At a traditional Taiwanese breakfast shop, the menu may hang high behind the cooking line, visible while you wait but out of sight by the time you reach the counter. Your order then has to emerge in a few quick words, with even soy milk split into hot or cold, sweet or savory.
At breakfast time in Taipei, a sandwich stall can share a curb with a noodle shop and a soy-milk counter, all serving customers within the same few minutes. Eggs hiss, dough fries, and rice-based dishes move into plastic bags along the same narrow stretch of street.
Before most storefronts open for the day, small breakfast shops are already sending out egg pancakes, flatbreads, and soy milk through narrow windows. By late morning, much of that activity has disappeared, leaving an unusually brief but steady burst of business along nearly every street.