A three-tiered, diagonally stacked circular pancake styled like the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Reported and photographed by You T-Ru / Taipei

Using innovative thinking to showcase Taiwan’s fresh ingredients has become a common culinary approach for many restaurants in Taiwan in recent years. Hidden beneath the neo19 building in Xinyi District is a restaurant that uses the authentic flavors of Taiwan’s fresh produce as its foundation, then combines the ingredients with Western cooking techniques to create a feast for both the eyes and the palate. It has developed a “Honey Tower” made of continuously stacked circular pancakes, which lies diagonally in the plate like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, making it a screamingly popular afternoon tea option for many girls.


▲ The Honey Tower that makes many girls scream.

“Insisting on beautiful things, with ingredients sourced from this land of Taiwan.” This is the philosophy behind “Xiao Que Xing” (A Little Happiness) when it comes to ingredients. Every dish captures the natural sweetness derived from the chefs’ carefully prepared bone broths, while also incorporating fresh local Taiwanese ingredients and blending them with Western-style menu items. Though the restaurant’s ingredients aren’t sourced from the highest-end suppliers, they still offer unique creativity and ingenuity.

For the main courses, Italian cooking techniques are used to highlight the natural flavors of Taiwan’s fresh ingredients, presenting four new dishes. “Local Anchovy Buttered Pine Nut Risotto”
Featuring carefully selected anchovies from Toucheng or Fangliao, paired with crispy fried burdock, the dish bursts with rich umami flavors in every bite; “Floral Cheese Mustard Seed Pork Chop Spaghetti” uses tender pork loin marinated in fresh milk, with the aroma of milk complemented by floral cheese powder, while the sauce is made with French-produced mustard seeds; “Tomato Sauce Chicken Chop Spaghetti” is based on tomatoes and paired with soft, sweet chicken thigh meat, offering a rich yet distinctive taste; “Truffle Mushroom Risotto” is stewed with a variety of wild mushrooms and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, with the rich aroma of truffles enveloping every grain of rice.

 
▲%The dishes include the refreshing local anchovy buttered pine nut risotto, the fragrant floral cheese mustard seed pork chop spaghetti, the rich tomato sauce chicken chop spaghetti, and the aromatic truffle mushroom risotto.
  

For desserts, Xiao Que Xing has exclusively developed circular, chewy, and fluffy pancakes paired with various flavors of Honey Towers, such as bright red strawberries, sweet-tart raspberries, and sweet, rich banana chocolate. In spring, they launched the “Rose Lady Honey Tower” that makes every girl scream again, along with the more delicate and compact “Mini Honey Tower” perfect for sharing between two. For drinks, the “Mu Tu Tu Milk Tea” combines carefully selected osmanthus wine from Nanzhuang Mountain Town in Miaoli with milk, leaving a faint trace of rural osmanthus fragrance on the palate. A must-try is the “Xiao Que Xing Latte,” where the top layer features toasted brown sugar to create a logo design, and the latte itself is infused with the aroma of longan syrup. This signature drink also reflects the restaurant’s unique approach of capturing the deliciousness of Taiwanese ingredients and combining them with international cuisines.


▲ Xiao Que Xing Latte.
%A variety of beverages are also offered by the brand.