Taiwan's oldest city — temple culture, oyster omelettes, and 400 years of food history
Tainan is Taiwan's food capital — the island's oldest city (founded 1634) where the density of temples, Dutch forts, and Japanese colonial buildings is matched only by the density of outstanding food. The city is the origin of many of Taiwan's most beloved dishes: coffin bread, oyster omelette, danbing (egg crepe), milkfish congee at 7am, and shaved ice that Taiwanese elsewhere consider the gold standard. The old city moves slowly for Taiwan; the food stalls open at dawn.
Tainan was the capital of the Dutch colony of Zeelandia (1624–1661) and then the seat of the Zheng (Koxinga) kingdom that expelled the Dutch and held out against the Qing Dynasty until 1683. It remained Taiwan's administrative capital until the Japanese colonial authority moved it to Taipei in 1895. Four centuries of political layering — Dutch, Ming loyalist, Qing, Japanese, Nationalist — left Tainan with more historical buildings per square kilometre than any other Taiwanese city, and a food culture that refuses to hurry.