Hey everyone hope you're having an amazing day! It's Mark Wiens I'm in Taipei Taiwan This is a city that is an absolute Paradise for you if you love to eat breakfast and brunch. and I think for you and me as food lovers, we never want to miss breakfast and so today this morning we are going on an ultimate breakfast and brunch tour. There's such a huge variety of Taiwanese food that you can enjoy in the morning. It's going to be a lot of street food, a lot of delicious food coming up for you right now in this video.

Good Morning Again from Taipei Taiwan We have a lot of delicious food to eat on this street food tour which is gonna focus on breakfast and brunch in Taipei and they truly know what they're doing when it comes to breakfast. They know how to handle the Breakfast of Champions but we are beginning today at a decades-old shop that specializes in one of the Staples something. I mean you just absolutely have to begin your day with in Taipei I Love just about everything about this place. It's just so much history and Heritage and just the preservation of Taiwanese breakfast.

And so you stand in line. then you can order your different pastries, your different selection of breakfast Savory and I think they have some sweet things as well. And then there's another line where you can get the soy milk a breakfast Staple in the morning. but they have a few unique versions of soy milk that we're gonna try as well.

and I'm gonna show you here in line now getting the Aromas of those baking chive pockets and the savory bread pastries in the morning and it's such a cool of it. And where the bottom is Savory pastry where he just kind of like rotates them and flips them over and then on the top. It's more like a griddle oven so you've got two different heat situations. The flaky pastry smells so good! This place is absolutely legendary I Think it's been here for decades and for generations and it's a very popular place for traditional.

Taiwanese breakfast. I Mean this is a staple of Taiwanese breakfast that we're beginning with today. so everything is served hot and fresh. One of the main famous things is gelpie, which is the meat bread before anything.

This has to be our first bite of the day. How they kind of scorch it on the outside on the hot griddle and then bake it. Oh it's warm. It's like a a puck with meat on the inside that is So good.

So warm. The dough is so perfectly crispy and gooey. The pork meat on the inside is so juicy with the green onions and scallions. Oh that's a breakfast of champions on my first bite.

For my next bite I think I'll go with some of this chili sauce. This is their house chili sauce. Oh this looks amazing. Oh wow! Sometimes the Taiwanese chili sauce can be really salty so you can only add a little bit.

That's just like pure chili. Wow, that's good. Breakfast of Champions! Let's try some of the soy milk dishes that we've got. They have some very unique soy milk dishes.

This is the one I'm most excited to try. It is a Savory soy milk. You can see that it kind of curdles so they add a little bit of vinegar I think he added soy sauce to it as well and then it kind of curdles into almost looks like a steamed scrambled egg. but that's just all tofu.

Oh, you can smell kind of a roasted Savory Aroma to it as well. Whoa, that's that wobbles. I Don't think I've never had soy milk like this. Totally different texture.

It changes to more of a curdled soy milk kind of custard that is unique. Oh, I like it and it's just a little bit salty from that soy sauce, but not overly salty. Wow, that's something. Definitely it's a totally different soy milk experience.

Okay, next is another version of soy milk that they make here. Then he added in I think sugar. Oh, there's the egg. It curdled in there like an omelet inside your soy milk.

Oh, it's basically a poached egg within the hot soy milk. Totally different. It's like you get your beverage and egg all in one. Okay, I'm moving on to the next pastry.

Oh, this is one I've been waiting for. It's a flatbread. You can see how flaky it is, stuffed with an omelette and a little bit of sauce. Oh and you can see the layers of that bread.

Oh that's still good. Hot and fresh. The Omelette In the center, the flaky, crispy Smoky bread. But we need some chili sauce.

What a breakfast! What a combination! And then also the there's a little bit of a Sweet Sticky sauce in the center as well. kind of almost like a chassis kind of sauce that that is coated in there as well. I Think maybe we should split this one in half to see the inside because I think there's glass noodles they just hold in the juices. Oh, there's tofu inside of here too.

and egg and chives or scallions and glass noodles. Oh that's fully loaded. The fragrance of the chives is really nice and really strong, and then you just have that texture of the glass noodles as well. All totally different flavors, different textures, all really good.

and they all pair really well with soy milk. Oh, and we have one more final soy milk. Oh that's still so hot. Oh, don't go, but too fast.

This is just the original soy milk. Nothing added, nothing just the pure and again, what you'll immediately notice is the smokiness. It's because they purposefully burn the bottom which then flavors the entire pot and gives it that incredible. Aroma It has more of a complexity than just straight soy milk and that's part of the thing that makes it special here.

and it really is good is really one of the great ways to start your day when you're in. Taiwan Next up on this food tour in Taipei we are going to a place a really popular local place that sells Dansai noodles which is a famous noodle dish and this place is extremely popular. They open up early in the morning and they sell out by about 10. A.M So this is the spot here on the corner.

It was before a food stall but now it's more of a permanent location but still kind of within the market. It's called Banzai Noodles or Ta'ami Noodles which is the Taiwanese name and it actually it's a noodle dish that has a very unique story. but let's order first. Actually this will be my first time to try Danza noodles and in order to make it you can choose two different types of noodles, the rice noodles or the wheat noodles.

I Got the wheat noodles which is the more popular option and then they put it into the basket. They add in a bunch of bean sprouts and looks like some green onions. uh, blanch those noodles and then put it into your bowl and then they add in the sauce. The sauce is a rich combination of dried shrimp and pork.

looks like some garlic in there. It looks really flavorful, almost like a gravy for the noodles which gets ladled on top of the noodles. Then you can get it with some different sides. There's some other braised eggs, there's some of the meatballs, and the meatball soup is common and popular, and then some of the braised pork and then some other different seasonings as well.

But it looks delicious and it's also known to be served in little bowls like a snack portion of noodles which is perfect size. But I Cannot wait to dig into these. Banzai Noodles Oh men. Hot and fresh.

Oh um oh yeah, it's so good. There's so much flavor in that sauce. with the shrimp and that complexity of the dried shrimp and the pork saltiness, there's a little bit of sweetness to it. and the garlickiness? Yeah, that's so good.

It's kind of just like warm and comforting as well. Oh yes, this is their chunky chili oil, fermented beans and chilies and oil. Mmm, you taste like the fermented beans in there immediately. a little bit of heat from the chilies and then that chili oil and the saltiness.

Oh and then we have the egg as well. Oh yeah, with the eggo specialty is those? Brazen Taiwanese braising spices. Back to the history of Danzai noodles, it actually traces back to Tainan in the south of Taiwan perhaps to a single fisherman? it's called Ta'ami Noodles in Taiwanese that originates out of like resourcefulness from the fishing season because there's three months during the summer when Taiwan experiences heavy typhoons and bad weather and the seas are so rough that fishing is very limited. All the Fishers needed to come up with a solution of what to do and how to earn money during the off-season or what is also called the slack season which the noodles translate to.

And so this guy his name is Hong Yutao. He was a fisherman from Tainan who decided to come up with a noodle dish that used dry shrimp as the base but just a little bit of seafood that flavored a whole bowl of noodles which he could sell during the off season and he would sell that from a pole with two pots on either end and sell it throughout the the city and that's how it got started. I Mean to this day it's called slack Season noon and it still exists today. It's a very popular noodle dish and it is very tasty and now everybody has their own recipe.

There's so many different variations that you'll find as well. Let's move on to that soup. Clear broth with you can see these meatballs are going to be really bouncy. actually they kind of like dense.

yeah I'll try that broth first. Oh yeah, nice. really clear, not too oily and just kind of not too salty either. And then those meatballs.

oh meatball is incredible. show spongy and bouncy and I like how the texture is not too fine, not too smooth. you actually taste the muscle grains of that meat. Okay and then finally we have the the Bridge pork feet and Ankle material with the cartilage with the fat.

Oh yeah, this is going to be wobbly. This is all the collagen, the gooey. really tasty and really gooey and goes well together with this entire set. Actually that sauce starts to go to the bottom so you can kind of just rehydrate.

That's where all the flavor has just seeped down to the bottom of your bowl. So tasty! Oh man, they're so nice. What a spot! What a spot here on the corner! So friendly and absolutely delicious. Donsai noodles: Okay, we're moving on.

we have a lot more to eat now. Next up down this alley there's a place that we're going to that serves almost like a buffet style breakfast where you can choose all the different dishes you're gonna eat. This place is just so cool. It's a busy place, people just line up and then they have all the different dishes prepared at the front.

They have regular rice, they have kanji and then one of their Specialties here is curry rice. Oh nice. So they take the rice and they just load it up. They have this big pot of curry sauce which they just Ladle onto your rice and then you can eat that with all the different side dishes just depending on what you want to eat.

So we're going to get a few of their Specialties some of their signature dishes and I have to try that curry rice. Okay all sitting down here for a feast a brunch is this place opens early in the morning and again they're just so friendly and the food is so cooked hot and fresh. So I got some eggplant with tomato egg. We got one of the fish that he recommended.

this is some of the Bean Curd skin. This is one of their signature dishes is a steamed pork and then they gave me some of this chicken which they said I have to try as well as some of this soup. But the first thing I gotta try is there's just this straight curry rice and syrup with a little bit of chili on the side here. All right, Oh that's it's.

just warm and comforting, not overpowering. It's very similar to a Japanese Curry that kind of savory gravy, almost with just a hint of a curry powder flavor to it, but not not really too strong. It's almost like yeah, like a thickened gravy, but it's just so tasty and it kind of adds some hardiness, some stickiness to the rice. and then you could go in for some of the side dishes.

That tomato egg is a very popular dish, a little bit sweet and then tart. and then you've got the scrambled egg in there. Such a cool, very local place. Some of that purple eggplant? oh I Love eggplant? Yeah Cheers! Completely melts in your mouth.

Juicy and creamy. For the fish, it's a horse head tile fish. It's been fried so you can see that kind of crunchy crust on it, but then at the time after being fried then it's braised so it retains and just absorbs the juiciness. Good as well.

A flavor of that sauce boiled it absorbs all the flavor, has a little bit of a soy sauce taste to it and just like good and comforting. This is one of their signatures. that steamed pork. oh man that brings back good memories I used to love Stephen Park as a kid and now just kind of fatty, juicy, salty and just the texture of it because it's so crumbly.

It's like a really coarse mince so it just kind of crumbles and falls apart in your mouth. Really easy to eat and so much flavor. Okay and then we've got the the braised bean curd skin something. I Also love like a byproduct of of the tofu process with that skin but it gives totally different texture and you can see it has a little bit of a glaze on it as well.

Mmm. you just feel the layers, all those really thin layers of the tofu skin and then kind of has a sweet braised sauce to it. Try some of that soup. Oh radish.

Just a really simple soup, probably with pork buns and pork flavor and then you taste you. Like really, just taste the flavor of radish boiled down in that broth. And then the final dish. here is the chicken, which they actually gave us on the house.

They said we should try this with a little bit of herbs in there and a nice sauce. Um, oh yeah. Immediately you taste the ginger, the onions and the basil in there. The sweetness of that that basil.

Really good. Furry Races Outstanding! I mean all the dishes are delicious and while I really do enjoy all forms and shapes of breakfast something about rice and Curry in the morning with all the different side dishes, for me, this is the ultimate breakfast. Oh man, this is so good. So right next door to where they sell the food, this is where Auntie's kitchen is and where she does all the cooking.

She just flies around from walk to Walk cooking all the dishes and I think as soon as they finish one dish then she'll cook another batch or cook another dish to replace it. So there's just constantly a supply of fresh food and she doesn't cook in that big of portion size. I Don't think it's ever sitting for that long so you're guaranteed hot fresh food, especially with the amount of people that come into the stall. Just bye bye! So friendly, so accommodating.

Oh, and Auntie's in the kitchen too! Oh, they're just incredibly nice that is. Ultimate Taiwanese Hospitality Delicious food. Breakfast of champions. Oh that was a great experience, but we're not done yet.

There's still more to eat which is coming up. Let's go to the next place. Foreign. This was unplanned, but we were walking through the neighborhood.

We have a little bit of extra time today on this tour and so we decided to stop by. This is a place that is for Generations Now we're on the third generation that's running it now, but they have been making the special type fish ball with pork in the center made from a combination of fish and thresher shark. These are jacuzzi sized giant tubs walks of the fish balls just bobbing away, boiling away. How many fish balls in one walk? do you think 300 to 400 floating fish balls? We have to try them.

it looks so good. Okay here we go. Uncle Just finished a fresh batch of the fish balls. These are truly unique fish balls.

and then one of the great things about this. well you can get them with noodles as well or vermicelli or mung bean noodles. but I Just got the straight soup with the fish balls and then one of the great things is the condiments bar where they have a variety of different chili sauce, chili oils and then some of the Pickled spicy cabbage that is really salty so you just need a little bit to kind of flavor the broth in the soup and for the first bite, we won't bite the whole thing, just kind of bite. bite half of it and that way we can see what's inside of it.

Point spread, it's almost like a dumpling. It's all made up fish and then pork on the inside. And this is when you could definitely utilize some of these chili oils. There's a variety of them, some of the original one and then one is the Mala scoop in with this chili oil.

the flavor of the fermented Bean in that sauce because it's such a rich flavor and then you can also add it to your soup to even flavor that, um, but the soup looks like a light kind of oily broth. Remember this? Oh, chili oil is incredible. But yeah, I think we should season the entire bowl of soup. typically add this to that pickle, maybe add a little bit of that chili, and then also you can save some of that chili for dipping as well.

Cabbage: It's really kind of leathery in texture, really salty. It just like adds so much flavor and that fermentation to the soup. I'm gonna put one of these over into the chili oil again. Oh that was incredible.

It's like it's so smooth, you almost think it's almost like a Mochi or a rice wrapper. but it's fish delicious. Wow! you stepped down this. Lane We're like in the middle of a neighborhood and we have just arrived.

This is a temple which is called and it just like you walked down an alley and just emerge into this. Courtyard Where the temple is where these absolutely spectacular Banyan trees draping over the entire Courtyard and this is a well-known Temple as well as a well-known area for local and traditional Taiwanese street food and so people come here. Uh to eat, to socialize, to hang out. It's an amazing Hidden Gem Off the beaten path and this is where we're gonna keep on eating and continuing this food tour.

Food stalls are all in the front and there looks to be about 20 different food stalls that all offer their specialty and so what you can do. You kind of have two different options for eating and for choosing your food. one is you. They kind of have bar counter seating at every stall, just a bench where you can sit uh, right in Chef's Table right in front of where the the chef is cooking and eat right there.

Alternatively, you can order from a bunch of different stalls and then find a table here in the courtyard under the Banyan trees. and so that's probably what we're going to do so that we can try a number of different things. One of the popular food stalls here that we're gonna try is the kanji stall. So kanji is coming up in our near future but you can smell the aroma, the ginger they have the rice Congee here in the center and it's more soupy.

You can see it's very brothy and then the rice below. rather than porridge, it's more brothy and then they serve it with a variety of fried seafood and sides. There's fried pork. they're cooking everything in the stall.

This is a popular place and it smells incredibly good. Okay, so we're gonna start with the the rice rice kanji and this setting is just so spectacular. Shaded again I Can't I've probably said that already three times, but shaded by the Banyan trees in this Courtyard It's such a lovely friendly environment and hot, fresh food. Couldn't I mean couldn't get better than this.

The kanji looks really good, they scoop it up, looks like there's some radish in the kanji as well. some meat just like light and fragrant and then we got mostly. you could get fried. pork was very common, but then since we're having plenty of other pork today, we've decided to go for some of the fried seafood.

There's shrimp, there's calamari, there's fried oysters. let's just taste it first before seasoning with some of the the pepper oh you neatly taste I think that is radish radish in there, which is, um, giving that soup some flavor. Not overpowering, just a nice flavor. You taste the a little bit of porkiness in that broth.

not thick and oily, but just kind of like brothy. Really good. And then I think it would be good with a Sprinkle of white pepper that they have here. Oh that smells good with that white pepper.

Look at that view up there. Okay, let's try it with some of that. Seafood So we've got a variety of seafood. oysters, shrimp served with the sauce on the side as well.

It's lightly battered and it looks kind of like crumbly as well, almost like corn flour. Oh hot and fresh and crispy. And then there's oysters. and Squid Oh the color Mario is excellent now with some pickled radish.

I Think on the side. Oh man! I love it with that white pepper. Yeah brings out the full flavor potential. The Toasted Garlic with the fried garlic on top too.

that adds another fragrance to it. It's just really light and soothing and the fragrance of the fried shallots in there as well that brings out the flavor okay and then also fried little fried oysters. Oh the people you meet here are very friendly also. He says he eats here every single day.

Loyal customer. Very good. Hustle The next dish that we're gonna eat is a pork ribs soup with radish. It smells really good.

This is another very popular stall here and along with the pork rib soup, they also serve a number of different Taiwanese braised dishes, a bunch of vegetable side dishes, there's tofu, there's pork. You can kind of choose the different side dishes, but your main dish has to be that pork ribs, radish soup. So the next food here at the market and this is Oh and the little fun which is one of the national dishes of Taiwan rice with braised pork belly over it, which you can eat with all the accompanying sides. And then we've got bamboo shoots.

There's some greens, some braised tofu, some cabbage, and some dipping sauces. But we gotta start with that soup because that's like the main, the main attraction here. there's big chunks of radish and just try that broth first. That's almost exactly how it looks.

just so clean and pure. You taste the flavor of the pork and then just that undertone sweetness of the radish. I Don't think there's any spice in there. a little bit of salt, not overly salted, but just like the pure Taste of pork and radish.

Let me try that little fun first. again, just pork belly till it literally starts to melt, making a sauce that's perfect harmony. for rice, it's literally like like butter half melted. You don't even really notice that it's fat because it's so soft, it's effortless to eat.

Then I'll go in for some of these all these really tender braised greens I love that. A little bit a sourness to it. really tender, really soft. Okay, next up for the braised tofu I Love how spongy the tofu is and how it just absorbs all of those braising liquids and spices.

Turn it again. the sponginess. This one has a nice neck flavor to it. You can take some of the medicinal herbs in it and for sure fluffy in your mouth.

Okay, next up for the bamboo shoots and I think he actually puts on a little bit of that braised pork sauce to give it some flavor as well. I Love bamboo shoots that texture the silkiness plus the stringiness at the same time has a little bit of a I'm not sure if they're pickled or preserved, it's a little bit salted, a little bit of acidity, but just that juicy, crisp bamboo shoot flavor. And then finally the Cabbage like most of their sides that they offer, I think very sharp and sweet and the whole combination of everything goes together as well with the soup and the rice and all those veggies. And we actually have a few more things that we've got to try before we leave this amazing market for the next dish.

We're gonna transfer over here and sit Chef's counter table here but they're called Fried Chicken Roll but it's actually not chicken at all, it's pork and onions is the mixture and then he wraps it in a tofu skin and then deep fried. And the reason they're called a deep fried chicken roll is because it looks like a chicken neck once it's deep fried. So this will be the first chicken roll that doesn't include chicken that I've ever tried and it looks and smells delicious. You can see the how chunky the onions is I mean it's really like just chopped onions.

it's not like an onion puree, it's chunky onions pork in there and then just kind of held together with that tofu skin and there's a little bit of batter but not doesn't look too heavy on the batter served with the sauce. Oh wow that is so tasty I like how the onions it's not fully cooked so they're crisp and juicy and flavorful. and then with that thin tofu skin, the sweetness of the onions, the flavor of the pork and then that batter has a little bit of a like gooey texture to it I kind of hold it all together on the inside. that's unlike any other deep fried spring roll.

totally different texture, loaded with onions. really tasty. Wow this place is probably the most busy of them all right now. What a rush! people are lining up to eat this This they're famous for their pork leg so again it's a thin broth very Porky very popular and you eat it together with some of the vermicelli noodles with like some garlic on top as well.

Oh wow you can really taste the flavor of the the rice wine and then the ginger in there and then from there it's just this hot Porky bone broth and that's uh like Flavor from the bones coming out to make it milky. Oh that's really good broth. That broth is incredible. and then I'll try some of the pork and dip it into that sauce.

and I got the legs so it's less fat. If you get the the hawk or if you get the maybe the ankle or the the leg it would be a lot of fat and collagen in there. Flavorful and really here. Okay, it's not a strong taste to the park, all of that flavor has been released into the broth.

I Think it's just really about that combination of the pork, the broth and the broth is really something something special. Try these noodles. Oh and immediately what I love about this is it has like garlic all over a pureed garlic. Oh yeah, that raw garlic just absorbed into the noodles.

So much garlic in there. and I mean just a few things are as exciting as a food lover just being right in the middle of the action. Everyone here for the good food and then just like non-stop cooking in front of you as you're eating. What an environment! What a choice! And you can tell there's so many people that come here to the stall.

But to this whole Market are people that come here. They're dedicated. We talked to one man who was really friendly who said he comes every day to eat that same food at that same stall. The dedication, the loyalty.

I think the Nostalgia the brings back memories here of the old times and the tradition of Taiwanese Food and social Community I Think that's what really stands out here here in the kitchen now. Talk about a pork Leg Boiled pork leg. Rush People are just lining up the pork they're just pulling out Hawks boiling Hawks from all over the place chopping them up and he is shopping them up into bite-sized pieces. Uh, then you can kind of almost choose your part.

uh if you want the fattier part, if you want the the more meaty part then they just quickly blanch them again in the hot bone soup and then they put it into your bowl and mix it with the ginger and just a Sprinkle a squeeze of rice wine. but man this is a this is a rush to get here. It is so popular it's been an absolutely fantastic street food tour in Taipei today. I'll have the links to places that we went to in the description box below as well as the some details about the places that we went.

but highly recommended everything I Want to say a huge thank you to you for watching this video? Please remember to give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. Leave a comment below I'd love to hear from you and if you're not already subscribed, make sure you subscribe now for lots more food and travel videos. And also make sure you watch this entire Taiwanese food Series where we're in Taipei and we're doing some very cool, unique off the beaten path food experiences and eating some of the best Taiwanese Food that you don't want to miss. so make sure you check out all the videos.

Thanks again for watching I Will see you on the next video.