In 2009, Michelin’s star landed not on Din Tai Fung’s Taipei flagship but on a branch inside Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui shopping district. The restaurant served xiaolongbao at roughly 1,000–2,000 yen per person, placing a globally prestigious distinction beside an ordinary mall meal.
In Taipei, Los Angeles, London, and Singapore, the bamboo steamers arrive in the same neat stacks, while each xiaolongbao carries eighteen pleats. The uniformity is visible before the first bite.
Around Kaohsiung’s 85 Sky Tower, a library, concert hall, exhibition center, cruise terminal, and light rail now form a busy waterfront district. The tower still rises above them, while many of the functions once meant to fill it sit in separate buildings outside.
Kaohsiung’s 85 Sky Tower still holds a hotel, restaurants, banquet halls, and an observation deck, but the commercial floors that once made it a vertical city have largely emptied out. Next door, the site reserved for an even taller tower remains a parking lot.
For years, a yellow sign with red lettering and a small tiger marked out a familiar kind of meal across Taipei. Now the original chain’s storefronts are white, while the yellow signs remain everywhere—often attached to shops with no clear connection to it.
Across Taipei, the same white sign with red characters appears at regular intervals: Lao Hu Jiang Wenzhou Giant Wontons. Inside, a bowl built around fist-sized wontons follows nearly the same arrangement from branch to branch, with one dark condiment offering the main point of variation.
Across Taiwanese cities, the same yellow-and-red sign appears beside office buildings, schools, and ordinary shopping streets. Inside, diners order guotie one piece at a time, adding soup or soy milk according to the size of the meal they need.