How do you explore Tainan, the former capital city of Taiwan?
It helps to have a convenient location starting with an elegant stay at Silks Place Tainan. This centrally located hotel is walking distance from some of the city’s major museums and sometimes more importantly good food and snacks! This heartfelt but elegant handmade mug set the tone for our visit.
Room
The rooms are large and understated. In addition to a traditional living room with coffee table and arm chairs, there is a section with a tatami mat, table, and low chairs. This could even double as a sleeping area for those traveling with family. There is also a nice, large tub to soak away a day walking around Tainan. The neutral colors, large size, and furnishings certainly make for an elegant stay at Silks Place Tainan. Also face masks as a welcome gift is brilliant!
But if you are staying with young kids, you have your pick of adorable rooms with a different feel. A teddy bear motif runs throughout the hotel too with a large one welcoming all visitors in the lobby. You can select a room with a travel teddy bear theme – we saw Paris and London ones with the cutest decorated rooms and souvenirs for kids. It’s a tough choice between Silks Place Tainan and Just Sleep Tainan Hushan for kids!
Facilities
The hotel itself is large, modern, and yet nuanced; this is a delibrate marriage of Western and Eastern aesthetics (as evidenced as well by the rooms as described above). There are models of Tainan and sculptures on the ground floor which give you a better sense of Tainan itself. The lobby is wide and welcoming and if you need anything, a friendly robot assitant will bring it to your room.
The hotel also has a large outdoor pool giving a city view and a welcome respite during hot summer days. The kids club and gym are on the same level so you could definitely drop your kids off and head off to a workout next door.
Food
Silks Place Tainan has an excellent set of restaurants and we were lucky to them them all!
Silks House serves both Cantonese and Taiwanese/Tainan local food. We tried a wide variety of dishes from roast duck to lobster rice and the best shaved ice or 礤冰 I’ve had in Taiwan. The egg custard tart with mochi was also excellent. I am not normally one for sweets but they really prepare fabulous desserts. The presentation and execution were all refined and excellent.
Robin’s is both the location for the breakfast buffet and also hosts private teppanyaki sessions at night. The breakfast buffet was excellent with a wide selection of options from pastries (including Taiwanese pastries!) to charcuterie, fruit, and local Taiwanese favorites like beef soup. Do not miss the slightly spicy egg pancakes with pork 打拋豬起司蛋餅 which are so tasty!
The teppanyaki itself is befitting of an elegant stay at Silks Place Tainan. The chef explained everything well and the plating was beautiful. The seafood and steak were cooked wonderfully. It was also nice to have access to the buffet outside for salad and dessert. But definitely have bananas flambé at Robin’s first!
Travel tip: You can choose from breakfast at two locations here! There is a smaller Cantonese style breakfast restaurant on level 4 with Cantonese dim sum, roast meats, and a wide variety of cooked food (mostly Cantonese). It’s great to have dim sum from the cart!
Round out the night with drinks at the Glass House at level 4 by the pool. This is perfect if you’re with a group because you can play a drinking game that allows you to choose from different tea infused mini liquor shots. This accompanied by traditional savory bar foods from roast beef to sliced chicken. The staff here patiently explained the game and tried to help us give away our (untouched) drinks when we couldn’t finish them! They truly represented the spirit “to serve as we would like to be served (將心比心、待人如己).”
Activities
Do you want to explore the neighborhood or stay inside?
If you opt to explore, book a free walking tour with the hotel 3 days in advance. Professional tour guides accompany you Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday afternoons. It was lovely to see sites from the local art museum to Hayashi department store – the second department store in Taiwan open 1932. Since we visited in the summer, we were happy our tour included a shaved ice stop too!
If you stay in, you have to book a perfume and coffee tasting experience. T-Bar is an unassuming spot in the corner of the lobby of Silks Place Tainan where you can experience this.
First, you try the different types of coffee offered. I am one of the few people who do not like coffee, but found these palatable because the flavors were light and included fruit undertones. Tainan is starting to grow its own coffee beans so this is pretty cool to taste.
Then, you are presented with a base perfume scent and a variety of other perfume notes including coffee scented ones similar to what you tasted. It was fun to do this (coffee!) perfume making activity at Silks Place Tainan. Don’t worry, you don’t have to add much coffee perfume if you’d like another scent!
The wild part is then making perfume that could incorporate some of these same coffee flavors. The flavors are infused into perfume and you could add them to your own custom perfume. This also includes the hotel’s own signature scent as a base layer. It was so fun experimenting with this!
Service
Service across Silks Tainan was great. We just had wonderful experiences from the chefs at Robin’s to the tour guides and perfume making host. Everyone was always helpful, informative and kind. It may have helped that we had such great food experiences associated with the hotel and staff too! I would definitely return to Silks Place Tainan when I’m in the city again!
