Zhongshan Road's Breakfast Shop Legend: Ten Years of Ten-Dollar Egg Crepes

[Staff Report / Reporter Chou Shih-chang, North District]

The Lai Lai Breakfast Shop at 117 Zhongshan Road in the North District has drawn long queues every day since it was featured on a cable TV food show. Its plain egg crepe sells for NT$10 and has not gone up in nearly ten years of business, a rare low price in the trade.

Owner Chen Lai-fu (58) said the shop buys all its ingredients at the North District market early each morning. "It is nothing special. As long as everybody gets full."

At four every morning the owner is at the shop getting ready: first the soy milk, then the batter for the turnip cake. At half past five he rolls up the shutter. There are only six tables, and the price list on the wall is handwritten; in ten years the paper has been replaced only once.

The owner's wife takes the money and packs the orders, and she remembers most regulars' tastes. "Whose egg crepe gets chili sauce, whose soy milk gets less sugar, you don't have to say, she knows," said an office worker who buys breakfast there every day before work.

When this reporter visited at a little after six in the morning, students were already waiting at the door. A girl from a nearby junior high said she comes at 6:30 every day. "The boss always remembers I don't want scallions."

Since the program aired, dozens of people have lined up outside every morning, at times all the way to the next lane. The shop has not raised prices; it has simply doubled its orders of soy milk and crepe skins. "If customers are willing to wait, we just work faster," the owner's wife said.

Students said that when they are short of money, the owner lets them "eat first, pay when you have it." Neighbors said the shop often looks after children from struggling families, though Mr. Chen himself declined to say more.