It’s a very common situation: you’ve arrived on a super early flight and rode the Airport MRT to Taipei city, or you’re about to catch a morning train from Taipei Main Station, and you want to some delicious Taiwanese breakfast NOW!
Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. In this article, I’ll introduce 10+ breakfast shops around Taipei Main Station, with walking times, opening hours, and some tips to make sure you don’t miss your train (Taipei Main Station is huge and disorienting!)
There is some overlap in my other articles, so you may also want to visit my guides to the best breakfast shops in Ximending (most are 15-20 minutes’ walk from Taipei Main Station) and my personal top-10 breakfast shops in all of Taipei city.
Tips for Enjoying Breakfast at Taipei Main Station
- Read my guide to Taiwanese breakfast foods to figure out what and how to order.
- There are actually three different places called “Taipei Main Station”, all connected by underground walking tunnels. The underground areas are very disorienting and it’s easy to get lost!
- Taipei Main Airport MRT Station is here. That’s where you catch the MRT to/from Taoyuan International Airport (see my guide to getting from Taoyuan Airport to Taipei Main Station).
- Taipei Main Train Station is here. This is the big train station building, with food court on 2F and many shops and convenience stores on the ground floor. Below the station, there are several underground shopping streets and the platforms for the TRA (regular trains) and HSR (high speed rail). See my guides to booking train tickets and HSR tickets.
- Taipei Main MRT station is here underground. That’s where you catch the Taipei MRT Blue Line or Red Line for exploring the city. Here’s a map of the Taipei MRT system.
- Pay attention to where exactly to you will be when planning to get breakfast. It could be a long walk from one of these stations to any of the breakfast shop’s I’ll recommend below. I’ve included walking times from all three stations to each breakfast shop, plus links to their locations on GoogleMaps.
- I don’t recommend trying to find a breakfast shop outside the station unless you have 1 hour or more until your train departure.
- If you’re arriving from the airport and connecting to a local train or HSR, you need 15 minutes to walk from Taipei Main Airport MRT to Taipei Main train station and another 15 minutes to find your train platform – that’s 30 minutes minimum connecting time from Airport MRT to local train/HSR.
- If you have the time, consider to stash your luggage in storage locker while you get breakfast. There are many lockers at B1 of the train station and at the Airport MRT station. Take a photo of the lockers and a nearby landmark so you can find it again later – there are so many sets of lockers and they all look the same.
Best Breakfast Shops around Taipei Main Station
Here’s a map of the breakfast shops I’ll be recommending below. Note Taipei Main Airport MRT (green pin), Taipei Main train station (yellow pin) and Taipei Main MRT station (orange pin)
Breakfast Inside the Station
If you are tight on time, for example you have a train departing in 1 hour or less, then it would be risky to leave the station. Besides walking time (especially with luggage), some popular breakfast shops have a long wait at peak times.
The doors of Taipei Main train station open from 5 AM. There are several 7-Elevens and FamilyMarts on the ground floor which open at that time. They sell sandwiches, onigiri, tea eggs, fresh fruit, coffee, and so on. You are allowed to bring and consume food and drinks onto TRA and HSR trains but not the Airport MRT or Taipei MRT.
The ground floor of the train station also has a McDonalds (opens 6 AM), Mos Burger (7 AM), and some bakeries (10 AM). Taipei Main Station’s large Food Court, which wraps around the four sides of the second floor and has dozens of dining options, doesn’t open till 10 AM.
Fan Tuan Ba Rice Balls
If you are short on time but want a traditional Taiwanese breakfast food item, then I highly recommend Fan Tuan Ba (飯糰霸) just south of Taipei Main train station.
This hole-in-the-wall vendor sells traditional sticky rice balls (飯糰 or fantuan). Even with a line down the street, they make them FAST, so it never takes too long.
“Ba” means Lord or Ruler, so Fan Tuan Ba literally means “Rice Ball Lord”. But this Lord does not speak English or have an English menu, so you need to know what you want BEFORE you get to the front of the line.
If you’re OK with pork floss and egg, go with the signature fantuan (招牌總匯飯糰) at the top of the menu. For egg but no meat floss, order the egg fantuan (加蛋飯糰). For no meat or egg, order the vegetarian fantuan (素食) at the bottom of the menu. There’s also tuna and mayo fantuan (鮪魚飯糰).
No Taiwanese breakfast is complete without soy milk so they also sell cups of soy milk (豆漿). There’s no seating, only take-away.
The shop opens from 6 AM (closed Sundays). It is a 2-minute walk from Taipei Main MRT Station exit M8, 5-minute walk from the south side of Taipei Main Train Station, or 10-minute walk from Taipei Main Airport MRT.
Because this one is quite close, you could make there and back to the station in less than half an hour. Just make sure to leave some time for finding your train platform.
Sihai Soy Milk
If you’re looking for the quintessential traditional Taiwanese breakfast shop experience, the closest option to Taipei Main Station is Sihai Soy Milk (四海豆漿大王) a few blocks northeast of Taipei Main train station.
Shihai is one of the most famous traditional breakfast shops in Taipei among locals. But “famous” usually means busy, especially if you come at peak breakfast hours (6 to 8 AM).
If you come at that time, expect to wait in a line for take-away (外帶) or to stay (內用) – there will a separate line for each. Therefore, I wouldn’t choose this breakfast shop unless you have more than 1 hour before your train departs.
Shihai or “Four Seas” has all the classic traditional breakfast items. Their soup dumplings (小籠包 or xiaolongbao) and clay oven rolls (燒餅 or shaobing) are both handmade in house and are especially popular. You can even see the shaobing oven at the back.
Ask for the English menu, sit down anywhere (even sharing a table with someone is fine), order, then pay at the counter on your way out.
The shop is a 5-minute walk from the northeast corner of Taipei Main train station, 10-minute walk from Taipei Main MRT station, and 15-minute walk from Taipei Main Airport MRT.
Yonghe Soy Milk King
The name “Yonghe Soy Milk King” (永和豆漿大王) can be misleading, as there are many breakfast shops with this name all oven Taipei, and most of them are unrelated. The copycat breakfast shops range from the most famous one (see #2 in this article) to poor rip-offs.
This Yonghe Soy Milk King is not one of the most famous ones, but it’s definitely pretty good. It’s a bit of a longer walk from any of the Taipei Main stations. Because it’s in an area with some many offices and shops, there can be a wait for the food after you order.
On the plus side, it also has seating and English menus.
All the typical breakfast items are covered, including sticky rice balls, clay oven rolls, green onion cakes, white radish cakes, egg crepes (蛋餅 or danbing), and steamed buns.
Their rice flour crepes (河粉) are like egg crepes but made with rice flour instead of wheat flour, so they are chewier.
It’s about a 10-minute walk from Taipei Main train station, Airport MRT, or MRT station.
Fu Hang Soy Milk
Taipei’s most famous breakfast shop, Fu Hang Soy Milk (阜杭豆漿), is within walking distance or you can ride the MRT one stop east from Taipei Main Station to Shandao Temple.
Due to its extreme popularity among visiting tourists, the line for Fu Hang ranges from 15 minutes to 1 hour (or in some extreme peak times, up to 1.5 hours). Therefore, only consider this option if you have a solid 1.5 to 2 hours waiting time at Taipei Main Station.
Fu Hang is famous for its thick bread rolls (厚餅), which you can see roasting while you wait in line. The salty soy milk and egg crepes are good, too, as is the brown rice milk (米漿 or mijiang).
You can see the full menu in my Fu Hang Soy Milk breakfast shop review.
The line for Fu Hang usually goes downstairs from the second floor shop and down the street. However, the line moves fast because they are very efficient.
The shop opens from 5:30 AM and people usually start lining up well before that. Try around 6 to 7 AM to skip the opening rush and also beat the regular morning rush that comes later.
The walking time is 10 minutes from Taipei Main MRT (or ride the MRT one stop to Shandao Temple, first MRT 6 AM), 15 minutes from Taipei Main train station, and 20 minutes from Taipei Main Airport MRT.
Beef Noodles (5 Options)
Local Taiwanese would consider it perfectly acceptable to have beef noodles for breakfast (or lunch, or dinner, or a late-night snack).
If you’re only in town for a short time and want to try this famous Taiwanese dish near Taipei Station, you’re in luck. There are at least 5 famous beef noodle shops near Taipei Main Station.
The closest one is Liu Shan Dong Beef Noodles (劉山東牛肉麵). This is a Michelin-rated traditional beef noodle stall. It is tucked away in a narrow alley a few blocks directly south of Taipei Main Airport MRT station. Ask for the English menu.
It’s an 8-minute walk from Taipei Main Airport MRT, 10-minute walk from Taipei Main train station (take underground Z Mall to exit Z6 and you’ll be very close), or 8-minute walk from Taipei Main MRT station. It’s open from 8 AM (closed Sundays).
If you’re too early for Liu Shan Dong, there are 4 other options a little further away west of Taipei Main, all on the same block, and all open 24-hours (see my guide to all the best 24-hour restaurants in Taipei).
These are Fuhong Beef Noodles (富宏牛肉麵), Caihong Beef Noodles (采宏牛肉麵), Jianhong Beef Noodles (建宏牛肉麵), and Xiao Wu Beef Noodles (小吳牛肉麵).
There’s no English at these four, but just ask for beef noodles (牛肉麵), size small (小) or large (大), and wide (寬) or thin (細) noodles.
These four shops are located at the northern end of Ximending. They are a 10-minute walk from Taipei Main Airport MRT, 17-minute walk from Taipei Main train station, or 20-minute walk from Taipei Main MRT.
Round Vegetarian
If you’d like to try traditional Taiwanese vegetarian food, Round Vegetarian (修圓素食) is a super local spot very close to Taipei Main Station (all three stations).
This is not typical breakfast food but typical vegetarian noodles, soups, and mock meats. They are open from 7 AM, so it’s definitely fine to eat there for breakfast – I have several times.
Sit first, check the items you want on the paper menu, hand it to them, and pay when leaving. The menu is all in Mandarin so you can use a translation app. Most people order a main noodle soup or rice dish plus one of more small sides to share.
I would personally recommend the vegetarian stew (素焿) with wide rice noodles (半條). For sides, note the small items like dried tofu, braised egg, or kelp at the bottom, ranging from TWD 10 to 30 in price.
I also recommend the vegetarian version of oyster omelets (蚵仔煎, made with egg and mushrooms) and the vegetarian version of tube rice pudding (筒仔米糕), two traditional Taiwanese dishes that usually contain seafood/meat. These two dishes are somewhere between a main dish and a side – ask for a take-away container if you can’t finish.
The oyster omelet and braised egg are made with real egg, but everything else on the menu is vegan. Read my guide to ordering vegetarian or vegan food in Taiwan and my favorite vegetarian restaurants in Taipei.
The shop is closed on Mondays. It’s a 5-minute walk from Taipei Main Airport MRT, 6-minute walk from Taipei Main train station (take underground Mall Z to exit Z6 and it’s a few steps away), or 6-minute walk from Taipei Main MRT station.
A Few More Options
- Da Si Fang (大四方蛋餅) Take-away egg crepes (danbing) with English menu and pictures, if you need something fast, only 1 block south of Taipei Main train station, opens from 7 AM.
- Single Eyelid Double Eyelid (單眼皮双眼皮早餐輕食2店) A more relaxed, Western(ish) brunch place a couple blocks northeast of the northeastern corner of Taipei Main Station, opens from 8 AM.
- FangLin Breakfast (芳林早餐) One of the closest breakfast shops to Taipei Main Airport MRT station, if you need something ASAP when first arriving from the airport. They only have toasted sandwiches and egg crepes. Opens at 6:30 AM, closed Sundays.
- Grilled Charcoal Toast (烤司院碳烤吐司) Excellent toasted sandwiches a couple blocks east of the northeastern corner of Taipei Main Station. The peanut butter and pork sandwich is especially popular. Closed Sundays.
- Indonesian Food (Taipei City Mall) One of the underground shopping streets below Taipei Main Station, Taipei City Mall or Y Mall, contains several Indonesian restaurants catering to the city’s migrant workers. Here’s one example but there are many others. Most open around 9 or 10 AM.