Can somone out there tell me more about the stores that sell chicken burgers during the morning breakfast hours? These places also sell hamburgers, tuna sundwiches, “dan bing”, “luo buo gao,” and other goods, many of which are fried on a grill.
I had a friend in from out of town and he asked me about them. “Since when did eating a chicken burger with a fried egg, cucumbers, onion slices, tomato slices, and mayo become a ‘typical’ Taiwanese breakfast?” he asked. I had to admit that I did not know.
How long have these places been around? How did they get started? Are they uniquely Taiwanese? Any insights on these places–or the custom of starting the day off with a chicken burger and a cup of milk coffee–are welcome.
[quote=“fee”]Can somone out there tell me more about the stores that sell chicken burgers during the morning breakfast hours? These places also sell tuna sundwiches, “dan bing”, “luo buo gao,” and other goods, many of which are fried on a grill.
I had a friend in from out of town and he asked me about them. “Since when did eating a chicken burger with a fried egg, cucumbers, onion slices, tomato slices, and mayo become a ‘typical’ Taiwanese breakfast?” he asked. I had to admit that I did not know.
How long have these places been around? How did they get started? Are they uniquely Taiwanese? Any insights on these places–or the custom of starting the day off with a chicken burger and a cup of milk coffee–are welcome.[/quote]
I know a lot of people go to those little “zao dian” shops. (That may not be the right name.) I usually get a han bao (hamburger). It’s got an egg, some onions, mystery meat, and a squirt of some special sauce. It’s not too bad and it only costs about 20 dollars. It’s pretty traditional and I bet if I looked up at the menu, I could find a chicken burger.
Sorry about that mistake. Yes, it should be burger, of course. I fixed it in the original post. At least it was good for a laugh. Once again, sorry if that spelling mistake caused any confusion.
Right, Sandman. Actually, these are sold–deep-fried–on a stick at most night markets.
Usually your breakfast bars come in two varieties.
The first are your ‘zao dian’ mostly made up of franchises like ‘mei er mei’. They almost always have the red/orang/yellow stripes. I’ve had breakfast in these places almost every morning for the last 4 years. I love stopping at the breakfast joint and reading my paper on the way to work. I used to have a dan bing (egg thing) with cheese and a veggi-burger every morning, but now I just get that on Sundays. Everyday is just toast with salad veggies now (much nicer than it sounds). They also have tea and (awful) coffe (I get canned stuff form the 7-11 - it’s better), zhen jiao, noodles, turnip cakes, fried eggs, sandwiches and probably a few other things.
The second kind is the ‘yong he dou jiang’ kind of store, which sells dou jiang (soy milk), you tiao, fan tuan, man tou, bao zi, and various other breads. I love fan tuan and veggie buns, but i find the zao dian more convenient than these places.
Some places mix the two a little bit, but the zao dians are much more common because making dou jiang and you tiao is much more difficult than toast and stuff.
The biggest problem is that you have to try and get up by noon at the latest to catch these places for Sunday afternoon breakfast. If you live close enough or are after some 6AM post club munchies there’s a few 24 hour breakfast shops on Fuxing S Rd around XinYi Rd.
To attempt to answer Fee’s question, I believe that those kinds of places are seen as western-style. They were introduced to me as such by a Taiwanese friend, and my students have a hard time believing that Westerners do not all eat hamburgers and sandwiches for breakfast.
In Taichung it seems that most of the places doing lobogao, danbing, hanbao etc. also sell doujiang and some of them also have baozi.
It would be interesting to hear from someone who’s been here ages - Blueface? - when these places started appearing.
