Chou’s Shrimp Rolls 周氏蝦捲 @ Tainan

I was in Kaohsiung with Princess after her graduation to visit her mom, and we made an excursion to Tainan City, which is just a 45 min drive from Kaohsiung. We stopped at Chou’s, a famous local noodle shop, for lunch.

Tainan, a city on Taiwan’s southwest coast, was the island’s capital from 1683–1887 under the Qing dynasty. Today it’s known for its centuries-old fortresses and temples. Besides the architectural relics, Tainan is also well-known for its street food, and for noodles they have their local danzai noodles (但仔麵, Tàⁿ-á-mī), also written as 擔仔麵, originated in Tainan about 130 years ago.

The origins of Chou’s Shrimp Rolls date back to 1965. The founder, Mr. Chou Chin-ken (周進根), was originally a master banquet chef (aka tsóng-phòo-sai 總舖師) specialising in outdoor catering; however, as such work was not available every day, he began running a small snack stall in Tainan’s Anping district during his spare time. He sold a variety of snacks, with shrimp rolls being just one of the items on the menu. Around 1980, the original shrimp rolls were improved; made primarily from fresh shrimp, these rolls became highly popular with consumers, and the Chou’s Shrimp Rolls brand was born. Now, this eatery that started from Tainan has become a franchise, and you can also get frozen version of the shrimp rolls in supermarkets to make at home.

But they cannot claim credit for danzai noodles, as it was added to their menu because everyone was coming to Tainan for danzai noodles. Danzai noodle stores are found all over Taiwan, but their origin can all be traced back to an early fisherman named Hong Yutou (洪芋頭), who would hawk noodles along the streets using a shoulder pole—known in Taiwanese as dan-a—during the fishing off-season. He started the noodle store that became Duhsiaoyue (度小月), which means “surviving the slack season” in reference to the fishing off-season. But I digress.

Fresh shrimp with taro bits wrapped with spring roll skin and then dipped in batter and deep fried. Dip them in the sweet and spicy chilli sauce provided, and you have a nice little snack. No wonder why they can build a F&B empire with this single item, the shrimp rolls were delicious.

Danzai noodle is made with shrimp-flavoured broth, minced pork and a single piece of sliced pork and cooked shrimp that sits on the top of yellow alkaline noodles (aka Hokkien noodles). The closest thing to danzai noodle would be our Singapore Hokkien prawn noodle soup in terms of flavours and noodles used. It was a taste that is really familiar to us.

However, the dry version of the noodle was nothing like the Singapore prawn noodle. The main sauce used was a ladle of minced pork sauce that was very dense with fried shallots (totally different from the one used for Ló͘-bah-pn̄g).

To go with the dry noodles, I ordered a bowl of fish ball soup, that came with three types of fish balls made from cod (cashew nut shape), milkfish (white) and prawn (slight pinkish). Nothing outstanding.

For several decades, many Taiwanese people have used the homophone “魯” instead of “滷” to name this braised pork rice. This street food that originated from southern Taiwan has nothing to do with China’s braised pork, because it uses minced pork instead of whole pieces of pork. Their version uses larger chunks of pork, not the really minced one that was made popular by Formosa Chang (鬍鬚張).

The side that we really enjoyed was their flying fish roe sausage (飛魚卵香腸). This local sausage mixes tobiko with minced pork and squid into a delicious sausage with rich umami. When you bite into it, there’s the popping sensation made by the fishing fish roe.

The almond tofu wasn’t anything that we imagined. The tofu was made from grounded almonds that are simmered at high temperatures to extract their essence, and then made into a rather dense tofu. This dessert was not very “almond-ny” and Princess and I did not enjoy it. We fond a tofu place just down the street that was much better. So don’t waste your time, just skip the dessert.

This particular location was their original store near the Anping Ancient Street (安平老街). Nothing fancy or spectacular, just a quick stop for a quick lunch. The auntie taking order was rather pushy, trying to make us order more than what we can eat. Just stick to the script, and you would be fine.

Chou’s Shrimp Rolls 周氏蝦捲
No. 125, Anping Rd, Tianfei Village, Anping District, Tainan City, Taiwan 708
台南市安平區安平路125號

After lunch, we started to make our way to the Anping Old Street to do some shopping and walked past this Chinese dessert shop. Since we had a really disappointing dessert at Chou’s, we decided to compensate at this Chou’s. BTW the two are not related to each other, and both have been operating in Anping for a long time.

Anping Chou’s Delicacy specialises in beancurd and other classic Chinese sweet broth (糖水.) And you can mix and match the different base dessert with different toppings. From the wall of recommendation and awards, we were more assured we had come to the right place for our sweet tooth.

Their almond tofu was really good, soft and smooth with a nice almond broth. And the classic beancurd was also good, but we didn’t enjoy the peanut topping. Should have opted for the plain one instead.

Anping Chou’s Delicacy 安平周民豆花
No. 137, Anping Rd, Tianfei Village, Anping District, Tainan City, Taiwan 708
台南市安平路137號

Visited Jul 2026