As I was saying in the last post, night markets are God's gift to the world. If a night market were a song, it would be my jam. I went to 2 of them, plus a few "old street" daytime/evening market districts and was fully immersed in the local street food scene. These were the top picks.
It was formerly a gold mining city in the early 20th century, until its decline in the 1970's. Since the 90's, it's been revived for its old town appeal, and is now a major weekend hot spot for Taipei city dwellers. When I asked my Taiwanese friend at work for trip suggestions, this was his #1.
For my first full day, my friend and gracious host, Jason, was excited to introduce me to 3 of his favorite Taiwanese specialties. Ba Wan (ground pork and veggie filling inside a shell of glutenous rice), Jiufen's special pork and fish ball soup, and taro ball soup.
All around Jiufen, there are shops and stands selling random teas, snacks, condiments, souvenirs, etc. One had a particular... odor. Not completely unpleasant, but certainly not familiar. It was the legendary stinky tofu. But we didn't eat it there, Jason said to save it for the good stuff at the Shilin Night Market. Besides, all of the snacking we'd been doing left me stuffed.
After Jiufen and its neighboring city of Jinguashi, we went to night market in Keelung. Everybody knows about Taipei's Shilin Night Market, but apparently Keelung's has much more (and better) street food. The highlights: tempura fish cakes, gua bao (braised pork belly sandwich), mian xian (thin noodles in soup), oyster omelette, and Pao Pao ice. Another highlight, the mian xian stand's owner chatting with me and Jason, making sure I get a good impression of their country, and exercising whatever little Mandarin vocab I picked up.
Out of all of it, gua bao was my favorite. Pork is king in Taiwanese cuisine, and they have seriously got braised pork belly down to an artform. Imagine a fluffy bun, filled with chopped pork belly (cooked in soy sauce, rice wine, and Chinese 5-spice), tea- and soy sauce-marinated hardboiled egg, pickled veggies, sprinkled with crushed sugared peanuts.
Any travel show or travel book about Taipei will have a segment dedicated to Taiwan's biggest and most famous night market. It's in the northern district of Taipei city, and it draws a huge crowd. Unfortunately, when I went I was still pretty stuffed from my lunch in the basement of Taipei 101, 6 hours earlier (best bi bim bab I've ever had). But I got myself some kumquat juice, grilled mushroom skewers, duck tongue (I saw Andrew Zimmern eat it, I had to try it), and the one and only...
Stinky Tofu
It's fermented tofu, deep fried and grilled again with a good sauce, and topped with cabbage. The smell: I don't know how to describe it, maybe like old sweatsocks or garbage. It's unmistakeable. The taste: slightly tangy but still really tasty with the sauce, definitely more flavorful than normal tofu. The aftertaste: kind of like how it smells. I was feeling a little self-conscious about my breath afterward. The verdict: I want more!
No comments:
Post a Comment