Daily Limited Edition — Shandu Wood-Fired Bread

Text & Photography / Chiang Ming-li

The popular "Shandu Wood-Fired Bread," which has been creating a buzz in online orders recently, opened in February 2010. Emphasizing handmade production and traditional brick oven wood-fired baking, it is only open four days a week, resulting in order wait times of up to two weeks or even over a month. Bread lovers flock here eagerly, waiting at the oven for the first batch right as it comes out.

"Shandu" means "inside the mountain" in Hakka. The owners, Chen Te-hsing and his wife Lo Hsin-mei, came from Taoyuan to the mountains of Nanzhuang. They learned the craft of making handmade bread from a baker, not only kneading the dough themselves but also building the brick wood-fired oven by hand. The process is quite labor-intensive, so they make a maximum of 200 pieces per day. Thanks to Nanzhuang’s water quality and air, which are ideal for bread fermentation, Shandu’s bread is not only fragrant but also has a bouncy, tender, and rich texture—absolutely delicious.

Due to their commitment to authentic flavors, Shandu offers just six types of bread: whole wheat, multigrain, longan red wine, stollen, kumquat red bean, and ruby. The kumquat red bean flavor uses golden mandarin oranges from Zhudong, while the ruby bread uses rose jam from the "Méi Kāi Sì Dù" rose garden in Puli. The bakery owners aim to use organic ingredients and prefer locally produced Taiwanese foods, giving this retro wood-fired bread a uniquely local Taiwanese taste. Each loaf is priced uniformly at NT$80 and can be delivered to your home. Orders come in sets of two, and shipping is free for orders of four sets or more.

Shandu Wood-Fired Bread

Address: No. 18-1, Lane 11, Baguali, Penglai Village, Nanzhuang Township, Miaoli County

Phone: 0936-466-779, 0981-346-813

Hours: Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, 10:00 AM–1:00 PM

Website: www.shandu.tw/about.php