A New Generation of Chefs Reframes Taiwanese Cuisine in America

In the United States, Taiwanese dishes have often been swept under the vast umbrella of “Chinese food.” Until recently, only people who know their food geography could spot a restaurant with a particular specialty — beef noodle soup; box lunches of rice, pork and cabbage; braised beef rolled in scallion pancakes — and identify it as Taiwanese. It is not new to the United States, but it is being newly celebrated, and transformed, by young Taiwanese-American chefs and restaurateurs like Mr. Ho, Ms. Ku, Eric Sze of 886 in Manhattan and Joshua Ku of Win Son in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Cathy Erway, author of “The Food of Taiwan,” said that when she was researching her cookbook five years ago, she had to “scrape the bottom of the barrel” to find chefs and restaurateurs in the United States who identified their food as Taiwanese. (“Grazing is how Taiwanese people love to eat,” Ms. Ku said.) Taiwan also set off the East Asian trend for foods with “Q,” the local term for the springy texture shared by thick rice noodles, tapioca pearls and fish balls. Eddie Huang, its extroverted Taiwanese-American creator, went on to write a best-selling memoir, “Fresh Off the Boat.” (The book is also the basis for the ABC sitcom, which is very popular in Taiwan.)“Eddie Huang was a pop culture moment” for young Taiwanese-Americans, said Mr. Ku, 31, an owner of Win Son in Brooklyn (and no relation to Ms. Ku in Los Angeles). “The whole idea was that I wanted to make an accurate representation of what my family would eat.”886, 26 St. Marks Place, New York; eighteightsix.com.Ho Foods, 110 East Seventh Street, New York; hofoodsnyc.com.Joy, 5100 York Boulevard, Los Angeles; joyonyork.com.Pine & Crane, 1521 Griffith Park Boulevard, Los Angeles; pineandcrane.com.Shihlin Taiwan Street Snacks, multiple locations in the Bay Area; shihlinca.com.Taiwan Bear House, 11 Pell Street, New York; taiwanbearhouseny.com.Win Son, 159 Graham Avenue, Brooklyn; winsonbrooklyn.com.Zai Lai Homestyle Taiwanese, Turnstyle Underground Market (57th Street and Eighth Avenue), New York; zailainyc.com.Follow NYT Food on Twitter and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest.