Tiam Tiam translates from Taiwanese to English as “Shhh! Be quiet,” although in parts of Southeast Asian the use of “tiam” solo refers to a store. This is what Tiam Tiam in Harrison used to be, at its inception in the town that sits cheek-by-jowl to the city of Newark: a place to shop for Taiwanese staples. If it weren’t for Covid, it might still be a neighborhood pantry for Harrison’s Chinese community instead of a restaurant serving some of the most thrillingly flavorful, idiosyncratic and whimsical foods in New Jersey.

It’s at Tiam Tiam where you will have a hotdog of egg salad, ikura and octopus, its tail curled outside the bounds of the bun and begging to be snapped and inhaled with crackling flakes of bonito and pops of the salty, savory salmon roe. It’s where you’ll have waffles made from a batter of mochi flour pocked with scallions, a punch of bright sweetness and grassy allium that has no problem consorting with Taiwanese-style popcorn chicken, and also braised pork belly so lush, its fat-to-meat ratio becomes impossible to measure due to the complete and thorough integration of those parts. You’ll consider asking for seconds, maybe thirds of the pickled mustards tucked into its side as antidote and enabler to eating more.

Tiam Tiam, the market its chef-owners Jennifer Cheng and Jesse Kim morphed first into a Covid-era takeout eatery and then, gradually, into a sit-down restaurant with tables, benches and stools tightly packed inside and spilling out, as weather permits, onto the immediate sidewalk, is now a most beautiful version of its winsome self, serving brunch, lunch and dinner in evolving menu form. There are few restaurants to compare it to – the food being modified, imaginative Taiwanese street fare, dovetailing ingredients largely Southeast Asian with a variety of globally influenced perspectives – and nothing exactly like it in our midst. My thought, about halfway through brunch on Saturday at Tiam Tiam, is that its mindset reflects that of Meg Loos and Tony Artur at The Speckled Egg in Lambertville, and its attitude and spirit take on early David Chang at the Ssam Bar and first Momofuku in New York City’s East Village.

Jennie Cheng, stopping by tables as brunch winds down to check in with diners, tells us she’s Taiwanese and her husband Jesse is Korean, though raised in America, and their combo backgrounds, training and education are underscored by the home cooks in their families as well as the pros they’ve worked for. Whatever has brought Tiam Tiam’s food to the public deserves to be touted with fireworks, big bands and endless bravos: This is one of the rare restaurants that makes me wish for the star ratings I was forced to give out years ago if only to flag down those who breeze through reviews looking for a symbol rather than the kind of dissecting information that explains why you should, or shouldn’t, eat here.

Yes, come to Tiam Tiam and if something called C.E.C. is on the menu, nab it. Devour it, this sandwich in which a pair of succulent softshell crabs teams with silky egg salad, and crisp lettuce leaves are employed as a relief from richness. I never, in my life, thought of enveloping softshells in egg salad, never in a wild dream thought a film of yellow American cheese on the dense, milky bread that cossets this ensemble could have anything to say to juicy crabs. Accenting the whole thing are slivers of scallions and sesame seeds, a tandem of sharp and nutty that counter and calm. Implausible as the C.E.C. may sound, it’s the most exhilarating sandwich I’ve had this year – for originality and cleverness, absolutely, but mostly because its taste shows how fabulous can be formed by fearlessness.

A doctoral dissertation could be written about Tiam Tiam’s fried oysters with noodles. Its base is the ultimate in dashi broths, sensuously murky, with streams of smoke and maltiness from dark vinegar and a near-bursting vein of brininess running throughout. It seems a veritable mirror into the vagaries of the sea. Only land isn’t snuffed in this soupy stew, as earthy skinny noodles and lemony-peppery claps from cilantro prove guides to the near-frothy baubles of fried oysters that bob to the surface. These oysters emerge from the dashi drink unscathed by sogginess and show off a batter proud of its bravado. White pepper and copious amounts of five-spice will do that. In Taiwan, Asian basil is a likely accent, but at Tiam Tiam, a flourish of fresh cilantro is provided not merely as a pretty thing, but a stimulant. Spear leaf to oyster to noodle, wash down with the dashi broth and be electrified.

To continue in electrifying mode, let’s go back to the takodog for a moment. In Taiwan, at a night street market, you might encounter a doughy ball of mashed octopus stuffed into a hotdog-like bun and topped not with any sort of relish, but with egg salad plied with lots of Kewpie and Japanese takoyaki sauce, which can be considered the confluence of soy sauce, Worcestershire, ketchup and honey. At Tiam Tiam, unadulterated octopus is grilled, settled into a bun atop the extra-creamy egg salad and plied with excesses of ikura and bonito flakes. It’s not an overwrought, gimmicky hotdog meant to accompany sports-watching, but hedonism designed for contemplation. What do the pop and crackle components do to the octopus? Is the more compelling binder the voluptuous egg salad or the penetrating takoyaki sauce? Is another wedge of lemon  called for? Should I just stop thinking and enjoy?

Ultimately, yes.

Which is what happens when you pierce mochi-scallion waffle to chunk of vigorously seasoned popcorn-fried chicken, dabbing it all into a sweet-sour glaze. Don’t miss, in your assemblage, getting a small sheath of fried basil, as it’s a terrific counterpoint to the yin-yang of peppery/anise-like seasoning in the chicken’s batter. Pure enjoyment happens too, in the brunch favorite milk-tea French toast, a grand presentation aided and abetted by a pile of whipped cream and scoops of ultra-creamy taro, which tastes something like chestnuts crossed with marshmallow. It’s all topped with house-made granola and royal-purple boba – more taro, to drive home the point of this marvelously over-the-top morning confection.

You could do this one after a couple of Taiwanese tea eggs, hard-cooked eggs steeped in a marinade of black tea, soy and Tiam Tiam’s proprietary 13-spice blend. I can isolate star anise, cloves, Szechuan peppercorns, cinnamon, ginger, garlic and, I think, cardamom, but I surrender to the omnipotence of the kitchen minds here when it comes to the rest. These are exceptional tea eggs and, even though another kind of marinated, jammy egg comes with that plush braised pork belly I touted earlier, don’t hesitate to partner an extra tea egg with an order of that same gorgeous pork that sits atop deftly cooked white rice. Or, should you be wanting something just a smidgen less robust, pair egg with an order of fried pork, which comes with a nubby coat of warm-spiced breading that yields to moist, tender, faintly seasoned meat.

Tiam Tiam often has the house take on the churro for dessert, a fried mochi stick that’s lighter than the Iberian original and stuffed with both cheese and a revolving door of fruit. Today the fruit is a pineapple-passionfruit combo that dovetails with cream cheese not quite melted, but not holding firm in block form, either. Nothing’s too sweet about it, a coat of sparkly sugar alighting on the rather airy flaky pastry but not taking away from the vibrancy of the tropical fruit filling. They’re as delightful as everything else there is to eat at Tiam Tiam.

What was meant to be a neighborhood market that morphed by necessity of challenging times into a takeout spot for locals and subsequently added all the seating it can so those who do see its plates as being worth much more contemplation than grab-and-go usually demands today is deserving of being known as a statewide destination. That’s due to the boundless abilities and focused, smart creative streaks of the wife-husband chefs-in-charge, Jennie Cheng and Jesse Kim, who turn out four-star food in a place only the mindless would see as unlikely.