The Astoria Cafe (Mingxing) opened in 1949, founded by a group of White Russian emigres who had fled the revolution by way of Shanghai. It quickly became the favourite haunt of Taipei's post-war literary set — the writers Bai Xianyong and Huang Chunming were regulars, and an early literary magazine was edited at its tables.
It still serves Russian soft bread, borscht and coffee in a faded upstairs room near the North Gate, with a bakery on the ground floor. As much a piece of cultural history as a cafe, and an atmospheric break on the edge of Ximending.