Taipei Morning Walking Tour

One of my favorite things to do whenever I'm in a new country for the first time is to take a food tour, so on our very first morning in Taiwan, Pinky and I signed up for a food and culture walking tour.

Taipei sits at the northern end of the island of Taiwan (also known as Formosa) and straddles the tropics and the sub-tropics. Though just three hours from Thailand by air, Taipei is much more temperate, and it was a comfortable, breezy morning.

After coffee at our hotel, Pinky and I set out by foot to our tour's meeting point where we met up with our guide.

Shortly after, the other guests arrived. They were an American couple who, as chance would have it, also came from Texas! They were from Houston and had just finished a 14-day cruise across Asia.

I had booked a breakfast tour... my favorite meal of the day! After making our introductions, the guide led us on foot to our first destination, a small hole-in-the-wall breakfast restaurant.

Taiwan didn't really have much of a breakfast culture until the colonial era, when it was influenced by the Portuguese, Dutch, and finally the Chinese during the Qing Empire. In more modern times, Japanese occupation and American influence have shaped a unique breakfast culture that can't be found elsewhere in the Sinosphere.

You can find little breakfast shops like this all over Taipei. They usually open before dawn and stay open until 11am or so. They are popular with people on the way to work or school, and though they can get crowded, usually serve the food very fast for people in a rush. We sat down in a little covered alleyway decorated with red paper lanterns while our guide went to order our meal.

We started with a cup of chilled soy milk and youtiao, or a Chinese fried donut.

Next, we had our main course, danbing, or a Taiwanese rolled egg crepe. Like many foods that are popular in Taiwan, this dish traces its roots to mainland China and arrived with the Kuomintang following the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Over the years it's evolved into a uniquely Taiwanese breakfast staple with the addition of sweet potato starch to the batter, which gives the crepe a characteristic chewy texture.

The danbing I had was filled with egg and ham and served with a sticky and rich sweet and salty sauce to dip it in.

After breakfast we walked to Lanzhou Market, a popular local market dating back to the Japanese colonial period when it was home to one of the city's busy livestock markets and slaughterhouses. After the Second World War and the handover of Taiwan to the Republic of China, the market continued to evolve until the 1970s and 80s when it was transformed into a formalized neighborhood market building selling fresh produce, clothing, household goods, food, and other necessities.

Before the days of the supermarket, neighborhood markets like these contained pretty much everything you would want in one place, and they still play an important role in Taipei's neighborhoods and communities to this day.

We walked through the market learning about its history, exploring the cramped stalls packed with all sorts of delicious food and produce, and watched locals go about their daily shopping.

After a while, we stopped by one stall to sample some of Taiwan's famous fresh fruit.

We also stopped by a shop called Black Car, which had become famous after winning an award at the Taipei Traditional Market Festival. Black Car is a snack shop selling nuts, dried fruit, and most famously dried meat products.

What really made them famous was their pork jerky. The sticks of dried pork are marinated in a traditional Chinese wine, giving them a sweet, sticky flavor. It was a lot softer than American-style jerky, and I liked it a lot more (American jerky can be too tough).

We left the market and walked along the road until we came to a tea shop. Taiwan's most famous export, except perhaps for computer chips, is bubble tea.

And here's a fun fact that our guide taught us! Bubble tea didn't get its name because of the large tapioca pearls that make it so famous. Instead, it's called "bubble tea" because of how frothy the milk tea gets when it's shaken by hand to mix before serving.

And speaking of tea, the next place we stopped in at was the Lin Mao Sen Tea Company, which was established in 1883.

Taiwan is renowned for its tea regions, especially the high-growth tea that thrives in high-altitude areas.

We got to sample several types of tea while our guide explained about the growing and harvesting process. Then, we had the chance to wander around freely exploring the tea shop.

The interior of the shop was filled with dozens of metal barrels, each containing dried tea leaves, each type with its own smell and flavor profile. It was interesting to see how much stronger and richer the smell of the high-altitude teas were compared to the same leaves grown at lower altitudes (the higher the altitude, the more expensive the leaves as well).

We left the tea factory and walked on to a nearby temple dedicated to Mazu, the goddess of the sea. Taiwan is an island country, and fishing and sailing have always been hugely important. So, as you can imagine, Mazu is one of the most important deities in the local folk pantheon that harmonizes Taoism with animistic and indigenous beliefs.

Temples have always been community centers, and this one was no exception. Over time, vendors started setting up shops, stalls, and food carts to cater to those who came to the temple to pray.

Eventually, the temple's courtyard became a sort of community area full of food with lots of tables where you can sit to meet up with friends over lunch or a cup of tea.

As the tour ended, our guide led us to a local shop specializing in pineapple cake, one of Taiwan's signature snacks.

Pineapple cakes were first made in the 16th century when the pineapple, a fruit native to South America, was introduced by the Portuguese during the colonial period. The cakes are made of a fluffy and crumbly pastry shell wrapped around a sweet filling almost like a pineapple jam.

In the Taiwanese Hokkien language, the word for "pineapple" sounds very similar to the word for "to prosper". Thus, pineapple cakes are often given as a good luck gift when you want to wish someone well. Since 2005, the city government has run an annual Taipei Pineapple Cake Cultureal Festival, and the pineapple cake has become one of Taiwan's culinary symbols.