A Typical Breakfast in Taiwan

The one thing you’ll continuously hear if you visit Taiwan is how good the food is. This is not a lie, and not even some sort of disillusion on the part of a small group of people who just like to eat stinky tofu all day. It’s actually true.

You have your beef noodle soups (牛肉面 / 牛肉麵 [niú ròu miàn]), your curries (咖哩 [gā lí]), your shaved ice (刨冰 [bào bīng], also called 剉冰 [tsua bing] in Taiwanese), and my favorite, pork chops with rice (猪排饭 / 豬排飯 [zhū pái fàn]).

However, one of the greatest things you can get here is a nice filling breakfast from any number of street vendors. It’s usually inexpensive (about $1.50USD), and although sometimes a bit greasy, it tastes great!

Last week, I had the chance to go to a famous breakfast location in Taipei that, although not a street vendor stall, definitely had a certain charm of its own.

This was namely the lineup that we had to wait in to even get into the building. We arrived at just after 8am and inched along for at least an hour, and you can see for yourself the people fading into the distance and around the corner in the picture below.

The name of this place is 阜杭豆漿 [fù háng dòu jiāng] and it’s definitely worth the wait. See the picture below for a look at what we ordered for three people (total cost was about $10 US and we were more than stuffed by the end).

Going counter-clockwise, we had:

冰豆漿 / 冰豆漿 [bīng dòu jiāng] – cold soy milk 咸豆浆 / 鹹豆漿 [xián dòu jiāng] – salty tofu soup 蛋饼 / 蛋餅 [dàn bǐng] – fried “pancake” with egg 厚烧饼 / 厚燒餅 [hòu shāo bǐng] – egg sandwich with crispy bun

I apologize in advance if some of these translated names sound vague or strange; there’s really no good English names for these foods, so I suggest you just come to Taiwan to try them for yourself! At least you know how to say them in Chinese now!

If you ever visit Taipei, or are nearby, here is the address for your reference.

台北市中正區忠孝東路一段108號2F
2F, #108, Section 1, Zhongxiao East Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City

Google maps Link

 

Happy eating!

 

-Aaron

 

Supplementary:

Watch as Fiona introduces us to the delights of Breakfast in Asian, including 馒头，蛋饼，and 豆浆

http://youtu.be/3yF69N45Mog