Keelung

Keelung has long been the gateway to northern Taiwan. English Wikipedia says the Spanish established a fort here in the 1620s, the Qing opened it as a trading port in 1863, and by 1916 its trade exceeded Tamsui's and Kaohsiung's. Miaokou itself grew out of the forecourt of Dianji Temple. Chinese Wikipedia gives two dates for the temple, which enshrines the deity Kaizhang Shengwang: 1875 in its Dianji Temple article and 1873 in its Miaokou article. The temple article says the Lin family of Banqiao donated land on Yutian Street to build it, and local gentry later moved it to its present site on Ren 3rd Road. The Miaokou article, quoting local elders' records, says vendors gathered in the courtyard by the end of the Japanese period, and after the war the city government registered the stalls along Ren 3rd Road, which joined Ai 4th Road to form today's L-shaped food street.

One media account ties the nutritious sandwich's name to the US troops in Taiwan during the Korean and Vietnam wars and to the government's push for flour and wheat foods from the 1950s, which linked bread with 'nutrition'. Origin stories like this are mostly word of mouth and press retelling, and none is settled. Bubble ice is best known in Keelung; Chinese Wikipedia, citing a 1986 newspaper report, says students from National Taiwan Ocean University and other schools pooled money to rent a stall from a Miaokou vendor and worked there to pay their tuition.