The place where I fell in love with fried chicken doesn’t exist anymore. It was a tiny street stand about a 10-minute walk from my high school in Taipei, with space for a single person to take orders and work the fryers. As far as I know, it never had a name; we just referred to it as “the fried chicken place.” If more clarification was needed, we would say it was behind the McDonald’s.
For a teenager, there’s no freedom quite like using your own money to buy food you actually want to eat. My friends and I grew up juggling our, and it felt grown-up, in a good way, to have a go-to spot, to order something so rooted in Taiwanese culture that was also universally appealing. The chicken, which was always salty and crunchy and piping hot, was my favorite. I’d take my paper bag, slightly damp from the heat coming off the meat, and try my best to wait until it had cooled down a bit before digging in. As with all street stands, the snack was served with a few thin wooden skewers for spearing the chicken, which you could pass out to others so they could grab as many as they pleased.