Lai Yin Motel

The owner returned to his hometown in 2022 and remodelled this riverside warehouse into a rustic joint specialising in traditional Hakkanese rice cakes made from scratch. Local seasonal ingredients, such as taro, red beans, mugwort and pumpkin, are added to the rice batter for extra flavour. Steamed rice cake is the must-try, coming in sweet and savoury varieties. The latter is seasoned with in-house dried radish, shredded dried tofu and soy sauce.

This unsophisticated eatery champions home-style Hakkanese fare whose low fat and sodium content is rich in healthy benefits. The welcome drink, sicklepod tea, is said to promote bowel and eye health. Their signature Silkie chicken herbal soup is slow-cooked for eight hours with over 30 Chinese herbs. To highlight its herbal aromas, the health tonic is intentionally unseasoned. For starch, try their fried rice with home-made pickles loaded with savoury depth.

Complete with a garden and pond, this eatery outside the city can claim over 40 years of history. Local snacks, stir-fries and marinated meat define the score, together with their eponymous signature rice vermicelli. Be they stir-fried or in soup, the fine noodles are bouncy and loaded with rice aromas. You can also opt for a mix of ribbon rice noodles and rice vermicelli for varied textures. Pair with a bowl of pork ball soup for an authentic Hsinchu meal.

Opened in 2000, this place has a retro and rustic feel. The chef from Kaohsiung, whose culinary career spans over 30 years, is of half Hakkanese descent and a keen advocate of Hakkanese food preservation culture: he incorporates various dried, pickled and fermented condiments into his menu. Try his steamed sea bass with the house-made pineapple sauce – pineapple and fermented soybeans are aged with liquorice and salt for three months to develop tangy depth.

This noodle shop started in a wet market in 2003. It moved to its current address near a train station in 2021, while growing in size. As the name suggests, it prides itself on its fried sparerib noodles served with crisp bean sprouts and starchy taro in a broth rich in scallion aromas. The choice of noodles is almost head-spinning; try the locally made ribbon noodles which are springy in texture and are ideal to soak up the flavourful broth.

The birch panels and counter brighten up the darker hues adorning the space. After honing his skills in Japan, the chef returned to his hometown to open Sushi An. Most of the fish is shipped straight from Tokyo's Toyosu Market, and he orders the freshest catch from the northeastern coast of Taiwan (e.g. ishidai and nodoguro). The single omakase menu comprises 10+ pieces of sushi, rounded out by tamagoyaki and freshly brewed Oriental Beauty tea.

Warm light, limewash walls, a wooden counter and an open kitchen make for a cosy space that encourages interaction with the two Taiwanese chefs, who met in Australia. Firoo specialises in wood-fire cooking, using different wood for different ingredients – Formosan koa, longan or lychee. The rotating menu leans towards seafood from the island's northeastern coast, which exudes smoky depth, served with fermented sauces and rare spices such as strawberry gum.