If you only eat one thing in Jiaoxi, make it a fried scallion pancake from Ke's, then cross to the stall next door for peanut-roll ice cream. Ask in town and that's the snack run you'll be sent on. For a proper meal, Shi Song does Yilan's old banquet dishes in portions sized for two, and the town's best-known izakaya is on the street right by the station. Almost everything here is a short walk from Jiaoxi Station and the hot spring hotels, so you can soak in a public bath first and eat after.
These are places with some history or a name for themselves, and every one was still listed or reported open in 2026. Hours change, and many small shops sell out or close one day a week, so check the Google Maps listing on the day. If you're new to the dishes, our guide to what to eat in Yilan explains scallion pancakes, gao zha and xi lu rou. For the town itself, see Jiaoxi.
Breakfast and the morning
Yu Ren Babao Vermicelli (玉仁八寶冬粉)
Yu Ren Babao Vermicelli (玉仁八寶冬粉) is the bowl to start with. "Babao" means eight treasures: glass noodles in a light, sweet broth loaded with toppings, among them a big shiitake mushroom, shrimp and pork in thick soup. The shop started out selling thin noodles and qiezai noodles, became famous for this bowl, and was ranked 21st in a national list of Taiwan's top 100 snack shops and first in Yilan County for noodle and rice dishes. There are two branches. The No. 2 shop opens at 06:00, which makes it an easy early breakfast; No. 1 is the bigger building, with air conditioning and seats upstairs. Pick your side dishes from the counter as you order.
- Order The eight-treasure vermicelli (八寶冬粉), NT$110 as reported in February 2024, and a side dish or two from the counter
- Hours No. 1: Sunday to Thursday 10:30 to 20:30, Friday and Saturday 10:30 to 21:00. No. 2: every day 06:00 to 21:00.
- Address No. 1: No. 326, Section 1, Zhongshan Road (中山路一段326號). No. 2: No. 131, Section 2, Zhongshan Road (中山路二段131號).
- Phone No. 1: 03-988-1232. No. 2: 03-988-4665.
- Getting there No. 1 is about a 10-minute walk from Jiaoxi Station; No. 2 is on the same road, Zhongshan Road (Highway 9), through the town centre.
Ke's Scallion Pancakes (柯氏蔥油餅)
Ke's (柯氏蔥油餅) opened in 1970, selling from a small truck, and was first known simply as the Jiaoxi scallion pancake. It's a shop now, opposite Jiaoxi Elementary School, and the queue still runs down the street, rain or not. This isn't the thin, crisp kind: the dough is deep-fried until it puffs up, so it's crisp outside and soft and chewy inside. Get it with egg, then add your own sauce from the three on the counter: garlic soy, sweet chili and salty chili. The usual advice is all three.
- Order Scallion pancake with egg (加蛋蔥油餅)
- Hours Every day 09:00 to 12:00 and 13:30 to 18:00
- Address No. 128, Section 4, Jiaoxi Road (礁溪路四段128號)
- Phone 0985-873-689
- Getting there Walk from Jiaoxi Station along Jiaoxi Road (礁溪路) to the shop opposite Jiaoxi Elementary School (礁溪國小).
Local classics for lunch
Chen Wang Ji Duck Rice (陳旺記鴨片飯)
The cheap, filling lunch near the baths. Chen Wang Ji (陳旺記鴨片飯) on Deyang Road does almost nothing but duck: duck rice, sliced duck, angelica duck soup, and duck with vermicelli or thin noodles. The signature bowl comes with five or more generous slices of duck over rice, with a faint herbal note, for a price that's closer to a snack than a meal. It closes when the duck runs out, so come at the start of lunch or dinner.
- Order Duck rice (鴨片飯), and angelica duck soup (當歸鴨肉湯) on a cold day
- Hours 11:00 to 14:00 and 16:00 to 19:30, until sold out. Closed Thursday.
- Address No. 30, Deyang Road (德陽路30號)
- Phone 0908-040-560
- Getting there A short walk from Jiaoxi Station, close to Tangweigou Hot Spring Park.
Shi Song (拾松辦桌小吃)
Yilan's best dishes come from the banquet table, and they're hard to eat unless you have ten people and a wedding to go to. Shi Song (拾松辦桌小吃) fixes that: it cooks the Yilan banquet classics in small portions, so two people can try several. Order the xi lu rou, the thick cabbage soup topped with fried egg, here served over noodles if you like, and gao zha, the fried stock cubes. Eat the gao zha slowly: it comes out very hot inside. The five-flavor baby octopus and bu rou (fried pork strips) round out the table. It's the place in Jiaoxi to taste what the rest of Yilan eats at New Year.
- Order Xi lu rou with noodles (西魯肉加麵), gao zha (糕渣), five-flavor baby octopus (五味小章魚)
- Hours Every day 11:00 to 14:00 and 17:00 to 20:00
- Address No. 36, Qifeng Street (奇峰街36號). There's another branch in Yilan City, so pick the Jiaoxi one in your map app.
- Phone 03-988-1136
- Getting there In the town centre, around Qifeng Street and Heping Road (和平路): walk from Jiaoxi Station, or take a short taxi if it's raining.
Good to know: Jiaoxi also grows vegetables with hot spring water. Hot spring water spinach (溫泉空心菜) and loofah are at their best from July to October, so ask for them at stir-fry places in season. The farmers' association's Tang Lian Products Hall (湯戀物產館) on Zhongshan Road sells them, with hot spring rice noodles to take home.
A sit-down dinner after a soak
Lin Bei Kao Hao (林北烤好串燒居酒屋)
If you'd like a beer and grilled skewers after the bath, this is the one. Lin Bei Kao Hao (林北烤好) is Yilan's best-known izakaya, and its Jiaoxi branch, opened in 2013, is the one that made its name, when the tunnel from Taipei had filled the town with visitors. The house sauce is made from chicken bones and bonito with no MSG. Order the pork belly rolled around Sanxing scallions, the star skewer, and the cherry duck, a house specialty. It's open late, so it works even after a long soak.
- Order Pork and scallion rolls (豬五花蔥肉捲), cherry duck skewers (櫻桃鴨)
- Hours Evenings, 17:30 to 01:00, as reported in January 2026
- Address No. 48, Wenquan Road (溫泉路48號)
- Phone 03-988-6511
- Getting there Walk from Jiaoxi Station: it's on Wenquan Road (溫泉路), the street of the Hot Spring Square, in the middle of the hotel district.
Worth a taxi: kiln chicken and roast duck
Two of Jiaoxi's big family restaurants sit out on Section 7 of Jiaoxi Road, on the edge of town. Take a taxi from Jiaoxi Station, and come hungry and in a group.
Weng Yao Ji (甕窯雞) is the original of a chain with branches as far south as Pingtung. The chicken is roasted whole in a clay kiln over lychee wood, which gives it a smoky edge, and it comes to the table whole, so tear it apart carefully: it's hot. There are stir-fries, cold dishes and fried plates to go with it, and free bamboo shoot soup. You order at the front counter with your table number.
- Order A whole kiln-roasted chicken (甕窯雞) to share
- Hours Weekdays 09:00 to 21:00, weekends 09:00 to 22:00
- Address No. 7-7, Section 7, Jiaoxi Road (礁溪路七段7號之7)
- Phone 0918-717-288
- Getting there Taxi from Jiaoxi Station.
Jiaoxi Zhuang Cherry Valley (礁溪庄櫻桃谷) is a round-table restaurant built around Yilan's cherry duck. The chef carves the roast duck at your table, and the rest of the bird comes back cooked several more ways. Groups order set menus, but three people can share one duck. Xi lu rou is on the menu too.
- Order Cherry duck carved at the table (櫻桃片皮鴨), as a whole duck cooked several ways
- Hours Every day 11:00 to 14:00 and 17:00 to 20:00
- Address No. 72, Section 7, Jiaoxi Road (礁溪路七段72號)
- Phone 03-987-3222
- Getting there Taxi from Jiaoxi Station. There's parking if you drive.
Dessert
Bai Shui Douhua (白水豆花)
The tofu pudding shop by Tangweigou, and the original of a small chain that has since opened in Taipei and Taichung. Bai Shui Douhua (白水豆花) makes its douhua by hand from organic soybeans set with nigari, scoops it from a wooden tub into a gold-colored bowl, and tops it with coarse maltose peanut powder and a little cilantro. The menu is short: three douhua, a soy milk ice cream and peanut candy. It's made in small batches and closes early when it sells out, and weekday afternoons still bring a queue, so come soon after it opens.
- Order Maltose peanut douhua with tapioca pearls (麥芽糖花生粉圓豆花)
- Hours Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday 13:00 to 20:00; Wednesday 13:00 to 17:00; Sunday 12:30 to 21:30. Closed Thursday.
- Address No. 68, Deyang Road (德陽路68號)
- Getting there Walk from Jiaoxi Station to Tangweigou Hot Spring Park: the shop is beside it.
Wu Ji Peanut Roll Ice Cream (吳記花生捲冰淇淋)
Right next to Ke's, Wu Ji (吳記花生捲冰淇淋) wraps two scoops of ice cream in a thin spring roll skin with peanut candy shaved off the block in front of you, and a few sprigs of cilantro if you want them (say yes once). Hot pancake, then cold dessert: that's the Jiaoxi snack run.
- Order Peanut roll ice cream (花生捲冰淇淋), with or without cilantro
- Hours 10:30 to 18:00, closed Tuesday, as reported in September 2026. The shop posts extra days off on its Facebook page.
- Address No. 128, Section 4, Jiaoxi Road (礁溪路四段128號), beside Ke's
- Phone 0919-214-781
- Getting there Walk from Jiaoxi Station along Jiaoxi Road, opposite Jiaoxi Elementary School.
Eating in Jiaoxi: what to know
- Bring cash. The snack shops and stalls mostly take cash only.
- Eat early or late on weekends. Jiaoxi fills up with visitors from Taipei on Saturdays and holidays, and the famous names queue at lunch.
- Dinner ends early. Many family shops close by 20:00. For a late meal after a long soak, the izakayas and your hotel are the safe bets.
- Going back to Taipei tonight? Eat by the station, then check the last bus or train. → A day trip from Taipei
→ Things to do in Jiaoxi · Hot spring hotels in Jiaoxi · Food in Yilan, town by town
Sources: TVBS Supertaste, 21 places to eat in Yilan (November 2, 2026) (Ke's, Bai Shui, Cherry Valley, Shi Song); TVBS Supertaste, 25 places to eat in Jiaoxi (January 2026) (Chen Wang Ji, Yu Ren, Lin Bei Kao Hao, Bai Shui, Wu Ji); TVBS Supertaste on Yu Ren Babao Vermicelli (February 2024); TVBS Supertaste, Jiaoxi snacks (Ke's, Bai Shui, Yu Ren No. 2); TVBS Supertaste, Chen Wang Ji; China Times on eating in Jiaoxi (August 2021) (Ke's history, Yu Ren rankings, Weng Yao Ji); Mirror Media on Lin Bei Kao Hao (April 2024); UDN Travel on Jiaoxi (September 11, 2026) (Weng Yao Ji, Wu Ji); UDN on Jiaoxi hot spring vegetables (July 2026). Checked November 2026.