Buddy Benjamin said I must try 元祖胡椒饼 Yuanzu Pepper Cake near 龍山寺 Longshan Temple in Taipei, and so... here we are 😄
The nearly 50 year old 元祖胡椒饼 Yuanzu Pepper Cake is in a back lane near Longshan Temple MRT station and underground mall.
The narrow back lanes of Taipei are generally clean, dry and not too dark during the day. Those back lanes with many food stalls inside usually have busy foot traffic, so I feel they are generally safe.
Anyway, the shutters were not up yet at 元祖胡椒饼 Yuanzu Pepper Cake but there was already a queue outside. Some locals, some Japanese tourists, and us 😄
Everything is made at the home-shop behind and freshly baked in the charcoal fired tandoor style ovens in front.
The little notice at the bottom says 僅只一家, 絕無分店 "Only one shop. Absolutely no branch shop."
元祖胡椒饼 Yuanzu Pepper Cake is full house the moment the shutters go up.
This is not some kind of traditional board game. It's a simple and effective ordering system. The top row are the queue numbers and the golden tokens below indicate the number of pepper buns ordered.
The pepper cakes which are hand made at the stall are stuck to the side of the charcoal fired tandoor oven. Inside temperature is nearly 300℃.
Once golden brown, the pepper cakes are "harvested", bagged in brown paper sleeves and served to queueing customers.
NT$ 50 a bun 😄 Golden brown outside studded with toasted sesame seeds. All pepper buns in Taiwan come in traditional brown paper sleeves with different brand names (of course) in bold red Chinese calligraphy.
All of us ate our piping hot pepper buns just outside the back lane which is near the entrance / exit 3 of the Longshan Temple 龍山寺 underground mall / MRT station.
👉 元祖 Yuan Zu's pepper bun has a nice well balanced mild savoury sweetness with a quite pronounced peppery spiciness. The ball of minced / sliced pork with chives inside is tender and juicy mainly because it has a relatively high proportion of fat. It tastes good as the pork is fresh. The juices are tongue scathing hot, so do be very careful. The crust is not as browned as other stalls and is the thickest among the pepper buns we've tried. Crisp, quite chewy but nice as it complements the peppery savoury sweet meat ball well.
Restaurant name: 元祖胡椒饼 Yuanzu Pepper Cake
Address: No. 5, Alley 2, Lane 89, Section 3, Heping West Road, Wanhua District, Taipei City, 108 (near Longshan Temple MRT station)
GPS: 25°02'07.6"N 121°30'02.3"E | 25.035449, 121.500641
Tel: +886 2 2308 3075
Hours: 10:30am - 6:30pm
Non Halal
Date visit: 23 Oct 2017
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Wow this is the outlet I went to get my Pepper Buns when I last visited Taipei. Incidentally last Friday, I went to Hong Chun Kopitiam TUTA to get my Kompia from Mr Lim. Sad to say I was the only patron there around lunch time. As mentioned our Malaysian Kompia is a anorexic variant of the buns from Fuzhou. But I dare say a Taiwanese tourist would not relate our Kompia to their Pepper Bun except for the tandoor oven . We need more publicity for Mr Lim at TUTA
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