breakfast/brunch: i recommend McDONALDS

McDONALDs
almost everywhere

website: mcdonalds.com.tw Chinese only

hours: until 10:30AM or so at most locations

$

Kid friendliness: Who hasn't been here as a kid? High chairs available and some McDonalds here have small playgrounds. Seasonal toys with the happy meals are collectible!

Visit reviewed: 6/24/2007

It's classic, it's fast and it's affordable. Sure, it's not the healthiest thing in the world, but neither are eggs benedicts! It's almost the same you'd find back home and definitely quicker than when you don't have time to wait in line at NY Bagel or the Diner on the weekends for American style breakfasts. Offering breakfast sandwiches on McMuffin or bagel (NT$30-40 only sandwich/$65-75 combo) - you can have egg, sausage, cheese or bacon in various combos as well as hotcakes (NT$40 alone/NT$75 combo). Don't forget to get the hash brown (my personal favorite!) and an OJ or coffee or milk to go with it.

Even the packaging looks familiar with the bold sans serif lettering paper wrapping or styrofoam plate for your hotcakes. The service will vary depending on location, but there will be plenty of picture menus for you to point to what you want, even if the server doesn't understand "hotcakes" or "hash brown" in English.



The hotcakes come with the prepackaged super sweet syrup, but they are perfectly round and soft and hot as if you griddled (or microwaved them) yourself. Somehow everytime I eat McDonald's hotcakes I'm reminded of when I went camping with my girl scout troop and saw for the first time someone make perfectly round American style pancakes that would slowly turn golden and fluffy- as opposed to the odd shaped homemade crepe style pancakes my dad would concoct out of flour and butter and sugar at home. So I have a special place in my stomach for hotcakes, especially since these are a huge improvement over the hockey pucks from NY Bagel.

Personally, I like the biscuit better than the mcmuffins since I think the mcmuffin tastes a little more 'preserved'- but they don't have that option here. I also wanted to get some of the berries and yogurt parfait, but they didn't know what I talking about at this location. Now that I think about it, they might not have brought that into Taiwan at all yet.

Also, if you spot the McCafe locations around town, they have more specialized coffee/lattes as well as waffle options though it's more like an afternoon tea snack here. The seating is more cozy corner coffeeshop like and less fast food plasticky than the regular McDonalds.

Lastly, the Minute Maid orange juice tastes like standard semi-pulpy OJ rather than the more watery or sugary versions of orange juice that you might find from some local brands.

I heard that some McDonalds back in the states might have breakfast available all day. That would be awesome! I remember some mornings trying to get myself out of bed in time to the 10:30am cut off time and going to the drive through in my pajamas. Something about the hash browns really gets to me- the crispy hotness when you bite into it. You can't eat it everyday, but once in awhile it's a treat.