We loved the Mandarin Oriental. The room was wonderful and the service exquisite. The breakfast buffet and tea lounge were great, too. We didn't eat dinner at the hotel and, instead, went out in town for that. We're major foodies, so bad food will make an otherwise great hotel stay less than for us. We stayed there through Amex's FHR, so the breakfast for two and $100 USD property credit were included in the deal. Out of all the hotels we've stayed at in Taiwan (which also include the Shangri-La Taipei, Grand Hyatt Taipei, Regent Taipei, and Miramar Garden Taipei--note the Miramar Garden Taipei only gets a mention here as we got an upgrade to their top suite, which was wonderful in every way), we enjoyed the Mandarin Oriental the most, even though the Shangri-La Taipei is a very close second and we enjoyed the food at the Shangri-La a little more, too. We'll gladly stay at the Mandarin Oriental the next time we're in Taipei, though we'll also check out the Shangri-La again as well.

Note, I've heard some comment that the best location in Taipei among the so-called luxury hotels is probably where the Grand Hyatt is. From my perspective, while this may be true, this is a very minor point for us given that taxis are so cheap and convenient, as is the metro. Since my spouse grew up in Taiwan and speaks fluent Chinese, travel via taxi is super easy, though I can see how it can be troublesome for some (generally you need to know the address in Chinese, so the Google address doesn't really help if your taxi driver doesn't speak much English, which we find is much more the case than not).

Also in Taipei on this stay, we spent two nights at the Regent. Older and less appealing to the eye than the Mandarin Oriental and Shangri-La, we still preferred the Regent to the Grand Hyatt, both from a room perspective (we had a bad room experience at the Grand Hyatt, with mold present in the bathroom, etc.) and from a food perspective (the food at the Regent was superior to the Grand Hyatt to us). That said, we wouldn't stay there again, but we say the same thing about the Grand Hyatt. The Regent was very close to many shops and restaurants, which as I mentioned above is a plus, but not something that would otherwise make a hotel lose points if the area around it was lacking due to the affordable and easy transportation options in the city.

As an aside, the ANA Intercontinental Tokyo was also a pretty solid property. I stayed in one of the newly renovated rooms, so didn't have any complaints on that front. Some in my group who stayed in some of the older rooms weren't the most pleased, and the construction to upgrade the older rooms kept some of them up during the day (we were there for work and some people worked the night shift).