. The above is just my personal opinion for reference.

Tropical Tropical Deli Café
Phone: 02-23772208
Address: No. 134, Section 2, Heping East Road, Da’an District, Taipei City
Price: $200 and up

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