Taiwanese Breakfast

Living in Taiwan means access to a great wealth of food for a relatively low price (I can usually get away with spending less than NT$200 a day on food), while living in a university area means a wide range of places nearby to eat. That includes breakfast places too, some of which open as early as 6 am (or even earlier for all I know), which is especially important when you have three 8 am classes a week (some of my friends have 8 am classes everyday). Now granted, I usually eat after my class ends, but occasionally I'm hungry enough and have enough time to spare before my class to be able to sit down and have breakfast beforehand (I prefer not to eat in class even if the professor doesn't mind).

Now as I mentioned, my sister's friend was in Taiwan recently and the first few days he was here, he had been going to convenience stores such as 7-Eleven and Family Mart to buy breakfast. I admit that when I first arrived, I had been doing that also, because it was cheap, convenient, and didn't require struggling to read a menu. However, by the time he had gone back to the States, he still had not had a proper Taiwanese breakfast. I was aghast and hence, decided that a post was in order.

Now if you want a truly traditional Taiwanese breakfast, you can have congee or rice with some meat and veggie dishes (which was basically what they served everyday at the first hotel that my Chinese class stayed in when we came last year), but what I want to talk about is 蛋餅、土司、三明治 and 漢堡 which is what you will typically find served in a breakfast place and they're usually pretty cheap as well. A 蛋餅 typically costs around NT$30 (about US$1), while a 土司 and 三明治 will cost anywhere from NT$30 to NT$50, with 漢堡 being a little more expensive at anywhere from NT$45 to NT$70 which is still pretty cheap in US standards. Drinks as well should cost no more than NT$50. I spend on average anywhere between NT$50 to NT$75 for a breakfast of one drink and one food item which is around US$1.50 at most.

蛋餅 (Dàn bǐng)

Please ignore the little puppy nose peeking in from the corner--I took this shot to send to my sister and the lighting on my other pic was kind of poor

When my Chinese class first landed in Taoyuan International Airport last spring it was still in the wee hours of the morning, thus only a few of the food stands were open. McDonald's was one of them and a place selling more traditional Taiwanese food was another. As I didn't want my first meal in Taiwan to be American food, I opted for the Taiwanese breakfast and got this delicious 蛋餅 which is basically an egg crepe.

I never thought I would be able to study in Taiwan, let alone eat more of this delicious breakfast item, but here I am, trying different types of 蛋餅 in different places along with other delicious breakfast items.

生菜蛋餅 and a bowl of hot 豆漿

As I mentioned, this is basically an egg wrapped inside a slightly crispy crepe. The one I got at the airport was your standard 原味 flavor, but they also have different meat flavors (火腿 ham or 肉鬆 pork floss), different vegetable flavors (生菜 lettuce or 韭菜 leek), and a personal favorite, 起士 cheese. You can also add different 將 sauces to it such as a slightly sweet teriyaki sauce or some spicy chili paste--sometimes there will be a sauce "station" in the place for you to add yourself, other times they'll have added for you already.

火腿蛋餅 to-go with a bit of black pepper cooked in too

起士蛋餅 with a cup of 奶茶 to-go from a different breakfast place, with sauce added--theirs was of the less crispy variety

I think my favorite has to be the 蛋餅 from 永和豆漿 (where I also had the 生菜蛋餅) just because their 蛋餅 are not only big, but pretty generous with the fillings as well so it's actually a pretty satisfying meal. They also have a little sauce station where you can add whatever you want--as you can see below, I drizzled some sauce on my 蛋餅 with some chili paste on the side. The nice thing about this place is that while other breakfast places tend to close by noon, this place will be open at night too (for all you breakfast-for-dinner folks out there) and they have non-breakfast dishes as well. The atmosphere wasn't exactly the greatest however as I saw a few bugs crawling around the table once and the second time there was this creep staring at my friend (we're not sure if he works there or not), I think because she was non-Asian.

起士蛋餅 with a cup of 仙草奶茶

 This here is 小小福 which is a little commissary on campus where you can go for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Although there are only three stands there's a pretty good variety of food there and a nice little seating space under a giant tent-like structure so it's sort of like eating both indoors and out. There's even a sink there. The one annoying thing about eating here though is that they only accept exact change.

This is actually not a 蛋餅, but a 蔥抓餅 (Cōng zhuā bǐng), which is a scallion pancake. It's similar to a 蛋餅 as there was also an egg inside of this (they don't always have egg), but for the outside, instead of the slightly crispy crepe wrap, there's a thicker, chewier dough-like wrap with scallions cooked into it. This I also recommend (and I don't even like scallions).

土司 (Tǔsī) 、三明治 (Sānmíngzhì)、漢堡 (Hànbǎo)

Basically, toast, sandwich, and hamburgers. Haha. These three words are actually all loanwords (as you can probably tell); sometimes you'll also see toast written as 吐司 (pronounced the same). 

These are also common breakfast items sold at breakfast places. Now, in the US when you say "toast," you'd think of a slice of toasted bread, maybe with some butter, maybe with some jam, maybe with some cheese. Here however, 土司 refers to two slices of toasted bread put together with whatever filling inside--basically a toasted sandwich. I've had 花生 (peanut) and 抹茶 (matcha) toast before which were okay, but the layers of peanut butter or matcha were spread pretty thin, and there definitely could have been more.

I don't know if you toast your bread before making a sandwich, but I always used to do that. However, the 三明治 here do not use toasted bread, which is fine, I just thought it was worth a mention. 三明治 come with different flavors--most Taiwanese breakfast places will have fillings like egg and a meat of your choice (火腿 ham, 肉鬆 pork floss, 雞肉 chicken, what have you), but the sandwiches at Louisa Coffee, which are more Western-style, have lettuce and tomato in addition to ham, chicken, or beef (and cheese if you want), and some sauce. They also have a choice of whole wheat bread or multi-grain.

漢堡 like the 三明治 have a variety of different fillings you can get. I recently went to try out 拉亞漢堡 (Laya Burger), which is this lovely little breakfast place near my dorm. They have a variety of food items there and the first time I went, I tried their 抹茶土司, which as I mentioned was alright, but the second time, I decided to be adventurous and get a 米堡--a rice burger!

Pork I believe this was with a cup of cold 紅茶

Your food comes in this cute little basket

I had rice burgers both in Korea and in in the US before, though they didn't seem to be very common (less so in the US), but never for breakfast. I think part of the reason I like the rice burger so much here is that I feel like rice dishes are harder to come by and I'm used to having rice practically everyday. Rice is also makes for a filling dish, whether you have it for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner. 

That's not to say however that I only got the rice burger because I wanted rice--I truly enjoyed my rice burger. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I got it again the next time I went.

The wrapping through which you can still feel the heat of the burger, but it does prevent the grease from getting on your hands!

They could work on aligning the patties a little better but it was still a delicious meal!

My friend's 漢堡

Despite being a little on the small side, the rice burger was quite filling, being that not only was it made of rice, but also was quite generous with the meat and vegetables. It is pretty hot though, so be careful not to burn your tongue (or hands) when you first take a bite out of it.

飲料 (Yǐnliào)

Or beverages. If you noticed, in all of my photos above, my breakfast was accompanied by some drink or other. After all what's breakfast (or any other meal for that matter), without a drink (no, I'm not talking about the alcoholic variety and yes, water counts too) to wash down the food? 

In a typical Western breakfast, your meal is usually accompanied by a cup of coffee or tea or perhaps a nice cold glass of milk, some orange juice, or a smoothie even. While Taiwan is famous for being the creator of 珍珠奶茶 or bubble tea, and while there's no lack of bubble tea stands all around, it's not exactly the go-to breakfast drink. So what constitutes are typical Taiwanese breakfast beverage?

豆漿 (dòujiāng), or soy milk, would probably be the most common breakfast drink. And I'm not talking about Silk milk either--Asian soy milk is quite different from American soy milk--it's much better. Haha. If you don't believe me, try Vitasoy soy milk--just don't get the sugar free one because it's not as good. 豆漿 can be served either hot(/warm) or cold (熱/溫 or 冰). If you're eating in and get it warm, they'll usually serve it in a giant bowl for you (as in the picture of my 生菜蛋餅 and 豆漿above), otherwise you'll get it in a cup.

米漿 (mǐ jiāng) or your brown rice milk. I've never had rice milk in the US so I don't know how the two compare. 米漿 is not bad, but not really my cup of tea. It's a lot thicker than actual milk or soy milk and has a nutty scent to it (although it doesn't taste nutty) and is slightly sweet. Again you can get this cold or hot though I've only ever tried it cold.

奶茶 (nǎichá) or milk tea, another popular breakfast drink. Nice and refreshing whether you have it cold or hot and I really like how there's the most subtle hint of tea in the aftertaste.

紅茶 (hóngchá), literally "red tea" but translated into English as "black tea" (don't ask me why). It's slightly sweet (I usually have it chilled) which means they probably add sugar to it, but it's still good.

咖啡 (kāfēi), of course we can't not include coffee on the list. I'm not much of a coffee fan myself so I can't attest to the taste, but I think they usually serve it black.

柳橙汁 (liǔ chéngzhī), (or 橘子水 júzi shuǐ for the Mainlanders), is your orange juice and well, it pretty much tastes like any store-bought orange juice, although I believe here they actually use a juicer so there's pulp.

蘋果汁 (píngguǒ zhī) or apple juice. I've seen this a few times on the menu too, which was kind of surprising as I don't think I've ever had apple juice for breakfast. I haven't gotten it yet, but I'm sure it's just like your standard Tropicana apple juice.

There you have it--the basic guide to common, typical Taiwanese breakfast food items. If you're ever in Taiwan be sure to try them out!