Traditional Taiwanese breakfast is one of the culinary highlights of visiting or living in Taiwan. Nothing beats starting a busy day with a hearty meal in a Taiwanese breakfast shop, not to mention it’s a window into local daily life.
However, with their long menus, often in Mandarin only, Taiwanese breakfast shops can be difficult to navigate, especially for first-timers.
In this guide, I’ll cover the origins of Taiwanese breakfast foods, how to find the best shops, how to order, and the most breakfast food items you’ll have to choose from.
At the end, I’ll provide a full menu decoder with English, Mandarin, and pinyin for pronunciation.
What is Taiwanese Breakfast: A Quick History
In old times, most Taiwanese (like their Southern Chinese counterparts) ate congee (粥) for breakfast. Today, many guesthouses & B&Bs in Taiwan still serve congee for breakfast.
In the 1950s, some Chinese migrants living in Yonghe district of New Taipei City introduced a breakfast menu of carb-heavy, flour-based dishes from their homeland in China. The original shop, World Soy Milk (Shijie Soy Milk) is still open today (find it here).
The idea stuck, with thousands of copy-cat breakfast shops emerging in the following years and decades. That’s why today there are so many breakfast shops with “Yonghe” in their name – most of them are unrelated.
Most Taiwanese breakfast shops also include “soy milk” in their name, as this is standard drink to go with breakfast in Taiwan.
That same shop in Yonghe district was also the first to introduce the concept of 24-hour breakfast shop in the 1970s, another idea that many breakfast shops in Taiwan still adopt today.
Taiwanese breakfast fast can be enjoyed anytime of day or night, and many consider it the perfect way to end a night of a drinking or night clubbing.
To this day, most of the items you’ll see on traditional Taiwanese breakfast shop menus originate in China, including clay oven rolls, green onion cakes, and steamed buns from Northern China, soup dumplings and sticky rice balls from Shanghai, and white radish cakes from Southern China.
To put all of these items together on one menu and call it breakfast, however, is a uniquely Taiwanese tradition and the country has become famous for it.
In the last 40 years, a new type of breakfast shop has emerged and become extremely popular in Taiwan – they are even more common than the “traditional” ones.
These menus in these “modern” breakfast shops feature mainly Western food items, like breakfast burgers, sandwiches, hash browns, and so on, but often with Taiwanese twists. A few typical Chinese/Taiwanese items are usually on the menu, too, such as egg crepes (danbing).
Mei Er Mei (美而美) is considered to be the first breakfast shop of this kind, and today, branches of this chain are everywhere.
Some Taiwanese will even say “Let’s go out for Mei Er Mei” instead of saying “Let’s go out for breakfast”.
How to Find the Best Breakfast Shops
To find a really good traditional breakfast shop in Taiwan, it’s best to do a little research first.
In this article, I recommend the top-10 traditional breakfast shops in Taipei. I’ve included 5 famous ones (expect lines of tourists, especially at Fu Hang Soy Milk!) and 5 very local ones.
For convenience to travelers, I’ve also introduced the best breakfast shops around Taipei Main Station and best places for breakfast in Ximending, the city’s most popular neighborhood among travelers.
The “modern” style breakfast shops are everywhere. No matter where you are staying, from large cities to smaller towns, you can often just take a stroll from your hotel in the morning and you’ll see one. In the countryside and industrial areas, there are even breakfast food trucks which drive around.
You can also simply input 早餐店 (zao can dian or “breakfast shop”) into GoogleMaps or search Mei Er Mei (美而美) to find them.
Tips for Ordering
At very popular breakfast shops, there may be a line to stay (內用 or nei yong) and another line to take away (外帶 or wai dai).
If not, you should always tell the staff whether you want 內用 or 外帶 when ordering. On paper menus, you may need to put a check beside either option, and write your table number if you are staying.
Touristy breakfast shops will usually have an English menu available, but you may have to ask for it.
A few even have Japanese, Korean, and Thai menus, too. But the vast majority of local breakfast shops won’t have an English menu. See my menu decoder at the end of the article for how to read Mandarin breakfast menus.
Most breakfast shops have a very similar menu. That’s why locals will hardly even look at it when they go in – they are already know what’s on it.
While most locals simply tell the staff what they want, some breakfast shops will have paper or laminated menus. Mark the items you want and hand it to the staff.
Usually you pay after eating (to stay) or pay when you receive the food items (to go). If you need tissues, they may be attached to a wall inside, and you should take your tray and trash to the bin before leaving.
Common Traditional Breakfast Food Items
Here are pictures and descriptions of the most common breakfast food items you’re likely to see on traditional breakfast shop menus. To see the names of all these items in one table, scroll to the end of the article.
Clay Oven Rolls (Shao Bing)
Clay oven rolls (燒餅) are magical. I freakin love them. The name refers to a wide variety of flaky, unleavened pastries which can have sweet or savory filling or no filling at all.
The most common kind seen in many traditional breakfast shops are rectangular, thin, flat, and covered in sesame seeds (see above photo or top-right side of below photo).
On their own, these rolls are too plain. In traditional shops, the options will usually be clay oven roll stuffed with fried dough sticks (I find this too dry) and/or egg (my favorite because it adds some moisture).
At Fu Hang Soy Milk, Taipei’s most famous traditional breakfast shop, they make a unique thicker version of shaobing, which they call thick bread (厚餅 or houbing), while they call their thinner ones thin bread (薄餅 or baobing) – essentially normal shaobing.
In modern breakfast shops, you’ll see more options, like you can get them stuffed with meat, fish, egg, cheese, vegetables, and more.
There’s another kind of clay oven rolls which you may also see on breakfast shop menus. These are a harder/crunchier variety and always eaten on their own, not stuffed with anything. Personally, they aren’t my favorite.
This harder variety includes sweet ones like sugar filled rolls (焦糖甜餅 or jiao tang tian bing) and savory ones like green onion rolls (蔥花鹹餅 or cong hua xiang bing) and white radish rolls (蘿蔔絲餅 or luobo si bing).
These kinds of clay oven rolls are often displayed on the breakfast shop counter (see the cover photo of this article for an example).
There’s a famous Michelin-rated stall in Nanjichang Night Market selling only these, called “Unnamed Clay Oven Rolls” (see image above).
Egg Crepes (Dan Bing)
Egg crepes (蛋餅) are very simple, but it’s hard not to love them. These are essentially thin crepes with green onions. In the most basic/traditional form, they are fried with an egg, rolled up, and sliced into bite-sized pieces.
Sweet soy sauce (醬油膏 or jiang you gao) and/or spicy sauce go very well with these. Shops may ask if you want it, or sometimes you add it yourself.
In modern breakfast shops, you can get various other ingredients added to danbing, such as corn, bacon, pork, bean sprouts, tuna, cheese, and more.
A cheese egg crepe (起司蛋餅 or qisi danbing) is my single most ordered item at Taiwanese breakfast shops. I could never get tired of them. But sometimes I get crazy and ask for tuna & cheese – Taiwan’s version of a tuna melt!
Egg crepes one of the most kid-friendly items on a Taiwanese breakfast menu, too. My kids love ’em. They are a good option for a smaller breakfast, too. But for me, most of the time, one egg crepe is not enough for a full meal, so I’ll need something else to go with it.
Also keep an eye out for rice flour egg crepes (河粉蛋餅). They look almost the same but are made with rice instead of wheat, so the skin is more QQ (chewy). This breakfast shop in Taipei has them. See the above picture.
Another yummy variation is deep fried egg crepes, which are crispier, such as here.
Green Onion Cakes (Cong Zhua Bing)
Some but not all breakfast shop menus also include a regular green onion cake (蔥抓餅, also called 蔥油餅 or cong you bing).
These are the typical Taiwanese green onion cakes which are most commonly served at street food stalls and in night markets across Taiwan.
The cakes are thick, flaky and round. Most breakfast shops serve them on their own or with egg added. On rare occasion, you may encounter different flavored ones, like sweet potato cakes (they have an orange color), yam flavored ones (purple), and toona (green).
Green onion cake street food or night market stalls tend to offer more options, like adding basil, cheese, various meats, and kimchi, and they are generally yummier. Therefore, I usually buy my green onion cakes from street food stalls instead of breakfast shops.
Soup Dumplings (Xiaolongbao)
Just like green onion cakes, soup dumplings (小籠包) are another dish that can be seen on breakfast menus but also street food stalls, night markets, and in restaurants.
Pretty much any time of day or night is fine for enjoying xiaolongbao. Taiwan’s most famous restaurant, Din Tai Fung, specializes at them, but not for breakfast.
If you order soup dumplings in a breakfast shop, they will almost always be pork ones. One order to stay will usually come in the same basket that’s used to steam them.
Steamed Buns (Baozi)
Baozi (包子) refers to a wide variety of steamed buns originating in Northern China. Even xiaolongbao (see last entry) are a kind of baozi. Technically, only ones stuffed with something are baozi, so plain buns like mantou are considered a different thing.
In many breakfast shops, you’ll noticed a large steamer with glass windows and racks of baozi inside.
Some common steamed buns include mantou (饅頭, plain white with no filling, what Taiwanese doctors will tell you to eat when you are sick), meat (肉包 or rou bao), red bean (豆沙包 or dousha bao), taro paste (芋泥包 or yu ni bao), black sesame (芝麻包 zhima bao), and vegetables (菜包 or cai bao).
One of my favorites is to order a plain mantou or vegetable steamed bun and ask them to add egg and cheese to it. Meat, bean, and taro ones are best on their own.
Besides breakfast shops, there are many shops which only sell baozi, sometimes throughout the day. Here’s one in a convenient location in Taipei.
Sticky Rice Balls (Fan Tuan)
Sticky rice balls (飯糰) are a classic, traditional breakfast food item that originated in the Shanghai region of China.
Honestly, I don’t love the English name “rice balls”, as they aren’t shaped like balls (they are more like logs). And there are many other Chinese/Taiwanese foods made from rice and actually shaped like balls (like tangyuan). So I just call these their real name, fantuan!
Breakfast shops which serve fantuan will have whole dedicated bamboo basin filled with steamed sticky rice (see image below).
When you order one, they’ll take a scoop of rice and stuff it with pork floss (for vegetarians, say 不要肉鬆 or bu yao rou song), dried radish pieces, and fried dough stick.
It took me years of living in Taiwan to even try one of these. I never imagined eating that much rice for breakfast could be appetizing. But one finally tried one, I was instantly hooked. They are SO GOOD!
More adventurous breakfast shops, or fantuan-only shops like this one, will give you the option to add more things, like egg (fried or hard-boiled), spicy sauce, seaweed, tuna & mayo, vegetarian versions, and more.
They always come in plastic, so they are an easy take-away item and can keep for a few hours.
Fried Dough Sticks (You Tiao)
Fried dough sticks (油條) are more like an ingredient than a whole breakfast. You’ll often see bunches of these long, twisting sticks beside the grill in breakfast shops, waiting to be added to fantuan, egg crepes, or clay oven rolls. Outside of breakfast, they are even added to hot pot.
However, for many elderly Taiwanese (and I’ve seen this in China, too), freshly made fried dough sticks dipped in warm soy milk can definitely be a breakfast on their own.
Nobody seems to agree what we should call these things – besides fried dough sticks, I’ve seen them named called many names in English, like Chinese donuts, fried dough twists, twisted crullers, twisted rolls, oil sticks (literal translation), and more.
Note that these are essentially just sticks of fried batter and are a little salty. Unlike Western donuts, I’ve never seen sugar added to them, as yummy as that would be (business idea?) Taiwan has other versions of donut which are sweet.
Salty Soy Milk (Xian Doujiang)
While soy milk is generally a drink, I put salty soy milk (鹹豆漿) here because it is more like a soup.
Salty soy milk is served hot in a bowl and taken with a spoon. Usually, cut up chunks of fried dough sticks are added to give it some texture. Diced green onions and some bright orange chili oil are also common toppings.
The flavor of this dish can be off-putting for those who aren’t used to it, even people who normally enjoy (sweetened or plain) soy milk. It definitely gets mixed reviews from visitors who dare to try it, but I like it.
Chive Pockets (Jiucai He)
You’ll sometimes see this gem, chive pockets (韭菜盒), in the “other items” section at the end of breakfast menus.
These calzone-like bundles of goodness contain loads diced chives, little cubes of tofu, glass noodles, and sometimes pork.
Although it’s not really necessary, some Taiwanese will order them with an egg fried on top, because why not?
White Radish Cakes (Luobo Gao)
White radish cakes (蘿蔔糕) are rectangular pressed cakes made from white radish and rice flour. Sometimes, small dried shrimps, dried shallots, and/or little pieces of meat are added for extra flavor.
These are a typical dim sum dish from southern China. Many breakfast shops in Taiwan have them, and it’s common to ask for an egg to be fried on them. They are best with some sweet soy sauce and/or spicy sauce.
Modern Breakfast Food Items
As I described in the intro, Taiwan’s “modern” breakfast shops which have a mix of traditional Taiwanese and Western(ish) breakfast food items.
One thing I personally love is that these shops carry cheese (even though it’s just highly processed “American cheese” slices). To add cheese, just say 加起司 (jia qisi) after any item.
Breakfast Burgers (Han Bao)
Probably the most popular item at modern Taiwanese breakfast shops is breakfast burgers (漢堡). After clay oven rolls and egg crepes, this is the item I most commonly order when getting breakfast in Taiwan, and the same goes for my Taiwanese family members.
The best part about Taiwanese breakfast burgers is that they have so many patty choices. You may see pork (豬肉 or zhu rou, the most common), beef (牛肉 or niu rou), crispy chicken (麥香雞 or mai xiang ji), cuttlefish (魷魚 or you yu), shrimp (鮮蝦), cod fish (鱈魚), and canned tuna (鮪魚).
I’ve never seen veggie patties, but vegetarians can order egg burger with cheese (蛋堡加起司).
Most burgers come with lettuce, cucumber, sweet mayo, and often a little squirt of ketchup.
Sandwiches (San Ming Zhi)
Besides burgers, most modern breakfast shops have a whole menu section of sandwiches (三明治), with a wide range of possible kinds.
The bread may be toasted or not and is almost always white. Often they will be cut in half and wrapped in plastic for quick take-away.
If you’re coming from a Western country, you may find some sandwich options familiar and appealing (egg and cheese, ham, tuna, pork, bacon lettuce tomato, jam, etc.)
But you may also find some more unusual ingredients and combinations, like strawberries, apple slices, corn, peanut powder, bean sprouts, pork floss, and the list goes on. Welcome to Taiwan!
On some breakfast menus, sandwiches are simply labelled toast (土司 or tusi). If they have things like egg, meat, vegetables, etc, that’s a sandwich. They may also be labelled as toasted sandwich (烤三明治 or kao san ming zhi).
Thick Toast (Hou Pian)
Thick toast (厚片, literally “thick slice”) is exactly what it sounds like – a super thick slice of toasted white bread. Toppings choices usually include butter, jam, Nutella, peanut butter, and others. The above Instagram post features ones with matcha butter.
Toppings like peanut butter or Nutella are usually put on before toasting, which gives them an interesting texture. It’s often cut into four triangular, bite-sized pieces before serving.
Teppanyaki Noodles (Tie Ban Mian)
Teppanyaki Noodles (鐵板麵) are packs of noodles and sauce which breakfast shops will open up and cook right on the grill for you (hence the “teppanyaki” name).
The two most common flavors are black pepper (黑胡椒 or hei hu jiao), which is my most recommended one, and mushroom (蘑菇). I’ve also see tomato (番茄 or fanqie), which to me takes like bad spaghetti.
Getting a fried egg on top (加蛋 or jia dan) is practically a must. I find this to be an especially filling breakfast, so I only order it when I’m really hungry.
Hash Browns (Shu Bing)
Many newer Taiwanese breakfast shops carry hash browns (薯餅). These are almost always the flat, fried puck-shaped hash brown patties – yes, the same kind as McDonalds.
A hash brown order will usually be a single one – an easy side order, but not a complete breakfast on its own. Ketchup (番茄醬 or fanqie jiang) is usually available.
Taiwanese Breakfast Drinks
While soy milk has always been the standard drink to go with breakfast in Taiwan, you will see a few others.
Soy Milk (Dou Jiang)
Soy milk (豆漿) is what most Taiwanese take with breakfast, not coffee. That’s why so many traditional Taiwanese breakfast shops in Taiwan have “soy milk” in their name.
When ordering soymilk, you’ll need to specify a few things. For size, it may come in small cup (小杯), medium cup (中杯), or large cup (大杯).
You can ask for iced (冰的) or warm (溫的) – menus are more likely to say hot (熱). It will usually come in a paper cup with plastic-sealed lid. If you get it hot and to stay, it may come in a bowl with spoon, just like salty soy milk.
Soy milk can be quite sweet, so many shops offer half-sweet (半糖) and sugar-free (無糖).
The best soy milks are made in house and are very rich in flavor. When Taiwanese are used to those, it’s hard for them to taste the highly processed ones made in other countries, which often have many other ingredients added.
However, if you are used to the latter, you may find the soy milk at breakfast shops in Taiwan too soy-tasting – just keep in mind that this is the real thing, as it has been made for hundreds of years in Chinese culture.
Brown Rice Milk (Mi Jiang)
Brown Rice Milk (米漿) is a sweeter and thicker cousin of soy milk. It’s made from brown rice with peanut flavoring and also available hot or cold. It’s a great way to warm your belly on a cold morning. If you don’t love soy milk, try this!
I really like brown rice milk, but it’s so thick that it’s like a meal in a cup, so I don’t get it often. Unlike soy milk, there’s no unsweetened option.
One smart thing to do is to ask for half unsweetened soy milk, half brown rice milk (米豆漿 or mi dou jiang), but not every shop will be able to do it.
Iced Tea and Coffee
Most traditional breakfast shops only carry soy milk and brown rice milk.
However, modern breakfast shops will usually have a longer list of drinks, including sweetened or unsweetened black tea (紅茶 or hong cha), sweetened black tea with milk (奶茶 or nai cha), and coffee.
To honest, the coffee at most breakfast shops is terrible. The worst ones are made with a powder mix. You are much better off going to 7-Eleven or any cafe for coffee.
Some breakfast shops will make passable real coffee, usually labelled Americano (美食咖啡 or mei shi kafei) or Italian-style (儀式咖啡 or yi shi kafei, but this is usually just a fancy way of saying Americano).
A few other drinks, such as matcha lattes, juice, or bottled milk may also be available. Don’t expect to find bubble tea in breakfast shops.
Taiwanese Breakfast Menu Decoder
Here I’ve compiled a list of all the most common breakfast foods in Taiwan from the article and how to say them.
To properly pronounce them, I recommend copy-pasting the Mandarin names to GoogleTranslate or another translation app then use the speaker function to hear it.
Note that the character for “add”, 加 (jia), can also appear as 夾 on menus, which is pronounced the same. This word is very useful when ordering any food in Taiwan, for example 加起司 (add cheese or jia qisi), 加蛋 (add egg or jia dan), and 加辣 (add spicy sauce or jia la).
| English | Mandarin | Pinyin | Examples |
| Clay oven roll | 燒餅 | shao bing | 燒餅加蛋 (with egg) 燒餅油條加蛋 (with fried dough stick and egg) 焦糖甜餅 (sugar filled) 蔥花鹹餅 (green onion) 蘿蔔絲餅 (white radish) |
| Egg crepe | 蛋餅 | dan bing | 起司蛋餅 (with cheese) 培根蛋餅 (with bacon) 玉米蛋餅 (with corn) 鮪魚蛋餅加起司 (with tuna and cheese) |
| Green onion cake | 蔥抓餅 / 蔥油餅 | cong zhua bing / cong you bing | 蔥抓餅加蛋 (with egg) |
| Soup dumplings | 小籠包 | xiao long bao | 豬肉小籠包 (pork) |
| Steamed buns | 包子 | bao zi | 饅頭 (plain white) 豆沙包 (red bean filling) 菜包 (vegetable filling) 肉包 (meat filling) 芋泥包 (taro filling) 黑糖包 (black sugar flavor) 芝麻包 (black sesame filling) |
| Sticky rice ball | 飯糰 | fan tuan | 飯糰加蛋 (with egg) 飯糰加油條 (with fried dough stick) 素食飯糰 (vegetarian) |
| Salty soy milk | 鹹豆漿 | xian doujiang | 鹹豆漿加油條 (with fried dough stick) |
| Chive pocket | 韭菜盒 | jiucai he | 韭菜盒加蛋 (with egg) |
| White radish cake | 蘿蔔糕 | luobo gao | 蘿蔔糕加蛋 (with egg) |
| Hamburger | 漢堡 | han bao | 豬肉漢堡 (pork) 牛肉漢堡 (beef) 麥香雞漢堡 (crispy chicken) 花枝漢堡 (cuttlefish) 鮮蝦漢堡 (shrimp) 鮪魚漢堡 (canned tuna) 鱈魚漢堡 (cod) 蛋堡加起司 (egg with cheese) |
| Sandwich | 三明治 | san ming zhi | 火腿三明治 (ham) 煎蛋三明治 (fried egg) 鮪魚三明治 (tuna) 豬排三明治 (pork cutlet) 培根三明治 (bacon) 蔬菜三明治 (vegetable) |
| Thick toast | 厚片 | hou pian | 巧克力厚片 (Nutella) 草莓厚片 (strawberry jam) 花生厚片 (peanut butter) 奶油厚片 (butter) |
| Teppanyaki noodles | 鐵板麵 | tie ban mian | 黑胡椒鐵板麵 (black pepper) 蘑菇鐵板麵 (mushroom) 番茄鐵板麵 (tomato) |
| Hash browns | 薯餅 | shu bing | 薯餅加蛋 (with egg) |
| Soy milk | 豆漿 | doujiang | 小杯半糖冰豆漿 (small cup, half-sweet, iced) 大杯熱豆漿 (large, hot) |
| Brown rice milk | 米漿 | mijiang | 小杯溫豆漿 (small cup, warm) |
| Black tea | 紅茶 | hong cha | 冰紅茶 (iced) 無糖冰紅茶 (unsweetened, iced) |
| Milk tea | 奶茶 | nai cha | 冰奶茶 (iced) 無糖冰奶茶 (unsweetened, iced) |
| Coffee | 咖啡 | kafei | 美式咖啡 (Americano) 義式咖啡 (Americano) 冰拿鐵 (iced latte) |