Fuhang Soy Milk (阜杭豆漿) stands out at the most famous breakfast shop in Taipei city, especially among foreign tourists.
For many visitors, getting up at the crack of dawn to wait in a long line at Fuhang is pretty much a mandatory experience. The line can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 1.5 hours. But the real question is: is it worth the wait?
In this review, I’ll share my experience visiting this iconic breakfast shop, why it’s so famous, what’s on the Fu Hang Soy Milk Menu, the best time to visit, and other tips to help you decide if you should start your day in Taipei here.
Fu Hang tops my list of best breakfast shops in Taipei. You can also consider these other breakfast shops near Taipei Main Station and in Ximending.
Fuhang Soy Milk Introduction
Fuhang Soy Milk is one of the oldest traditional Taiwanese breakfast shops in Taipei.
This style of Taiwanese breakfast food dates back to 1955, when Chinese migrants in Yonghe district of New Taipei City introduced some pastry-like dishes from their homeland. That’s why today, there are so many breakfast shops in Taipei with the name “Yonghe”. Read more about Taiwanese breakfast foods here.
Fuhang was established in 1958, only a few years later. Their recipes have changed very little in that time. Central to their cooking is laomian (老麵, literally “old dough”), which is similar to sourdough but with no yeast.
The cooks let the laomian rise for no less than 15 hours before using it to make their signature thick bread (厚餅 or houbing) and thin bread (薄餅 or baobing, usually called 燒餅 / shaobing or “clay oven rolls” in other shops).
Diners can observe these breads being baked on traditional round ovens as they wait in line.
Fu Hang’s decades-long dedication to consistent quality, original recipes, freshly baked items, and efficiency in serving gained it a reputation as one of the best.
This fame only catapulted after it bagged a Michelin Bib Gourmand award in the inaugural (2018) Taipei Michelin guide.
Fuhang Soy Milk Menu
The line at Fu Hang moves fast. When you get to the front, you won’t have time to think. You need to know what you want when your turn comes.
Here is the full menu at Fu Hang Soy Milk in case you want to plan your order / daydream about delicious Taiwanese breakfast food.
The same menu is posted near the front of the line. There’s also a Japanese and Korean menu available.
Here is the full list of numbered items in English, Mandarin, and pinyin. I’ve put stars beside my most recommended items.
Page 1 (thick breads and other items)
No. | English | Mandarin | Pinyin |
1 | Soy Milk (hot/cold) | 冰/熱豆漿 | bing/re doujiang |
2 | *Rice Milk (hot/cold)* | 冰/熱米漿 | bing/re mijiang |
3 | *Salty Soy Milk* | 鹹豆漿 | xian doujiang |
11 | Signature Oven Baked Thick Bread | 厚餅 | houbing |
12 | Signature Thick Bread with Scrambled Egg | 厚餅夾蛋 | houbing jia dan |
13 | Signature Thick Bread with Donut Stick | 厚餅夾油條 | houbing jia youtiao |
14 | *Signature Thick Bread with Egg and Donut Stick* | 厚蛋夾油條 | hou dan jia youtiao |
41 | *Egg Pancake* | 蛋餅 | danbing |
42 | Egg roll with Donut Stick | 蛋餅夾油條 | danbing jia youtiao |
43 | Egg with Green Onion | 蔥蛋 | cong dan |
Page 2 (thin breads and other items)
No. | English | Mandarin | Pinyin |
31 | Caramel Bun | 焦糖甜餅 | jiaotang tianbing |
32 | Green Onion Roll | 蔥花鹹餅 | conghua xianbing |
33 | Dried Radish Roll | 蘿蔔絲餅 | luobosi bing |
21 | Sesame Flat Bread | 薄餅 | baobing |
22 | Sesame Flat Bread with Scrambled Egg | 薄餅夾蛋 | baobing jia dan |
23 | Sesame Flat Bread with Donut Stick | 薄餅夾油條 | baobing jia youtiao |
24 | *Sesame Flat Bread with Egg and Donut Stick* | 薄餅蛋夾油條 | bao dan jia youtiao |
44 | Fried Egg | 荷包蛋 | hebao dan |
45 | Deep Fried Chinese Donut | 油條 | youtiao |
46 | *Rice Ball/Rice Ball with Egg* | 飯糰/飯糰夾蛋 | fantuan/fantuan jia dan |
How to Order
The staff at Fu Hang want to move people through as quickly as possible, so they aren’t always very patient.
Unless you know how to pronounce Mandarin words correctly, I don’t recommend that you try to order in Mandarin. They will most likely not understand you.
The staff can speak a little English. The easiest way to order is to tell them the numbers of the items you want. Also tell them whether you want to stay (內用 nei yong) or to go (外帶 wai dai).
Because they are constantly pumping out food, the items are already made when you order them. As soon as you order, they will place the items on a tray for you.
Slide down to the end, where you will pay. After that, you can sit down anywhere in the food court. Watch out for a tray of condiments like spicy sauce, soy sauce, and chopsticks – you can help yourself.
The bright orange chili oil is meant for the salty soy milk, but you can put it on anything. The soy sauce they have is just regular soy sauce, not the thick and sweet version used at most breakfast shops.
When you’re finished eating, take your tray and all your trash to one of the bins before leaving.
My Experience Having Breakfast at Fuhang
Here’s my experience visiting Fu Hang Soy Milk in October of 2023.
Getting There
Fuhang Soy Milk is located in a food court on the second floor of Huashan Market (華山市場).
The entrance and stairs to the second floor are located just around the corner from Exit 5 of Shandao Temple MRT on the Blue Line. Keep in mind that the MRT doesn’t start running until around 6 AM.
Fuhang is only one MRT stop or 15 minutes’ walk from Taipei Main Station (MRT or train station building), 20 minutes from the Airport MRT station (for getting to Taoyuan International Airport), or 30 minutes’ walk from Ximending.
Because I wanted to arrive at Fuhang around 6 AM, I stayed at Dongmen 3 Hostel, which is walking distance from Fuhang (20 minutes). This hostel is also very close to Yongkang Street, which is famous for its many restaurants.
It wasn’t hard to find the entrance when I got there, because the line of people was spilling out from it. There were only about 15 people lined up on the street, which is not bad for Fuhang. The line moved surprisingly fast.
Once I reached the door, the line went up the stairs to the second floor food court, where Fuhang is located. In the below layout image, you can see the staircase at the bottom which you’ll be coming up.
There are other restaurants in the food court, but at this time in the morning, Fu Hang was the only one open.
Inside the food court, the line wrapped around Fuhang’s baking area to the left (14, 15, 16 on the above layout). While waiting, I could see the chefs at work preparing thick breads and thin breads and roasting them over a round oven.
Just before reaching the main counter (17, 18 in the above layout) to order, I saw the posted English menu with pictures (the same menu I shared above). I only had a few minutes to peruse it and decide what I wanted.
20 minutes after first lining up, it was my turn to order. Within seconds, the foods I asked for were on my tray and I was paying.
Despite the crowds, there were still plenty of available seats in the food court. At busier times, don’t be afraid to share a table with strangers.
As for my order, I went with a Signature Thick Bread with Egg and Donut Stick (#14), egg pancake (#41), and bowl of hot rice milk (#2).
If I could have ordered one more thing, I would have gone for the salty soy milk (#3) or rice ball with egg (#46). I saw other people’s and it looked delicious.
All three items I ordered were excellent. The thick bread was new for me, as most other traditional breakfast shops only serve thin bread. It was nice and toasty but also very filling. I don’t suggest getting either bread without egg, otherwise it’s too dry.
You can never go wrong with egg pancakes, while hot rice milk is the perfect way to wash it all down – it’s thick, sweet, and peanut flavored.
Best Time to Go to Fuhang
Fuhang Soy Milk is open from 5:30 AM to 12:30 PM every day (closed Mondays).
Many serious foodies want to be one of the first in line, so they arrive there at 5:00 AM or even earlier. I personally don’t think this is necessary.
I feel that the best times to visit Fuhang is from around 6 to 7 AM. This way, you can skip that initial rush at opening time, but also get there early enough to beat the later morning crowds. When I left around 7 AM, the line was noticeably longer than when I’d arrived at 6.
Because Fu Hang Soy Milk is especially famous among foreign tourists, it will naturally have longer lines during peak tourist seasons. December, January, and February are the busiest months for tourism in Taiwan.
Holidays and long weekends will also be busier.
Was it Worth the Wait?
In my opinion, 20 minutes for a delicious Taiwanese breakfast is nothing. I’ve waited just as long for typical, inferior breakfast shops in my own neighborhood in New Taipei City.
Those ones didn’t even have much of a line, they are just much slower and only make the food after you order it. Fu Hang’s line may be way longer, but it moves much faster.
If I had to wait 1 or 1.5 hours for the food, that might be a different story. Honestly, I’d probably still do it, but only once in my life.
There are many other solid traditional breakfast shops in Taipei, but they all waits at peak times, too. Last but not least, waiting in a line for a while only makes the food taste that much better when you finally get it.
Therefore, in my opinion, Fu Hang Soy Milk is well worth the wait. However, if you prefer to not feel like a tourist, then choose a traditional breakfast shops that’s favored among locals. I recommend several in the article I linked to in the last paragraph.
A Note about the Reviews
If you’ve spent some time reading Fu Hang Soy Milk reviews online, you may now be on the fence about going due to some negative reviews. But here are a few things to keep in mind.
Many tourists come to Taiwan and only try Fu Hang Soy Milk because that’s the one that their guidebook or food bloggers told them to visit.
This means they’ve never visited any other Taiwanese breakfast shop besides Fu Hang. Then they leave a negative review saying things like “I didn’t like the flavor of salty soy milk” or “there are too many carbs”.
This is just ridiculous. These are critiques of Taiwanese breakfast food in general, not of Fu Hang’s quality compared to other breakfast shops.
Secondly, many people will leave poor reviews due to the long waiting time, but these people usually visit at the busiest time of the day, so I don’t know why they are surprised. Expect a line.
Last but not least, I find that anytime a restaurant or food stall achieves Michelin status in Taiwan, the subsequent reviews become especially harsh and critical.
For Taiwanese who have had the same dish a hundred times, if it doesn’t meet their exact criteria for how crispy, flaky, oily, or QQ (chewy) they prefer it to be, they’ll leave a 1-star review.
Take these reviews with a grain of salt (and a sip of soy milk)!
Nick, I so appreciate the level of detail and thoroughness of your travel review: I’m using it as my template for my own trip planning set for late December this year! With one restaurant alone, you took the time to not only set expectations for each facet of dining, but suggested tactics for ignorant travelers like me and even had the foresight of adding perspective to the reviews posted (I have noticed a lot of reviews for places in Taiwan skew negative and have pondered that myself).
Thank you again for creating such a comprehensive travel plan, without any pretentiousness or preaching. If we’re in Taiwan at the same time, I owe you a salty soy milk!!
Glad you found it useful!
Thank you for this, Nick! Nice guide for our trip to Taiwan next week.
Hi Nick, any chance you would know if their bread is vegan? I will be staying close to the main station and wondering if it’s worth visiting as a vegan.
I believe it is. On this page, for the breads, they only mention that vegetarians should note that the thick bread contains green onions while the thin bread doesn’t (Buddhist vegetarians in Taiwan don’t eat onions). If there was eggs or dairy, I feel the would have mentioned it as well. They also have vegetarian fantuan (sticky rice rolls) and salty soy milk which should be vegan too.
Hi Nick! Loving your blog so much. I’m a huge planner, and I’m doing a Taiwan trip in a few months with my boyfriend and best friend. Not only have your blogs (this and nickkembel.com) been super informative, they’ve been such a joy to read, too. Your pieces make me very excited for the trip 🙂
Thank you so much, I’m very happy to read that!
Thank you Nick for all the information shared. I planned my trip to Taiwan pretty much based on your blog.