Yuanshan Fish Ball Rice Noodle Soup 员山鱼丸米粉
Yuanshan Fish Ball Rice Noodle Soup is featured among the local specialties of Taiwan.
Yuanshan Fish Ball Rice Noodle Soup (员山鱼丸米粉) combines fish balls, fried tofu and coarse rice vermicelli in bone broth. The dish is associated with Yuanshan (員山) in Yilan County (宜蘭縣).
A soup that gained new ingredients
Lanyang Museum (蘭陽博物館) traces the local trade to You Huotu (游火塗), who began carrying noodle soup for sale outside the Yuanshan Farmers’ Association (員山農會) in 1946. His original bowl contained rice noodles alone; fish balls and fried tofu were added later in response to customers’ suggestions.
Coarse noodles and a named shop
The noodles are thicker than the fine rice vermicelli commonly found elsewhere. In the museum’s account of Jiang Family Fish Ball Rice Noodles (江家魚丸米粉), the shop used Nanfang’ao (南方澳) shark paste for its fish balls, coarse noodles that resisted prolonged cooking, and pork bones for the broth.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-30. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.
Image credits & notes (1)
- A common version of Yuanshan Fish Ball Rice Noodle Soup · 员山鱼丸米粉常见做法参考照片。Photo: Alpha · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized for the web; the photo itself has not been edited.
