This boxy utilitarian cafe in Chinatown provides a snapshot of traditional Taiwanese fare. It begins with a series of bargain, over-rice meals and extends to soups and stir-fries that offer a choice of four noodles, with rice cakes in a separate section. Start out with pork chop over rice, an immensely satisfying meal that also includes ground pork sauce and pickled greens, with a pair of well-seasoned chops thrown on top.

This ubiquitous local chain with over 20 branches in the city puts bubble tea in many permutations at the top of the menu, but also provides typical Taiwanese snacks that can be assembled to make a meal. Check out the bright red Taiwanese pork sausages skewered on sticks, or the steamed dumplings filled with a savory mixture of pork and shrimp. And Vivi claims its popcorn chicken (breaded, deep-fried tidbits) is the best in town.

Chef, author, and television personality Eddie Huang spawned Baohaus on the Lower East Side in 2009, celebrating the Taiwanese food he enjoyed at home as a kid. This East Village branch is the last remaining here (there’s one in L.A.) The small café updates Taiwanese commonplace dishes with superior quality ingredients like Berkshire pork belly and shiitake mushrooms, including bao sandwiches and ground pork stew with mushrooms served over rice with pickled greens.

The roof of this casual café right on Flushing’s main drag flaunts a giant red bowl with chopsticks protruding, said to be visible to planes landing at LaGuardia. A window sells Taiwanese sausages (including the fabled sausage within a sausage), and carryout containers are lined up on tables outside — filled with combinations of rice, vegetables, and charcuterie — but go inside to sit down and order from the fuller Taiwanese menu.

Flushing’s Main Street just north of the Long Island Expressway is a hotbed of Taiwanese eats and this humble coffee shop is your best choice. In addition to the usual three-cup chicken and oyster omelets, it offers a series of small dishes in a tradition not unlike dim sum. Also known as meatball mochi, da wan is one of these, a wonderful small bowl of goo in which tidbits of pork are implanted, and what could make a better brunch snack? Open every day till midnight.

This is one of the city’s oldest and most venerated Taiwanese restaurants and it fills up with extended families on the weekends. The setting is elegant and the food of fine quality. It’s a good place to try the dish of ground pork and garlic chives known as fly heads, sauteed kidneys, steamed whole fish, rice-cake stir fries, and Taiwan’s national dish of three-cup chicken, designated on the menu as ginger chicken with sesame oil.

This fascinating new fast-fooder offers humongous chicken cutlets — something like a steroidal wienerschnitzel — and big squid, perfectly breaded and deep fried. It caused a sensation when it opened recently, with long lines winding out the door. A map of the world on the wall shows where all the other branches of this chain establishment are. There’s another branch in Flushing.

Located in an obscure corner of Williamsburg, Win Son is a stylish bistro with colorful murals and chandeliers made from plastic bottles, boasting a lively bar at the far end of the room. It seeks to remake Taiwanese food for neophytes and aficionados alike, and handily succeeds while being faithful to the originals. Fly heads, turnip cakes, oyster omelets, and scallion pancakes are especially recommended.

Sunset Park’s Seventh Avenue north of 60th Street has become one of the city’s foremost Formosan dining strips, with Formosa Café name-checking the old moniker of the island (“beautiful isle” in Portuguese) during colonial times. Casual and comfortable, the place specializes in milk teas, slushes, Taiwanese yogurt, and fresh juices, served with a selection of snacks such as chicken cutlets, edamame, and burrito-like “hand grab cakes.”

The clientele is mainly young and the menu mirrors that of a modern American steakhouse, with important Taiwanese twists. Beautifully grilled sirloins, rib-eyes, and pork chops are served on a bed of spaghetti, on a sizzling platter with a fried egg and mixed vegetables. The main course is preceded by a salad and toasts smeared with sweetened condensed milk. The steak prices are mind-bogglingly low for good-quality meat. There’s another branch in Flushing.