food in taiwan – breakfast

One of the first things I have to do when I come back to Taiwan is head over to Shiao Ding’s (Little Ding’s) and have some traditional Chinese breakfast food. Shiao Ding has been around for at least 20 years, serving up breakfast in their little shack of a building. They moved away for a while because their building was condemned, but business at their new site was poor, so they moved back, at reduced rent and with the understanding that the landlord was not responsible if the roof caved in. It adds to the air of authenticity to eat street food with the possibility of the building falling on your head, don’t you think?

Here are a few things you can eat:

soy bean milk

This one’s salty, with pickled mustard stems, tiny dried shrimp, crispy pieces of you tiao (chinese donut), cilantro, scallions, chili oil, sesame oil, soy sauce and vinegar, which gives it a sort of curdled look. Maybe sounds a little gross, but it’s tasty. You can also have soy bean milk sweetened with sugar, hot, warm or cold.

Here’s you tiao, which is a long piece of fried dough, airy inside. A bowl of hot sweet soy bean milk with you tiao used to be my favorite meal as a kid, but now I’m more of a salty fan.

This is shao bing, which is a flaky sesame flatbread. Many people split them open and fill them with fried egg, you tiao or sliced meat (although you really eat that in restaurants rather than at streetside vendors). The one in the picture is actually a sweet one, with a slightly sweet sugar filling.

Another one of my favorites: fan tuan. It’s a glutinous rice ball, with filling inside. I like mine sweet, with you tiao, ground peanut powder and sugar, but it’s more common to find salty ones, filled with picked mustard stems, pork or fish sung (which is dried and fried) and you tiao). It’s chewy and crunchy at the same time, and I love them.

I don’t eat these that often, but they are very popular: dan bing. It’s an egg, fried with scallions, and just as it’s about to set and finish cooking, a pancake is thrown on top. They slice it up and serve it with thick soy sauce.

Shiao Ding serves a few other things, but these are my favorite.  I can get most of these things in California fairly easily, but it just never tastes as good.  And newer, cleaner, safer places have opened up near my parents’ house, but I think my heart will always belong to Shiao Ding.

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