Small snacks, and lots of them, are what Taiwan does best.
Our readers recently voted Taiwan the world's best food destination. The culinary philosophy here is simple: eat often and eat well. Sure, there's the internationally recognized routine of three meals a day, but why hold back when you can follow the locals' lead and treat yourself to gourmet snacks at any hour?
In Taiwan's capital, Taipei, around 20 streets are devoted to food. Every time you think you've found the best street bao, the most incredible stinky tofu, or a mind-blowing beef noodle soup, another Taiwanese snack stall comes along and outdoes the last.
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The island's cuisine is a blend of culinary traditions from the Min Nan, Teochew, and Hokkien Chinese communities, along with Japanese cooking techniques. It's a culinary fusion with wildly varied and delicious results.
Arguments over Taiwan's best food have been known to strain relationships and end long friendships. Food here is serious, it's respected, and it's all wonderful when you're traveling through Taiwan.
A note: in this list, the stars of the show are the dishes, not the restaurants. The spots recommended here are ones we trust. But there are plenty more we haven't tried yet. Emphasis on yet.
"Where there's smoke rising from the kitchen chimney, there's lu rou fan [braised pork over rice]," goes a Taiwanese saying. The popularity of this humble dish is impossible to overstate.
Lu rou fan is practically a synonym for Taiwanese cuisine.
"Lu rou fan is the most ordinary, down-to-earth dish for any Taiwanese person," says Ray Lin, founder of a Taiwanese travel site. "From your mom's version of lu rou fan to the one served in a restaurant, it's the dish we genuinely can't live without."
A good bowl of lu rou fan features finely chopped, but not quite minced, pork belly, slowly cooked in a fragrant five-spice soy sauce. It needs a decent amount of fattiness, which is where the magic lies. The meat is spooned over hot rice. A little sweet, a little salty, this braised pork rice is the ultimate comfort food.
Beef Noodle Soup
You know a dish has become a true obsession when it gets its own festival. Beef noodle soup inspires Taiwanese chefs to compete and innovate. Everyone wants the title of "king of beef noodles."
Whether you visit the upscale Pin Chuan Lan with its ribeye noodles or wander into the first hole-in-the-wall noodle joint you find, it's almost impossible to have a bad beef noodle experience in Taiwan.
The beef shank with al dente noodles in an herbal broth at Lin Dong Fang is a perennial favorite. This street stall's secret weapon is a homemade chili oil added at the very end. But plenty of locals prefer the unmarked stall on Tao Yuan Street (once you spot the line, you'll know you've arrived).
It's so famous that the shop has now become synonymous with the street, known as "Tao Yuan Street beef noodles." Most fans don't actually realize its real name is Lao Wang Beef Noodles, and it has inspired several imitators along the same road.
Lao Wang "Tao Yuan Street Beef Noodles," 15 Tao Yuan Street, Zhongzheng District
MORE: Taipei's best beef noodles
Oyster Omelette
Here's a snack that truly showcases the fertility of Taiwan's land. You get something from the sea and something from the soil. Eggs are the perfect shell for the small oysters found easily all over the island, while sweet potato starch is added to give the whole thing a sticky chewiness, the signature texture of Taiwanese food.
No surprise, then, that this dish was named the best snack representing Taiwan in a poll of 1,000 Taiwanese people conducted by Global Views Monthly a few years back.
Bubble Tea
Bubble tea embodies the "QQ" food texture that Taiwanese people adore. The phrase refers to something especially chewy, like the tapioca pearls that form the "bubbles" in bubble tea. This quirky drink is said to have been invented out of boredom.
Both Chun Shui Tang and Hanlin Tea Room claim to have invented bubble tea by combining sweetened tapioca pudding (a popular Taiwanese dessert) with tea.
Whichever shop did it first, today the city is packed with bubble tea establishments. Variations on the theme include taro-flavored tea, jasmine tea, and coffee, served either cold or hot.
Chun Shui Tang Teahouse, 48 Yi-shu Street, Longjing, Taichung County; +886 4 2652 8288
Hanlin Tea Room, 313, Section 2, Minzu Road, Tainan City; +886 6 221 2357
MORE: Who invented bubble tea?
Milkfish
How popular is milkfish in Taiwan? So popular it has its own themed museum in Anping and a milkfish culture festival in Kaohsiung.
This bony fish can be a challenge for beginners, but it's loved for its tender flesh and affordable price. Milkfish is prepared in all sorts of ways: in congee, fried, in a fish-ball soup, or braised. For a home-style take, the retro Izakaya-style James Kitchen serves pan-fried milkfish with lime. A bowl of rice with scallions and lard makes an excellent side.
Slack Season Danzai Noodles
You can't help but love a place called "Slack Season," and it should be one of the first stops on any culinary journey through Taiwan. This iconic spot opened in Tainan roughly a century ago.
A fisherman used to sell noodles during the off-season, and the venture became so successful that he gave up his original trade entirely. The signature Slack Season noodle bowl is served in a shrimp broth with bean sprouts, cilantro, minced pork, and fresh shrimp. The bowl of comforting flavors is so addictive that one man from Tainan reportedly ate 18 bowls in a row at this restaurant.
Slack Season Tainan Main Store, 16 Zhongzheng Road, Tainan City; +886 6 223 1744. See the website for other locations.
Pan-Fried Buns
Love the fluffiness of cake and the crunch of potato chips? This pan-fried bun gives you the best of both worlds.
The buns are made from spongy white Chinese bread, crisped up on the bottom. Break one open and you'll find a moist pork filling. A Shanghai staple, the Taiwanese version differs in two ways: it's a bit larger, and it hits the pan upside down.
Hsu Ji, Shida Night Market, Da'an District, Taipei City; +886 9 3085 9646
Gua Bao
Despite the wave of bao mania abroad in recent years, much of it overhyped and underwhelming, the best gua bao still comes from the island. This is the Taiwanese take on the hamburger.
A steamed bun is loaded with a hearty filling of braised pork belly, pickled Chinese cabbage, and crushed peanuts. The filling is chopped into small pieces and mixed together, so every bite has a little of everything. Take a big bite and you'll get salty, sour, and sweet flavors along with fatty pork melting in your mouth.
The famous gua bao at Lan Jia is dusted with peanut powder for extra sweetness.
Iron Egg
It's called an "iron egg" because it's so tough. These chewy little eggs, dyed black from long simmering in soy sauce, are a seriously appealing Taiwanese food.
Often made with quail eggs, these little protein bites are boiled for hours in soy sauce and then air-dried. The process is repeated over several days until the snacks turn firm and take on the desired chewiness.
Seaside A-Po, 151-1, Zhongzheng Road, Tamsui; A-Po, 135-1, Zhongzheng Road, Tamsui
Pineapple Cake
This iconic Taiwanese pastry, mini cakes filled with candied pineapple, is one of Taiwan's best edible souvenirs. For one of the finest pineapple cake experiences, there's SunnyHills, which uses only local pineapples. The result is a darker filling, a coarser texture, and a tarter flavor than most.
The cakes at other shops are filled with a blend of pineapple and chewy chunks of winter melon. They have a fruity sweetness and a golden shell made of crumbly, buttery pastry. Shops that swap out the pineapple entirely for winter melon to cut costs are committing a major taboo.
Tian Bu La (Taiwanese Oden)
Tian bu la refers to fish paste that has been shaped into various forms and sizes, deep-fried, and then simmered in broth. Before eating, the pieces of firm fish paste are lifted out of the broth and drizzled with a brown sauce.
It may not sound very impressive, but tian bu la offers plenty of sweet flavors and chewy textures, making it a beloved Taiwanese food. This dish is essentially a Taiwanese interpretation of Japanese oden, with more sweetness, firmer fish cakes, and a signature sauce. When you're done with the fish cake pieces, there's still more to come.
We recommend grabbing a little soup from the vendor and adding it to the sauce left in your bowl. Mix it up and drink the resulting flavor bomb.
Simon Tian Bu La, 95 Xining South Road, Wanhua District, Taipei City; +886 2 2331 2481
Ba Wan (Giant Meat Dumplings)
Ba wan is the Taiwanese mega-dumpling. Made from a dough of rice flour, cornstarch, and sweet potato starch, it looks almost translucent once cooked. Pork, vegetables, and sometimes eggs are tucked inside, and the whole thing is topped with gravy.
A small crew inside a wet market in Kaohsiung's Hunei District offers freshly made, handcrafted ba wan. Just keep in mind that they usually sell out by noon.
Hunei Wet Market, 17, Lane 16, Renai Street, Kaohsiung; +886 7 699 6612
Fried Chicken
Taiwan deserves a special place in the fried chicken hall of fame. Not only did it turn the giant fried chicken cutlet, the Hotstar Chicken Cutlet, into an iconic legend (growing from a single street stall into an international franchise owner), but its popcorn chicken is dangerously addictive.
The chicken is cut into bite-sized pieces, marinated, dipped in batter, and deep-fried. A generous sprinkling of salt, pepper, and deep-fried basil finishes off these morsels.
"Fried chicken stalls are definitely among the Taiwanese people's favorite late-night snack spots," says Ray Lin. "The stalls usually offer a range of items, like squid and sweet potato."
Taiwan's First Popcorn Chicken Shop, 530-1, Bei'an Road, Zhongshan District, Taipei City
Flaky Scallion Pancakes
Few things are more appetizing than the sight of a flaky scallion pancake being slowly torn apart. Add a cheese-and-egg filling for maximum visual effect. This night-market staple needs to be devoured in a few bites to stay hot and chewy.
Oyster Vermicelli
A bowl of great oyster vermicelli should have a thick, fragrant soup base, while the thin rice noodles and oysters keep their distinct texture. Some people add sliced intestines to give the soup a new dimension. It's a sticky, slurpable dish with an intense, savory flavor.
Stinky Tofu
This might just be the world premiere of a love-it-or-hate-it snack, and Taiwan gets it exactly right. A "fragrant" cube of bean curd is deep-fried and coated in a sweet and spicy sauce.
If you pinch your nose, it looks and tastes like an ordinary piece of fried tofu, with a crispy shell and a soft, pudding-like center. But where's the fun in eating it that way? Breathe in deep and savor the stink. The stinkier, the better.
Jiang Ho King of Stinky Tofu, No. 347, Jiangong Road, Sanmin District, Kaohsiung; +886 7 396 1199
Sweet Potato
Taste, smell, and nutritional value aside, the sweet potato stands out for one special reason: "it's shaped a little like the island," says Peter Lin, founder of the local tour company Topology.
One of their local tours lets travelers volunteer to sell potatoes alongside local vendors. Taiwanese sweet potato is added to soup, with ginger, then roasted in ovens repurposed from oil drums. They're also ground into flour and mixed into other dishes to lend them texture, or fried into sweet potato chips.
As long as their beloved root vegetable is in it, Taiwanese people love it.
Mountain of Shaved Ice
One good thing about Taiwan's hot, humid, stormy summers? It's a great excuse to eat a mountain of shaved ice. A pile of shaved ice is topped with fresh fruit and flavorings such as mango chunks, syrup, and sweet condensed milk.
Food blogger Joan H of "The Hungry Girl's Guide to Taipei" recommends the traditional version: shaved ice with a topping of red bean and tapioca.
"Originally from Yilan, my favorite version of this dessert is from Sister Wei Heart," she says. "Creamy balls of shaved ice drizzled with honey and condensed milk, with the addition of chewy beans stuffed with red bean paste."
Mango shaved ice at Smoothie House, 15 Yong-kang Street, Taipei City; +886 2 2321 3367
For the classic, there's Sister Wei Heart, 35 Jiaoxi Road, Section 5, Jiaoxi Township, Yilan County, Taipei; +886 3 988 9566
Pepper Buns
A must-eat at the Rao He Night Market, pepper buns are crispy dough pockets stuffed with juicy pork soaked in the fragrant flavor of black pepper. Baked against the wall of a clay oven, these buns are a wonderful ode to the pepper plant. Order more than one, or you'll have to stand in the long line all over again when you inevitably come back for seconds.
Dumplings at Din Tai Fung Dumpling House
Xiaolongbao may be a Shanghai delicacy, but some argue the Taiwanese have perfected it. The Taiwanese restaurant Din Tai Fung does its Shanghai counterparts proud with its juicy pork soup dumplings.
Din Tai Fung's miniature xiaolongbao are known for their consistently high quality. Their paper-thin wrappers hold a rich, hot broth and tender pork meatballs. At Din Tai Fung you'll periodically hear gasps as diners brace for the scalding-hot soup that bursts out when you bite into a dumpling.
Din Tai Fung Dumpling House, 192 Xinyi Road, Section 2, Taipei City; +886 2 2321 8929
Fish Ball Soup
What could be better than fresh seafood? Balls made of fresh seafood, of course.
Hand-made fish balls in Taiwan usually contain more air in the ball, which lets them soak up more broth. They also have a bouncier texture.
Jiaxing Fish Ball, No. 21, Lane 210, Section 2, Yanping North Road, Datong District, Taipei City; +886 2 2553 6470
Ribs Braised in Medicinal Herbs
This is the Taiwanese version of bak kut teh, a Chinese meat soup that's also popular in Singapore and Malaysia. In Taiwan, the soup is slow-cooked with Chinese medicinal ingredients, drawing the essence out of pork bones and more than 14 nourishing herbs, roots, and dried fruits.
It's delicious and good for you. It's also a great way to warm up in winter. There isn't much meat on the lean bones, but the point of the dish is the soup. Locals pick up the bones and suck the juice out of them. You might be considered odd if you don't do the same.
Nanya Night Market, Nanya East Road, Taipei City
Goose
Geese raised on Taiwanese farms are never wasted. From skin to blood, they're turned into delicious dishes.
Despite its name, Ya Rou Bian (Duck Meat Bian) sells only geese raised in Taiwan. Each piece of juicy goose meat with its lightly smoked skin tastes like a celebration of poultry. Or you can try one of Bistro Le Pont's bowls of steamed rice topped with goose, chili oil, and x.o. sauce. The rice grains are the perfect vehicle for the goose fat and flavor.
Ding Bian Cuo
Ding bian cuo is a bowl of slippery rice-flour noodles. To make it, a rice-flour batter is poured along the wall of a huge heated wok, sliding and spreading across the hot metal to form sheets of noodle. Once dry, the sheets are cut into smaller pieces that become the thin, chewy noodles used in ding bian cuo.
Wu Jia ding bian cuo is a family business with a century of history. Their version of the dish is served with handmade pork cakes, shrimp cakes, cabbage, day lily, and bamboo shoots.
Wu Jia ding bian cuo, Keelung Temple Street Night Market, Taipei City
Mochi
These glutinous rice balls are as soft as marshmallows and filled with sweet or savory ingredients. The most traditional mochi are filled with red bean paste and rolled in peanut powder. In recent years, popular fillings have included strawberry jam, sesame paste, green tea, and peanut paste. You can learn to make mochi at the Royal Taiwan Mochi Museum (around $5 per person).
Anything Braised in Lantern's Soy Sauce
Whatever you pick at the Lantern Lu Wei food stall, it takes on the flavor of the signature five-spice soy sauce. It's a little sweet, not too salty, and fragrant, made with cloves, star anise, cinnamon, and other spices.
Choose the ingredients you want, and the chef will cook them in a pot filled with the special sauce. It's the perfect light bite before a big night out. Be prepared to wait in line, because the chef is never in a rush: he takes his time so the food soaks up the sauce.
Rice Pudding in a Tube
Glutinous rice and Chinese mushrooms are fried with seasonings and, along with pork and egg, packed into a bamboo tube. The tube of rice is steamed again to further soften the texture until it turns into a cylindrical pudding.
Da Qiao Tou started making its rice pudding at a stall under a bridge more than four decades ago. The business has expanded since then, but the rice pudding has stayed the same. It's best served with a homemade spicy-and-sweet sauce with a touch of turnip.
The Taiwanese Breakfast
The three best dishes to start your day in Taiwan? Sesame flatbread, deep-fried Chinese doughnuts, and soy milk.
Food blogger Joan H. says her favorite breakfast is from Fu Hang.
"I love the thick sesame bread at Fu Hang because it has a light sweetness, a thin crispy layer, and a soft middle, since it's served straight from a hot metal barrel," she says. "A lot of sesame flatbreads are dry and flaky, but Fu Hang shows why there's often a half-hour wait on weekends."
Pork Blood Rice Pudding
This mixture of pork blood and glutinous rice is skewered onto the end of a stick, like a lollipop. For the ultimate Taiwanese touch, the pudding is coated in sweet peanut powder.
Basketball star Jeremy Lin named pork blood rice cake one of his favorite snacks during a visit to Taiwan. If it's good enough for Lin, it's good enough for us.
Xiao Li, No. 1-3, Lane 136, Section 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei City; +886 2 2368 3417
Three-Cup Chicken
Three-cup chicken is cooked in a cup of rice wine, a cup of oil, and a cup of soy sauce. Fresh basil, chili peppers, and garlic are then added to this Taiwanese culinary trio, resulting in an irresistible combination. Some kitchens offer a different version of three-cup chicken that uses a cup of wine, a cup of sesame oil, and a cup of sugar.
Ban Tiao Noodles
Ban tiao (flat rice noodles) has such a devoted following that many Taiwanese will drive for hours in search of the most authentic bowls. These thick, flat, slippery glutinous rice noodles are part of the Hakka culinary tradition and are best sampled in the Meinong District of Kaohsiung.
Stir-fried ban tiao with pork has a rustic flavor and texture. Many find the dish even more comforting when it's served in a hot soup.
Meixing Street, Meinong District, Kaohsiung
Horng Ryen Jen Sandwich
You might wonder, why on earth would anyone travel to Taiwan for a ham-and-cheese sandwich? (The bread isn't even toasted.) The converted will tell you they were once nonbelievers too.
Some say it's the unbeatable combination of ham and a layer of paper-thin fried egg. Others say it's the buttery, sweet fresh cream and the secret mayonnaise.
Most agree it's the balanced flavor of all these ingredients, stacked into a four-layer combination, that makes it a hit. The sandwich even sparked an import craze for Horng Ryen Jen in Hong Kong.
Horng Ryen Jen Cake, 1F, 122 Ziyou Road, Section 1, West District, Taichung; +886 4 2226 8787
Horng Ryen Jen Cake, 493, Zhongxiao East Road, Section 5, Da'an District, Taipei City
Aiyu Jelly
Wobbly and fairly flavorless, aiyu jelly takes on the taste of whatever it's eaten with. You can add it to lemonade and shaved ice for a refreshing summer drink. The jelly gives the liquid a fun, sticky texture.
Pidan Tofu
Black-and-white and seemingly flavorless, pidan tofu is hardly a likely candidate for "love at first bite" fame. But after a few tries, it becomes a bit of an addiction for many eaters.
Pidan, or century egg, is a duck egg preserved in seasoned clay. Over time, the white turns into a translucent black jelly, and the yolk takes on a unique flavor. It's topped with sesame oil, vinegar, soy sauce, cilantro, chopped scallions, and sometimes pork floss. Give it a stir and it's ready to eat.
Widely available at local restaurants
Steamed Spring Rolls
Every Taiwanese family has its own recipe for run bing. Describing it as a lightly fried version of the spring roll would be unfair, since "run bing" (steamed spring roll) was invented before the popular Chinese version.
During festivals, families gather around the table to throw a run bing wrapping party. Each person picks their filling from a buffet and wraps their own run bing. Besides serving delicious run bing, Shin Yeh at Taipei 101 offers an unbeatable view of the city.
A summertime spin-off of run bing is a version filled with ice cream.
"I call it an ice cream burrito, but essentially it uses a thin flour flatbread to wrap balls of Taiwanese ice cream with peanut candy shavings and, if you dare, fresh cilantro," says food blogger Joan H.
"I really loved the one I tried in front of Sheng Keng Lao Jie. The vendor adds a pinch of sea salt to the peanut candy, which enhances the sweetness and flavor of the wrap."
Ice cream spring roll at Sheng Keng Lao Jie
Spicy Hot Pot
Taiwanese people are crazy about spicy hot pot. Bubbling pots of broth are packed with all kinds of Chinese herbs and spices to create a rich flavor for all the raw, fresh ingredients diners will dip into them. New hot pot spots pop up in Taiwan every day, each with its own gimmick to lure in insatiable hot pot lovers.
There's all-you-can-eat hot pot and yakiniku served at the same table; there's bubble tea hot pot for the jaded. But traditional local favorites with a ginger-and-chicken soup base or lamb hot pot are still going strong.
While the spice levels in Taiwan don't come close to those of Chongqing, they're plenty hot. At the eternal hot pot favorite and celebrity magnet Taihodien, you'll find a glamorous Taiwanese hot pot experience.
Chicken Wing Rice Roll
The chicken wing rice roll makes the impossible possible: eating chicken fried rice at a night market with one hand. A boneless chicken wing is stuffed with fried rice and marinated in a heavenly combination of sesame oil and secret sauce.
It's so good it kicked off a chicken-and-rice craze at the Ruifeng Night Market in Kaohsiung, inspiring variations like kimchi fried rice and curry rice.
Giant Pork Ball Soup
The best pork balls are made from fresh meat that's chopped by hand and pounded with a mallet until it takes on a dough-like texture. The giant pork balls in broth at the Ningxia Night Market in Taipei are the size of a baby's fist.
Their size, along with the air pockets pumped into the meatballs during pounding, locks in an astonishing amount of juice and flavor. The Chinese name vividly captures the experience of eating one: the literal translation is "giant pork balls with exploding juice."
The pork balls are sometimes mixed with ingredients like Chinese mushrooms and cuttlefish to enrich the texture and add flavor.
Bread from Wu Pao Chun Bakery
"Bread? In Taiwan? Seriously?"
We know what you're thinking, but this isn't just any bread we're talking about. It's from Wu Pao-chun, a world baking champion with a slew of award-winning loaves.
The bakery's lychee and rose bread even won the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie international baking competition in 2010. It's made with mullet wine, lychee, and rose petals.
Wu Pao-chun also won the Louis Lesaffre Cup in 2007 and a silver medal at the 2008 Bakery World Cup. Another shop specialty is the bread with wine and longan, made from smoked longans, French wine, and California walnuts.
Wu Pao Chun Bakery Kaohsiung, 19, Siwei 3rd Road, Lingya District, Kaohsiung City; +886 7 335 9593
Wu Pao Chun Bakery Taipei, 88 Yanchang Road, Xinyi District, Taipei City; +886 2 6636 5888
Biandang
Many Taiwanese have a complicated relationship with the Taiwanese biandang (bento), the takeout lunch box that packs rice with a main dish (usually some kind of meat) and small, often unappealing side dishes like fried and pickled vegetables.
It's a convenient, fast, cheap (less than $3), and generally decent way to eat.
Biandang isn't one of Taiwan's most delicious dishes, but it's a staple for countless working parents and busy city dwellers. A bento with chicken cutlets is a good biandang choice.
Available at convenience stores and major high-speed rail stations across Taiwan
