One thing that never stopped surprising me about Taiwan is how you can be strolling down a sidewalk one moment and the next, you are suddenly in the middle of a busy restaurant. And I don't mean just outdoor seating, which is common enough around the world. I am talking about a grill with multiple cooks set up right on the sidewalk, a heated glass display case filled with steamed buns, shelves stacked with ingredients, and a counter full of grab-and-go items wrapped in plastic.
And every time, no matter how full I was, my first instinct was always to check out the food and look for an empty seat. Victor would have to drag me away, or I could spend the whole day watching the grill or the long dough sticks bubbling in the deep fryer.
These shops are staple neighborhood institutions, found on nearly every street corner, typically opening as early as 5 am to serve commuters and students. Interestingly, a lot of them have the words "Soy Milk" in the name, since most breakfasts are served with either hot or cold soy milk. We had never tried soy milk for breakfast, not even in China, and I was excited. Victor, on the other hand, just wanted to know if coffee was also on the menu. He was perfectly willing to try soy milk or any other local specialty, but no breakfast for him is complete without a hot cup of coffee. Fortunately, hot and cold coffee was always available. Unfortunately, the hot coffee was never actually hot, arriving lukewarm in a plastic cup with a large straw.
It took us a bit of time to figure out how everything works at these little street restaurants. Our very first morning, we spent five minutes standing in line at the counter, thinking we would be seated, when it turned out we were in the to-go line. There is no host to sit you down. You grab a menu from the counter, find a spot, and make yourself at home. If no one comes to take your order, you walk up to the counter and order there.
These restaurants are set up to be fully self-service. You pick your own warm buns and dumplings out of the steam cabinet, choose a cold drink from the fridge, help yourself to the condiment station with its soy sauce, chili oil, and pickled vegetables, and grab your own utensils from a container on the counter. To order anything freshly prepared, you mark your selections on a paper menu with an erasable marker and hand it to the cook. With this setup, one or two workers can take care of a full crowd quickly and efficiently.
Sometimes there are pre-packaged items lined up on the counter: sesame-crusted flatbreads stuffed with egg, sticky rice rolls packed with pork floss and pickled mustard greens, scallion pancakes folded around savory fillings, glutinous rice balls filled with sesame paste or peanut, and a row of plain ham and cheese sandwiches. I can describe all of this now as if it is common knowledge, but the first time we saw this spread, we had no idea what any of it was, outside of the sandwiches. It took a full week of eating something new every morning to figure out what was what. Now I can sound like an experienced Taiwanese food critic.
My favorite part of every restaurant was the hot station: a flat-top griddle for eggs, radish cakes, and thin egg crepes, a large pot of soy milk kept at a low simmer, and a deep fryer for you tiao, the long golden fried dough sticks that are to Taiwanese breakfast what a croissant is to a French one. I could stand and watch for longer than was probably polite.
Now, back to the soy milk. Every self-respecting breakfast shop has a pot of hot soy milk and either a second pot of cold soy milk or a fridge stocked with pre-poured cups. Cold soy milk comes sweet or not sweet, with sweet being the default, the owner absentmindedly spooning sugar into cup after cup without breaking conversation. I tried both and honestly prefer it lightly sweetened.
The real surprise came one morning when I ordered the hot version. I knew things were going sideways when, instead of asking about sugar, the owner poured the hot soy milk into a cup and splashed black vinegar into it, causing the milk to immediately curdle into soft, silky chunks. He then gestured toward a row of open canisters: chili oil, chopped scallion, dried shrimp, and a few other things I could not identify. I nodded. Put it all in. The milk was already curdled; how much worse could it get? He scooped everything in, dropped a few pieces of you tiao on top, and handed it to me with a spoon. What I had was not a drink. It was soup.
I am not sure how to describe the taste: silky, savory, salty, and surprisingly filling. I enjoyed it. The fact that I never ordered it again probably says more than any description could. We had eaten soup for breakfast in China and Vietnam before, and I still cannot quite make peace with that concept no matter how good it is.
Another thing that caught us off guard was how sweet almost everything was. Not aggressively sweet, not teeth-hurting sweet, but a quiet sugary undertone ran through nearly every item we tried, paired with a texture that was consistently silky, smooth, and almost creamy. My very first breakfast sandwich had egg, cheese, and bread in it, and somehow eating it felt closer to dessert than breakfast: a soft, yielding, faintly sweet pastry that dissolved more than it was chewed.
The breakfasts were usually very carb-heavy: bread, flatbreads, dumplings, wraps, pancakes, toast, and even noodles were very popular. We didn’t mind, pastries and bread are always a favorite, whether it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner. As we were eating our very first breakfast, still getting used to the flavors and textures, I found myself less interested in the food than in the people around me.
It was clear that this is a small neighborhood spot and most people were regulars. A man in a hard hat ordered in three words and got his bag in under a minute. An older lady was chatting up the cook for the entire time we were there, while holding her rapidly cooling food in her gesturing hands. A young schoolgirl got a hug from a waitress and a to-go bag already prepared for her. A woman in a business suit took a seat on a plastic stool, unwrapped her you tiao, dipped it into a cup of warm soy milk, and ate it quickly. The radio was on somewhere. There was the smell of egg and hot oil and something sweet from the soy milk.
This scene is burned into my memory. Not the food or the flavors, not even the curdled soy milk soup I never ordered again. Just the feeling of sitting in the middle of someone else's ordinary Thursday morning and being, briefly, part of it. We ate breakfast at these little corner spots nearly every single morning in Taiwan. It was the best start to the day.
