Dishes
Tainan shrimp rice
蝦仁飯
Rice stir-fried in bonito stock with small shrimp, a Tainan dish with Japanese-era roots.
Photo: ChingHua Chung, CC BY 2.0
Photo: rheins, CC BY 3.0What it is
A bowl of rice stir-fried with bonito (katsuobushi) stock and small, sweet shrimp, moist and savoury rather than greasy. It is usually topped with a soft-cooked egg.
Where it comes from
Ai Zai Cheng on Haian Road traces its origins to 1922. Its founder, Yeh Cheng, trained at a Japanese restaurant called Mingyue Lou during the colonial era and developed his shrimp rice from Japanese flavours. He was short, so customers nicknamed him Ai Zai Cheng, a pun on his name.
How it is made
The rice is stir-fried with bonito stock and shrimp so it takes on the stock's flavour.
How to eat it
Put the soft-cooked egg on the rice, break the yolk and mix it through. Miso soup is the usual side.
In Tainan
Two well-known shrimp-rice shops sit on the same stretch of Haian Road in Tainan: Ai Zai Cheng and Ji Pin.
Where to eat it in Tainan
矮仔成蝦仁飯Ai Zai Cheng Shrimp Rice
Founded in 1922 by a cook trained in a Japanese-era restaurant, this Haian Road shop is the century-old name behind Tainan-style shrimp rice.
集品蝦仁飯Ji Pin Shrimp Rice
The other big shrimp-rice name on the same stretch of Haian Road. It also serves shrimp rolls and bowl rice cake, and Korean TV fame has lengthened the queues.
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