Coffin Toast

Coffin toast is a Tainan creative snack made by deep-frying thick bread into a hollow crisp shell and filling it with a rich chowder — golden and crunchy outside, with a creamy stew of chicken liver, seafood, and peas inside. According to the Tainan City Government's official tourism website, the founding shop, Chi Kan, opened in 1935 under proprietor Hsu Liu-yi; the snack was first known as “chicken liver toast” before being officially renamed “coffin toast” in 1959, for its resemblance to a small coffin — a representative postwar Tainan invention.

According to the Tainan City Government's official tourism website, the founding shop, Chi Kan, was opened in 1935 by Hsu Liu-yi, and the sign officially changed to “coffin toast” in 1959. After second-generation owner Hsu Tsung-che died in 2011, his wife took over the shop, and a 2024 news report described the elderly proprietress still facing the challenge of finding a successor. The dish's fame has spread well beyond Tainan: English Wikipedia gives it a standalone entry, “Coffin bread”; the food database TasteAtlas lists it under the Taiwanese romanization “Koa-chhâ-pán”; and both the U.S. outlet Mental Floss and a March 2024 bilingual Taipei Times column have covered its origin story.

What is Coffin Toast

Coffin Toast is a Tainan snack made by deep-frying thick bread slices into a hollow crisp box, then filling them with a thick soup. The shell fries to a golden crisp, and inside is a cream chowder made with chicken liver, seafood, and peas. It gets its name from the shape — a small coffin. It was born in the Shakaliba (now Kangle Market) area and is one of the representative postwar Tainan inventions of everyday cooking.

According to the Tainan City Government's official tourism website, Chi Kan (赤崁) is the original shop for Coffin Toast. The snack traces its origins to 1935, initially known as "chicken liver toast," and was given the name "Coffin Toast" in 1959. Evolving from a roadside snack to a Fucheng signature, Coffin Toast embodies Tainan's culinary character — finding inventive ways with ordinary ingredients — and has become many out-of-town visitors' first encounter with Tainan street food.

How to eat it properly

Local knowledge

Who invented Coffin Toast

Coffin Toast was invented by Hsu Liu-yi, a snack-stall owner in Tainan's Shakaliba market district. In his early years he sold traditional Taiwanese fare like eel noodles and eight-treasure rice; fluent in both Japanese and Western cooking, he combined a deep-fried Western-style bread shell with a Chinese-style creamy stew to create this new snack, partly to serve the American servicemen and curious diners of the postwar years. The filling was originally chicken liver, and the dish was first called "chicken liver toast" — it was not until 1959 that the "coffin" name went up on the shop sign. The founding shop has passed through three generations, from Hsu Liu-yi to his son Hsu Tsung-che and on to the next generation; after the second-generation owner Hsu Tsung-che died in 2011, his wife took over the counter, and by 2024 this elderly proprietress was still running the shop, facing the challenge of finding a successor. In Taiwanese, the dish is read koaⁿ-chhâ-pang.

Coffin Toast in the international press

Coffin Toast's fame reaches well beyond Tainan. English Wikipedia gives it its own entry, "Coffin bread"; the food database TasteAtlas lists it under the Taiwanese romanization Koa-chhâ-pán; and the Michelin Guide's Taiwan must-try list, a 2024 bilingual column in the Taipei Times, and a feature by the U.S. outlet Mental Floss have all told its story and how to eat it. For overseas travelers unfamiliar with Tainan's street food, the dish's unusual shape and name often make it the first Tainan bite they seek out.

Information compiled from the Michelin Guide, the Tainan City Government Tourism website, and public reviews, with sponsored content filtered out. Photos will be replaced after on-site shooting.