Taipei’s Small Bowl Is Still 39 Yuan

The lunch is a small bowl of braised pork over rice.

Formosa Chang is the chain with 鬍鬚張 on the sign. The small bowl is NT$39, about $1.20. In January the company said that price last changed in October 2017.

Other dishes went up. The braised-pork bento moved from 85 yuan to 89. Another bowl, with greens, bamboo shoots, pickles, and half a braised egg, is 71 yuan. For a day, people thought the plain bowl had jumped to 71. Ask for the small bowl. The 71-yuan one is a different lunch.

The meals around that counter rose too. On October 7, Taiwan’s statistics office published what ordinary meals cost in September. Rice meals were up 3.8 percent from a year earlier, bento and braised-pork rice among them. Eating out was up 3.04 percent. The Economic Daily reported a fourth straight month above 3 percent. The office said those prices go up and then stay there.

September’s broader prices rose 2.73 percent. Tsai Hsiu-hui, the specialist who presents the monthly figures, said vegetables did most of the climbing from August, after heavy rain late in the month.

Have breakfast before the morning turns into a line.

Shaobing, a baked flatbread, and fan tuan, a rice roll, are the breakfast items in the September prices. The category rose 3.35 percent. Pick one up on the walk to the MRT. A shop with a crowd out the door can wait until tomorrow.

Noodles and soup dumplings rose 3.4 percent, close to the breakfast figure. Have them when you want a table.

Huang Chi Lu Rou Fan (黃記魯肉飯) is the Zhongshan shop on the MICHELIN Guide Taiwan 2026 Bib Gourmand list. The address is 28, Lane 183, Section 2, Zhongshan North Road. Monday and Thursday it is closed. The other days the guide has it open from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Bring cash. The guide calls the meal inexpensive. The number is on the board inside.

The pork is fatty, and the sauce is thick enough to coat the rice. Go if you are already on that part of Zhongshan North Road, and go on a day the shop is open.

On January 1 the monthly minimum wage becomes NT$30,900, up from NT$29,500. The Ministry of Labor set the new rate. If you are in Taipei this fall, order the bowl on the board in front of you. If you come after New Year, look at the price again.