S3:E1 | Taipei

Back to Roots

By Nathan Tsai

June 27^th, 2025

The Flight In

Something about crew controls on semi-modern airplanes are so charming. The clarity of design integrated with digital-analog hybrid controls appeals to me.

Early Morning Overcast

There's a feeling that you can only get in the early morning overcast of the humid, smoggy, haze of large Asian cities. The gleam of concrete in the sun, softened fog contrasting with the dark shadows of windows and metal really set a sense of place and time in my mind.

鼎元豆漿 - Ding Yuan Soy Milk

No. 30-1號, Jinhua St, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City, 106

Taiwanese breakfasts are one of my favorite types of breakfasts. What makes the Taiwanese breakfast so appealing is a diversity of culinary styles and techniques to create a staggering variety of dishes. These dishes often feature at least one of flour, soybeans, and/or eggs that are steamed, fried, grilled, baked, and/or broiled. Some dishes are served saucy, some dry, some soupy, some sticky. Savory, sweet, sour, and spicy all feature prominently across the breakfast spread.

I'll write more about Taiwanese breakfasts in later posts, but the above assortment of dishes is as good of a place to start as any. I'll start from the top and proceed clockwise.

Top right: Xiao long bao (小籠包 - XLB) have been popularized as a Taiwanese staple by the globally successful restaurant Ding Tai Fung but the ones that look like these originate from Shanghai. The history and classification of the universe of XLB is a surprisingly deep and confusing space to explore — maybe I'll dive into this topic in some later posts.

Simply put, all XLB can be classified along two axes: soupiness and the delicateness of the skin/wrapper. A low scoring XLB isn't necessarily bad as everyone has different tastes.

These XLB were perhaps a 3/10 in both of these variables. I'd say that these are the prototypical street XLB. They were warm, meaty, savory and satisfying all at the same time. In the grand scheme of things though, nothing too special.

Bottom right: Dan bing (蛋餅 - egg pancake) are another breakfast food that has an insane number of variations. The one represented here is what I associate as being the classically correct version — a not-too-thin wheat flour crepe cut with some cassava flour for some bounce, griddle-cooked, and married to a thin layer of scrambled egg. They're often lightly seasoned so the eater can add sweet or salty soy sauce, chilis, and soybean paste to their own tastes.

These were perfect. These dan bing were soft and tender, fragrant with some lard. The egg was just the right thickness to add some of it delicious flavor and texture. As you can see, I prefer pure chili on my egg pancakes so I'll typically add a chopstick's worth of fresh chili on top of each piece, dip the whole thing in some chili oil, and pop it in my mouth for something that's savory, spicy and chewy all at the same time.

Bottom left: Xian dou jiang (鹹豆漿 - savory soy milk) is unlike everything else in this picture in that there is a generally accepted single version of the dish. It's made by pouring hot soy milk into vinegar and "curdling" the soy proteins. It's finished with fried dough, pickled vegetables, scallions, and chili oil. The end result is something along the lines of a savory, sour, sweet, spicy tofu soup. Done right, the "tofu" is puffy and airy like a cloud, the broth is thin in texture and rich in flavor, and every bite brings a different blend of textures and flavors. It's probably my favorite part of a Taiwanese breakfast.

This one was great.

Center left: Shao bing (燒餅 - baked biscuit) are commonly known as 'clay oven rolls' and represent another category of Taiwanese breakfast foods with hundreds of variations. They are traditionally unleavened flaky pastries with a wide variety of fillings. They are baked in clay ovens and served piping hot.

The longer rectangular one was a sweet roll filled with a turnip jam. The round one was savory and filled with pickled vegetables. Both were almost short-bread like and a great way to offset some of the wetter foods like the soy milk or the XLB.

Shao bing you tiao (燒餅油條 - baked biscuit with fried doughnuts) are another variation of the aforementioned shao bing. I think the primary criticism I'd level at Taiwaneese breakfasts is that it's optimized for being filling at a low price. This means a lot of carbohydrates, a lot of salt and sugar and vinegar and spice, but definitely less on the more expensive fillings like meat vegetables. I think this is a great example of what I'm talking about.

This is a bread sandwich. The outside is a thin crispy, crunchy flaky, savory flatbread that is aromatic and tasty. The 'filling' are literally sticks of dough deep fried and left to soften in the humidity. They are also fragrant from the frying process with a light sweetness. You're essentially just eating two different kinds of fried bread at the same time one slightly more savory on the outside one slightly sweeter and softer on the inside.

Eating this once in a while is actually fine by me, but this is definitely not something I would want to eat on a daily basis not when there are so many other foods that are served at breakfast that just taste so much better.