Wudalang 武大郎 @ Taipei

In the Chinese classic, Water Margin 水浒传 (aka Outlaws of the Marsh), there’s a tragic character named Wu Dalang, who was a Chinese flatbread or Shaobing 烧饼 seller in the story. He raised his brother and took care of the family by selling this staple.

Likewise Wudalang 武大郎 in Da’an district of Taipei sells shaobing 燒餅 and youtiao 油條 (deep fried dough sticks), the staples of breakfast as far as I can remember for Taipei. These foods are not “native” of Taiwan but came with the retreating Nationalists in late 1940s. They were sold by makeshift stores along the military dependents’ village 眷村, when things were rationed and controlled. These military families had flour ration, which they took the surplus and started selling these Shandong shaobing and Sichuan youtiao. Now, it is one of the “local” delights that one must try when you are in Taiwan.

When I came to Taipei for the first time in 1979, my dad brought me to the breakfast shop 早餐店 nearby our hotel for shaobing youtiao, washed down with soy bean milk, aka doujiang 豆浆. This is the closest one I can find near Shangri-La that offers great shaobing youtiao. To order, just pick up an order sheet from the table and mark whatever you like, and indicate if you want to dine-in or takeaway.

On the weekends, if you want to order drinks, just pick from the counter on the right and then join the queue to order the food. On weekdays when the crowd isn’t as crazy, you just tell the order-taking lady what you want.

For the uninitiated, the menu can be quite daunting, as you can customise everything based on the basic items. i.e. shaobing, youtiao, egg wrap or danbing 蛋餅. The basic combination is shaobing + youtiao. They can be ordered separately or combined in a set, referred to as tao 套 (as seen above in the picture). So 半套 is half a set for the small eater. For shaobing and danbing, you can add an omelette or other sweet and/or savoury fillings like pork floss 肉鬆, cheese, bacon, patties, even salad, etc.

I usually order a portion of danbing and a portion of shaobing+youtiao without any fillings to share with Princess and her mom. The Hunanese-style chopped chilli sauce with bits of anchovies 小鱼辣椒 in this shop is must to add together with 酱油膏, the sticky sweet savoury soy sauce that is very uniquely Taiwanese.

蛋饼捲油条 Dough fritter wrapped with egg wrap is a strange combination – carbs on carbs. The danbing or wrap is like flour tortilla and can be made into a burrito wrap. The wrap is made fresh like Singapore’s roti prata and egg is smeared on the wrap just like roti prata. The youtiao is a replacement of the filling for those that need a lot of carbs to start the morning.

Besides the basics, you can also order their radish cake 萝蔔糕, steamed buns (pork or vegetable fillings), steamed dumplings and mantou (not the Korean dumplings, but Dongbei steamed buns without any fillings.)

Despite what’s going on politically in Taiwan, these little places are gems and what makes me go back to Taipei repeatedly. This style of breakfast is a fine example of tolerance and adaptability of people looking for a better life in a foreign place. Singapore and Taiwan (together with Hong Kong and South Korea) were considered the little dragons of Asia, economic miracles of the 70s and 80s. Taiwan is a melting pot of everything Chinese, and in the last two decades, of Southeast Asia. But in recent time, this tolerance has started to erode as the economy slows down. Hopefully, we don’t swing too much to the right.

Wudalang 武大郎
台湾台北市大安区乐业街29号
Tel : +886 2 2737 5680

Visited Aug 2025