Hey guys,
Just here to show some love for the best breakfast I’ve had in Taipei over the past three trips. This is my second time at Fu Hang Dou Jiang and I cant get over how much I love it. It’s on the second floor of this nondescript building right outside the Shandao Temple Station in Taipei City, and you identify it by the long queue winding around the building, like a lazy cat’s tail, bodies part hungry and part communal. The queue can get pretty crazy, I think it was about 45 minutes both times I was there. I have a love hate relationship with queues that I blame on my Singaporean heritage – hate the actual idea of wasting away time in a queue, but the time wasted somehow also validates my choice of eatery/attraction, raising the stakes for either euphoria or disappointment? Anyhoo, the point is that there is a mighty queue, and being Singaporean, I joined it.
The queue winds all the way around the building, up the stairs, and into the eatery, which is structured like a food court with one shining star of a stall, the rest sulking and ignored by the wayside. Common eating tables dominated by customers of this one breakfast store. As your position in the queue approaches the inside of the eatery you can watch the staff make the dough fritters in the clear glass of the store window and salivate accordingly. You can smell it, and it’s a smell that will haunt you in your dreams when you are back home and craving fresh dough fritters. You can’t circumvent this, you cant even carry the products home. I tried, having this takeout style, but it’s not the same. It has to be eaten fresh. Anything else is a disservice to it. So it goes.
When you finally get to the front of the queue the time you have to order is short and hurried because everyone there is in a flurry. I suggest erring on the side of excess when it comes to the dough fritters (aka you tiaos) because your first bite into them is heaven, and then your second, and third, a continual state of delight. The second time I was there, my mother ordered one stick for our family of five to share, which goes to show that even the most intelligent people make the silliest mistakes.
It should be noted that I’m a big fan of soya bean milk. None of that Soy Milk nonsense that’s so popular in america, have you tried soya bean? A jewel of asian culture to be sure. I dip my dough fritters in it, it makes for such an incredible meal. Writing this now, I feel myself craving soy milk – which is thankfully pretty readily available in Singapore, though not as fresh as the ones you get in Taipei. Fu Hang does a salty variant served in a bowl, which is worth trying. I like it, but not everyone does. They also do egg crepe wraps, freshly made buns, roasted pancakes, all of which are oily and sinful and also wonderful. But the star of the show is the most simple thing – fried dough fritters with cold soya milk. What a wonder. The stuff of dreams.
This place is not a hidden gem – it’s rated on foursquare as the top breakfast spot in Taipei. It’s not undiscovered by the food blogging scene either – a quick google search will find it all over the web and instagram, with praises heaped upon praises for it. I’m not sure what my post adds, besides documenting my personal love for this place in a slightly indulgent manner. Just adding to the ever growing repository of internet love for the place, I suppose.
Fu Hang Dou Jiang 阜杭豆漿
Hua Shan Market Level 2, No. 108, Zhongxiao East Road, Sec. 1 (Shandao Temple Station)
華山市場 2F忠孝東路一段108號紹興南街 (善导寺)
Tel: +886 2 2392 2175
Opening Hours: 5.30am – 12.30pm (Tue – Sun), Closed Mon
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