{ Taipei } Yumminess

So, now that we got all the touristy things out of the way, it’s time to showcase what everyone’s been waiting for — the awesome food! Taiwan is known for its street food culture, and there are plenty of night markets for us to explore in Taipei. The most famous one is Shilin, but there are also many others, including Shida, Raohe, Ningxia, etc. Our first stop is Ningxia market.

While not as big as some of the other markets, this place had a large concentration of food without too many clothing and other stores to distract us.

We started off with some water fried buns (水煎包). It was not too meaty and just so-so in terms of flavor 🙁

Then some of this. I’m not sure how to explain. It’s like a fried oyster pancake?

Here are the ingredients.

And here’s RJ demonstrating how to eat it!

Then it was time for more stinky tofu! But this time it’s boiled with some pig intestines and coagulated duck blood. Yes, you read correctly, duck blood.

Oh yummy duck blood makes me smile.

The soup was a bit spicy. But alas, there was a papaya milk stand right next to the stinky tofu place! What a perfect combination (and business sense).

Dessert was sweet tofu with soy milk and other toppings.

And thus we concluded night 1 of our food adventure. The next day, RJ and I went to search for the perfect beef noodle soup on a rainy Monday morning. After trekking across town, we finally came to this relatively unmarked little shop in a medium sized alley.

While you wait for your noodles, you should order some of this 粉蒸肉 — steamed pork ribs covered in rice flour. It tastes better than it sounds.

And then, the main attraction:

The beef and tendons were just the perfect combination of tenderness and flavor and the noodles just right on my chewiness scale. I slurped down the whole thing in about 5 minutes and probably could have had more, had RJ not reminded me of our next 5 stops for more delicious food. This is us wandering around Taipei for food.

This is us when we realized the place we searched so hard for is closed because it’s Monday. FOR THE THIRD TIME. T____T

After all the searching, we are a bit tired and decided to take a break at a roadside cafe. The cafe had a quiet atmosphere and the barista was a very cute girl with a soft smile. Most of the customers seemed to be students with their books and laptops open deep in study mode. This was our “light” snack to make up for the food we were unable to get to 🙁

It was still too early for the night market, so we decided to do some afternoon KTV. I also learned 錢櫃 was actually called Party World and not Cash Box!

After successfully ruining my voice with singing for 4 hours, the evening was saved for meeting up with friends at another night market, Raohe. It’s right next to the famous cheap clothing market, Wufenpu, and had this very impressive gate in front.

We started with some grilled squids on a stick.

Then it was time for some noodle soup and marinated pig instestine.

The sesame vermicelli was a bit less impressive.

So, I know I’ve already had quite a few stinky tofu dishes, but I just can’t pass it up!

It goes really well with fish ball soup! 🙂

I was sad that I didn’t get to eat the Taiwanese popcorn chicken (鹽酥雞) and sausage (大腸包小腸), but thankfully I found a restaurant at the airport that served both!

And that’s pretty much all the food I had room in my tummy for. But wait! Here are some of the things that I didn’t get to try, but would like to save for next time 😛

There’s aiyu jelly…

Taro cake…

Various marinated body parts of different animals….

And don’t forget the very succulent pig!

UPDATE – I forgot our last dinner in Taipei – the all you can eat hot pot at Momo’s Paradise!

My stomach is growling and hating me for reminding it of all the wonderful things it got to digest last week as I write this blog entry at 2AM. I sincerely hope you feel the same >:) << evil laugh.