A Taiwanese food crawl in the East Village with NYC writer Cathy Erway

One of my first times eating Taiwanese food was at Win Son, a Taiwanese American restaurant near my apartment in Brooklyn. The food was fun and playful: Big bowls of sesame noodles, pan-griddled pork buns and fried eggplant enticed me to delve into the cuisine more deeply.

Through Win Son owners Trigg Brown and Josh Ku, I met Cathy Erway, a James Beard Award-winning writer and author of “The Food of Taiwan.”

Erway was born in New York; her mom was born and raised in Taipei. Erway's grandparents had moved to Taiwan from China's Hunan Province in the late 1940s. When I reached out to her to explore Taiwanese food in New York City with me, she suggested we head to the East Village, where there are several great Taiwanese restaurants.

Taiwanese food has been influenced by a variety of cultures: mainland Chinese, Japanese and the culture of the island's indigenous population. Fermented black beans, pickled mustard greens and fresh basil feature heavily in Taiwanese dishes, and stir-fried, braised and steamed dishes are found on menus across Taiwan.

I was pretty excited to hang out with Erway and eat at the restaurants we’d chosen.

We met at Ho Foods on East Seventh Street between First Avenue and Avenue A in the East Village for Taiwanese breakfast. Ho Foods is tiny; it only seats around 10 people, although it just acquired a space two doors down to accommodate more diners.

Owner Richard Ho opened the spot in January 2018. It initially specialized in beef noodle soup, but has since expanded the menu to include numerous other Taiwanese specialties.

Now, before you ask: No, we didn’t get Ho’s beef noodle soup. I was saving that for another spot on our food tour (more to come on that).

Ho Foods is one of the only places I know of that serves Taiwanese breakfast.

“Breakfast is fun,” Ho said. “I think people like starting off their day with a treat.”

According to Ho, the food he serves “reminds us of a moment in time in our own Taiwanese story. Maybe that means something to a few, but I know it doesn’t mean that to everyone. I guess by calling it Taiwanese we hope people continue telling the story about Taiwan.”

A popular way to get breakfast on the go in Taiwan is at a shop or stall selling freshly made soy milk and pastries. The soy milk can be hot or cold, sweet or savory — the latter is sort of like a soup — and it's often served with youtiao (a crisp cruller).

We ordered a breakfast set for two, which included sweet and savory soy milk, a scallion pancake rolled up with scrambled egg, youtiao, fan tuan (a sticky rice roll filled with youtiao and pork floss), and a turnip cake.

We broke off pieces of the youtiao and dipped it in the sweet soy milk, which we got hot. The youtiao was crisp and the soy milk was sweet, but not overly so. Erway compared the meal to having coffee and a doughnut.

“Everyone in Taiwan loves this breakfast; there is so much culture around it,” she said.

The light Taiwanese breakfast at Ho Foods felt incredibly special, fun and filling. The savory soy milk was topped with a crumble of crispy youtiao, a drizzle of sesame oil and a sprinkling of sliced scallions, which brightened it. It was more like a savory soup, and the slightly curdled yet still silky soy milk added a satisfying jiggle to every spoonful we ate. The turnip cake (more savory than one might think of when they hear the word “cake”) was sticky and fragrant.

Erway and I left Ho Foods and walked up Second Avenue to our next stop: Mimi Cheng’s.

Sisters Hannah and Marian Cheng opened the shop a decade ago, and named it after their mother. Erway and I arrived at the East Village location (the second is on the Upper West Side) on Second Avenue between East 11th and East 12th streets.

Mimi Cheng’s specializes in dumplings and there was someone there skillfully wrapping them by hand when we arrived. We ordered all of the dumplings, both pan-fried and boiled: the signature (with ground chicken and zucchini), pork and chive, and vegetarian. We also ordered the chicken and rice (three-cup chicken, Thai basil, Fresno chilies, over Jasmine rice with greens) as well as scallion pancakes.

The restaurant also had a collaborative dumpling special on the menu that day with chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns: blue label burger dumplings (dry-aged beef, caramelized garleek, and blue cheese). They were rich and juicy.

According to Marian, she and her sister use dumplings as a blank canvas to unite people. All of their recipes start with wholesome, straightforward and quality, fresh ingredients, letting the flavors speak for themselves.

The signature dumplings are based on their mom’s original recipe. Growing up, the sisters always had their mom’s homemade dumplings for lunch and snacks. Their mom used their neighbor’s zucchini in the dumplings as a way to feed them more vegetables. When the sisters were away at college, their mom always kept their freezers stocked with frozen dumplings.

The combination was something I had never had before in a dumpling and I was surprised by how much I loved it. Pan-fried pork and chive dumplings are typically my go-to. Their signature dumplings, boiled, were light and flavorful, and the boiled wrapper had the perfect level of chewiness.

We stopped by Xing Fu Tang next, just down Second Avenue between East Eighth and Ninth streets. Edison Chen originally opened the boba shop in Taipei in 2018. It's since expanded to become a global empire, with four stores in New York and outposts in Houston, Los Angeles, as well as more than 150 locations in 18 countries.

Xing Fu Tang has an open kitchen where guests can see the boba pearls being handmade and cooked hourly. The shop is known for its brown sugar boba milk (freshly caramelized brown sugar boba made in-house with natural ingredients, organic milk, creamy milk foam, and topped with brown sugar that is lightly torched- crème brulee style), which I’ve had before and think about constantly.

The ingredients are imported from Taiwan and the boba pearls were stir fried, caramelized, and carefully scooped into a cup right in front of us. We popped in a straw, stirred, and stepped outside to try it. It tasted like a milkshake and also very marshmallow-like. The caramelized brown sugar, which we saw getting torched inside, added a pleasant crystal-like texture to the top. Despite the sweetness, it was light and a nice break from all of the savory foods we’d already tried.

From Xing Fu Tang, we headed around the corner to 886, located on St. Marks Place between Second and Third avenues.

The restaurant opened in July 2018, the same year as its neighbor Ho Foods. Its name, 886, comes from Taiwan's country code. Owner Eric Sze was born in Taipei and moved to New York City in 2011. Sze is a powerhouse in Taiwanese cooking; in 2021, he won Eater’s New Guard and Forbes 30 Under 30 in Food & Drink.

Walking into 886 is like walking into a party. There are neon lights and the atmosphere screams fun. I got a shot of the 886 L.I.I.T. (Long Island Iced Tea), which Sze and his friends are known for drinking. In his absence, I felt I had to take a shot.

Sometimes I don’t know why I do the things that I do, but I told you, 886 is like walking into a party, and sometimes you've just gotta join in.

886's website describes its food as “authentically inauthentic.” Sze is constantly tinkering with and innovating the recipes at his restaurants.

Before it was a Japanese colony, Taiwan grew long grain rice. The Japanese introduced short grain rice, which is now widely used. Sze is a friend — I’ve worked with him a few times back when I was the culinary director at Munchies (Vice Media’s food channel) and we recently made a video cooking fried rice for my newsletter.

Although many people make fried rice by using leftover steamed rice, Sze specifically cooks his rice to make fried rice by using a Japanese variety known as koshihikari rice and preparing it with about 20% less water.

This preparation method paid off; the fried rice was fluffy and the eggs were soft. It came with homemade Taiwanese sausage, which was juicy and sweet.

We also ordered popcorn chicken, sourdough scallion pancakes and beef noodle soup. (I told you we’d get it eventually.)

The popcorn chicken landed on the table, just in time to soak up the alcohol I had just consumed. The nuggets were huge — far larger than any popcorn chicken I’ve ever seen — and the chicken was incredibly crisp on the outside (it's double fried) and juicy on the inside.

I’ve watched Sze work on perfecting his sourdough scallion pancake recipe on Instagram for most of the last year, so I was excited to finally try it. It was a bit thicker than your standard scallion pancake and was coated in sesame seeds before it was cooked, and the toasted seeds added a pleasant nuttiness to the bread.

The beef noodle soup was rich and the marbled beef shanks were melt-in-your-mouth tender. Sze gets the noodles from Wing Heung Noodle in Chinatown, which he described as “one of the last remaining Chinese-style noodle factories in New York City.” Sze told us the long, bouncy noodles are made using only flour, water, and salt. We topped them with pickled mustard greens.

Our last stop was Meet Fresh down on Cooper Square, known for its soft taro balls.

The slightly overwhelming menu includes a huge variety of shaved ice and boba desserts. We ordered the icy taro ball signature. It was loaded with taro paste, taro balls, potato balls, boba, and shaved ice, and was slightly sweet with a lingering savoriness. The shaved ice was cold and refreshing, and despite the heaviness and chewiness of the taro and potato balls, it felt light and was the perfect dish to end the day with.

I’m always impressed by the dishes that my friends and chefs at these restaurants put out. Taiwanese cuisine has evolved thanks to a fusion of traditional flavors and modern techniques, and I can't wait to see how they keep pushing it forward.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated where Cathy Erway’s mom was born.

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Here’s where to get great Taiwanese food in the East Village.

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Ho Foods
110 East 7th St.

Meet Fresh
37 Cooper Square

886
26 St. Marks Place

Xing Fu Tang
133 Second Ave.

Mimi Cheng’s
179 Second Ave.