Sheng Li Breakfast

Review

Sheng Li Breakfast stands on Shengli Road in the East District, right next to National Cheng Kung University, and has been open for over fifty years. Despite the word breakfast in its name, it actually runs from late afternoon through the night and even into the early morning, and for many NCKU students and alumni it is a late-night memory. The shop is plain with tightly packed seats, and in the evenings it is often full of students and people coming off work.

The signatures are savoury soy milk and sesame flatbread with fried dough. The flatbread is reheated, the dough stick stays crisp, and the soy milk is rich, available sweetened or unsweetened, hot or cold. The savoury soy milk eats more like a soup and is better with a few drops of chili oil. The roast pork egg crêpe has a slightly crisp wrapper filled with shredded cabbage and mayonnaise and is not greasy; the scallion pancake is fragrant without being oily, and the chive pan-fried dumplings with the house soy sauce are often recommended.

Praise centres on low prices, honest portions, rich soy milk and the convenience of hot food late at night. Complaints often mention a blunt, not especially friendly owner, a basic and crowded room at peak times where you must find your own seat, and some feel the food is only average and coasts on location and nostalgia.

Sources disagree on hours: older articles say 4:30 p.m. to 10:30 a.m. the next day, while recent map data shows 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. with Mondays closed, so check before you go. After collecting your food, you pay at the drinks counter at the back. Most price information comes from articles several years old, so prices in the shop may have changed. Parking around NCKU is difficult, so walking or a scooter is easiest.

It suits travellers looking for a late-night snack near NCKU or wanting a taste of everyday student life in Tainan. Order savoury soy milk with sesame flatbread and fried dough, then add a roast pork egg crêpe or scallion pancake; bigger appetites can add chive dumplings. Earlier articles recorded the roast pork egg crêpe at NT$35 and the scallion pancake at NT$15, so about NT$100 per person is enough to eat well.