Ruh Cafe No.2 📍 Coffee in Kaohsiung 路人咖啡2號店 ☎+886 7241 6321

Ruh Cafe No.2 路人咖啡2號店 📍 801, Taiwan, Kaohsiung City, Qianjin District, 大同二路46號 🚅 5 minute walk from Cianjin 前金 station ☎ +886 7241 6321 ⏰ 8am - 6pm (Sun off)

Modern cafes are everywhere in Taiwan. Taiwanese love chilling in cafes with friends, their devices (phones, etc), and even books.

Today's Taiwan is as much a coffee as a tea country. Taiwanese cafes usually serve espresso in aesthetic, comfortable settings. They compete on quality of coffee served, snacks / desserts / pastries, decor (social media friendliness) and service. Everyone have their personal preferred port of call for coffee.

We tried ~~several~~ many cafes and my personal favourite from this Kaohsiung trip was Ruh Cafe No.2 路人咖啡2號店.

Ruh Cafe is a small local chain and has several outlets in Kaoshiung. But, Ruh Cafe No.2 is different from other Ruh Cafe outlets or any other cafe in Kaoshiung.

To start, Ruh Cafe No.2 is open air (no air con), right along a busy street (Datong 2nd Road). Air con is important in Kaoshiung as its tropical climate is hot and sunny.

At Ruh Cafe No.2, customers either sit at the bar or at the couple of tables and chairs along the five foot way. While it was hot and sunny, sitting at Ruh Cafe No.2 was cool and comfortable thanks to the shade and electric fans. Also, Datong 2nd Road wasn't overly busy, so I wasn't bothered by road noise, grime or exhaust smoke.

The cafe is back-to-back with Gongyou Qian Jin Market 公有前金市場 a morning market selling vegetables, fruits, meat and seafood with a few cooked food stalls.

Perched at the bar, I can smell the cooked food from the market stalls which made my espresso smell better, in my opinion.

The local regular sitting next to me at Ruh Cafe said so too.

The cooked food stall right beside the cafe also added nice aromas from their sizzling wok to my coffee ☕ 😁

The Chinese only menu was at the front. A cappuccino 卡布奇诺 costs NTD90 or SGD3.80.

Latte is known as 拿鐵 literally "take iron" simply because 拿鐵 sounds like latte.

On a side note, the old name of Kaoshiung harbour is 打狗 or "beat dog" but it has nothing to do with ill treating our canine friends (thank goodness 🙏). It was just that the aboriginal name of the place, Takao which means "bamboo forest" sounded like "beat dog" in Mandarin Chinese.

Coffee isn't "cheap" in Taiwan. For perspective, a 600ml bottle of Taiwanese beer (I love its clean, refreshing, sweetish taste with my meals) costs NTD100 in restaurants. Bubble tea usually costs around half the price of latte.

My usual cappuccino. Rich round body, robust nutty fruity, bitter sweet with a nice caffeine kick (double shot espresso).

Ruh Cafe has a wide range of Arabica beans to please the novices and connoisseurs / geeks among their customers.

But, they have neither Robusta nor Liberica, the two coffee beans pervasive in Southeast Asia and in Hainan Island.

The two young men running the cafe were very serious about their craft, knowledgeable about coffee and very friendly. Each cup served was carefully prepared.

Regulars came in ordering "一样" or same. Rapport was great.

I am not a regular here (yet) but on both visits, I was offered a free taste of Ruh's pour over coffee. One a premium smokey Japanese roast (I don't know what Arabica) and another a floral bean from Panama.

The two nice gentlemen were not scrolling their phones to avoid engagement or skving - they were trying to answer my request for recommendations for good milkfish shops 🤭 Taiwan, especially its southern region is milkfish country.

Such sincerity 🙏

They recommended 阿德虱目魚店 which was an excellent hyperlocal shop - that's a story for another post.

The next time I am in Kaoshiung, Ruh Cafe No.2 will be No.1 of my coffee port of call. Kaohsuing has many more atas (premium) looking cafes but I like the unpretentious feel and laid back personality of Ruh Cafe No. 2.

If you like Ruh Cafe coffee but prefer atas environment, can also check out their No.5 outlet at Pier-2 Art Centre located in one of the many beautifully repurposed Japanese era warehouses here. Pier-2 is a great place for a walk, especially in the mornings and evenings when the sun isn't high overhead.