Taiwan – Night market @Shida (1)

The foods in each Taiwanese night market are pretty much the same. However each night market has some foods which are more popular and more delicious than other night markets.

Xu’s Sheng Jian Bao

Fried Bun (Sheng Jian Bao, Chinese: 生煎包)

This is one of the popular foods in Shida night market(師大路夜市). The ingredients are cabbage and pork. This bun is a little bit like “fried xiao long bao”. Unlike other dry traditional Chinese bun, this bun has a juicy filling. The outside has served with sesame that makes the bun smell much better. The juicy fillings and the crispy texture of the bun become a popular food of this store. The bun best eat in hot, otherwise the skin will become oily. But be careful with the juicy filling.

The store provides a unique spicy sauce that makes the bun more delicious. But if you do not like spicy food I think it is delicious without any sauce as well.

In order to control the large amount of people and be more organized, the store has a machine that gives every customer a ticket. Address: No.24, Longcyuan St., Da-an District, Taipei City 10645, Taiwan (R.O.C.) Tel: 02-2223-1861. Service Hours: 16:00 – 23:00

Lantern Lou Mei (燈籠滷味)

Lou mei is one of the traditional foods in China and Taiwan. The popular of this store is according to their special soy sauce which is neither too salty nor tasteless. You are able to choose any fresh foods from the chat. The more you pick, the expensive will be, fair enough!

There are bean, Chinese mushroom, Chinese noodle, chicken’s kidney, chicken wing, meat balls, sausage, pepper, cabbage, green bean, etc. You can choose anything that you like.

Address: No.52, Longcyuan St., Da-an District, Taipei City 10645, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

My Rating:

Taiwan – Night market @Shilin (2)

 Frog eggs (青蛙下蛋)

Don’t worry, it’s not really frog eggs!  The “frog eggs” are the round glutinous rice. After the round glutinous rice is cooked, a white dot will appear in the middle that looks like the eggs of frogs. The traditional and original “frog eggs” should be serving in hot. However due to the hot weather in summer, people will add a large amount of ice. The round glutinous rice is boiling with syrup, thus the round glutinous rice are sweet, then serve with lime water. Thus this drink is able to quench thirst in a hot summer. However, if you do not like sweet things, you may think the glutinous rice are too sweet. You may also add mung bean and extra lime in the drink too.

 Ideal Spareribs (十全排骨)

This little store has won the aware of “The best product in Shilin night market” from Taiwan Visitor Association. All the spareribs are boiled with twelve different Chinese herbal medicines. In order to keep herbs, the spareribs have to boil over four hours. All the essences of the medicines are in the soup, thus the soup is extremely healthy. The popular soup is the spareribs soup, however the store would also provide other herbal soups, such as chicken, lamb, catfish, etc. The reason that the sparerib soup is the most popular is because most of the Chinese soup would put spareribs in it. However if you do not like Chinese medicines, you would hate the strong smell and bitter taste of the medicines.

Stir-fry Cuttlefish (生炒花枝羹)

The reason of this cuttlefish dish is due to the “wok hei” which is the essence of imparted by a hot wok on the cuttlefish. Afterward, the cuttlefish will serve with the sauce that thickens by means of starch. Thus with the taste of sweet and sour, then add some cut garlic and onion. Except cuttlefish, the dish also included slide bamboo shoot, slide carrot, and squid. All the ingredients taste freshly, especially the bamboo shoots do not taste any bitter. The soup base is really taste too!

My Rating:

Taiwan – Night market @Shilin (1)

 Shilin Night Market

There are numerous night markets in Taiwan. In every night market, there are various traditional snacks, foods, soup and beverages, such as oar jien, oar mī-sòaⁿ, green onion pancake, tempura, different kinds of Chinese traditional buns, etc, there are different kinds of categories. All the foods in night markets are delicious and not expensive. These night markets attract millions of visitors.

Shilin night market is the biggest night market in Taipei City.

Shilin night market commercial:

 

[Subtitle]: Shilin night market starts at the famous temple in Taipei City. In the night market, there are various traditional and delicious foods. It also includes different kinds of entertainments. [Voice-over]: Shilin night market becomes one of the cultural norms for Taiwan people and all visitors, this is also a place that for you to shop and eat at night.

 Bun in a Bun (Da Bing Bao Xiao Bing, Chinese: 大餅包小餅)

Da Bing Bao Xiao Bing is one of the popular snacks in Shilin night market. “Da Bing” in Chinese means a bigger bun, and “Xiao Bing” means a smaller bun. The reason that it calls bun in a bun is because inside it, there is a crispy bun, this is the ‘xiao bing.” Outside it will wrap by a Chinese wrap, which becomes the ‘da bing.” There are various flavors of this snack, both sweet and salt, sweet have black sesame, peanuts, taro, red bean, mung bean, etc, and salty included curry, spicy, etc.  Sweet flavors are more popular in general; however, I think that curry is not bad too. When you come to Shilin night market, this is one of the foods that you must try.

Da Bing Bao Xiao Bing:

My Rating:

Taiwan – Danshuei (4)

 Black Restaurant (Hei dian, Chinese: 黑店)

In Chinese, “hei dian” means store which will cheat or rob their customers. Thus, in Chinese meaning, the name of this restaurant is pretty weird and funny. Despite her name, this restaurant is really popular in meat and fowl that stewed with soy sauce and strained (Lou Mei, Chinese: 滷味). This little restaurant is hidden in between some alleys, so it is pretty hard to find.

 Lou Mei dish – All the foods in this dish are stewed with special soy sauce and strained before severed, it included eggs, kombu, pig’s ears, and special bean’s skins that made by egg, glutinous rice, and zha cai. These kind of skins are one of the traditional foods in lou mei dishes.

 Chicken drumstick rice – The chickens are stewed with special sauce and then deep-fry. While the chicken skins are already stewed, thus when the chicken are deep-frying, it won’t absorb too much oil.

 Spareribs rice – This is the popular rice in this restaurant. The spareribs are unsalted, only fill in appropriate doubanjiang and potato starch while deep-frying. Then sever with different kinds of beans, pickled vegetables (Suan cai, Chinese: 酸菜), Chinese fermented black beans (Douchi, Chinese: 豆豉), pig’s skin, chili and peppers, and rice.

Address: No.8-10, Lane 62, Sec. 1, Jhongjheng E. Rd., Danshuei Township, Taipei County 25147, Taiwan (R.O.C.) Tel: 02-2805-2790. Service Hours: 10:30 – 13:30, 16:30 – 19:00

 Tai G Restaurant (台G店)

Tai (Chinese: 台) which is stand for Taiwan. The popular of this restaurant is due to their food are her medication soups. Most of the soups have put in Chinese medicine and chicken, thus people are able to have healthy and delicious soup in the same time.

Chicken medication soup – This soup is their popular soup. It contained Chinese date (Jujube), wolfberry, astragalus root, angelica sinensis (dong quai), Chinese knotweed root (ho shou wu), etc. Then boil the soup for over two hours. The best of this soup is it does not have a strong flavor of Chinese medicine.

Chicken with sesame oil soup – The soup base included sesame oil and cooked ginger, then add a large amount of water and boil for seven minutes. The chickens are really delicious since it has a strong flavor of sesame oil. However the soup base is really oily, so I just serve it as a dip instead of soup.

Address:   No.95, Yingjhuan Rd., Danshuei Township, Taipei County 25151, Taiwan (R.O.C.) Tel: 02-8631-6800. 

 Outside Danshuei:

1) No.61, Wunhua N. Rd., Sanchong City, Taipei County 24147, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

2) No.1, Lane 269, Wusing St., Sinyi District, Taipei City 11042, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

3)       No.21, Yumin 1st Rd., Beitou District, Taipei City 11282, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

4)       No.24, Gongkou St., Banciao City, Taipei County 22055, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

5)       No.180, Yanji St., Tucheng City, Taipei County 23642, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

My Rating:  

Taiwan – Danshuei (3)

 Crispy fried Taro

Inside the crispy fried taro is mashed taro and with some grainy taro. Thus it’s the texture of food. Since eat too much taro is not good for the stomach, mashed taro is easier to digest.Because it is fried, so there is a paper wrapped in order to absorb the oil. However, the fried taro is kind of long, I think it can serve two people, otherwise you will be so full and not able to have other snacks.

Address:  Jhongshan Rd.(the cross-section of Cingshuei St.), Danshuei Township, Taipei County 25174, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

Business Hours: Monday – Sunday — PM:15:00~PM:21:00

 Doufuhua 

This store opened since 1976 in Danshuei. They provided really smooth doufuhua. In summer, they will provide cold doufuhua, and hot one in winter, thus people are able to have doufuhua in four seasons.They have 4 flavors of doufuhua is popular, original, pudding, chocolate, and almond. Their syrup is unique.

The other special thing of their store is they will mix other Chinese desserts with the doufuhua, such as mung bean soup, tangyuan, peanut, etc. Also they will mix raisin and chocolate jam.

Address: No.9, Lane 21, Yingjhuan Rd., Danshuei Township, Taipei County 25174, Taiwan (R.O.C.) Tel: 02-2622-7936

  

My Rating:

Taiwan – Danshuei (2)

 “A Mother’s Plum Tea” (阿媽的酸梅湯)

 Umeboshi soup/Plum Tea – Umeboshi are pickled ume fruit. This umeboshi soup apparently is a drink rather than a Chinese soup. Umeboshi is one of the traditional drinks in China. People usually have this beverage during summer, since umeboshi is able to avoid sunstroke. The main ingredients are plum, osmanthus frangrans, and rock candy. The drink taste sweet and sour. People normally drink cold umeboshi soup in summer due to the hot weather.

There are two stores selling plum tea in Danshuei Township. The more popular one is “A Mother’s Plum Tea” (阿媽的酸梅湯). The reason that their beverage is popular is due to adding additional Chinese herbal medicine in it. So their umeboshi is somehow healthier, and it doesn’t taste too sour. Actually, even though other plum tea without Chinese traditional medicine, the beverage is good for us too.

 Lao Quan Grass Pastry (老泉草仔粿)

Grass pastry (草仔粿) – The pastry is making by the leaves of Jersey cudweed (compositae), and then mix with glutinous rice. The name “Lao Quan” means the old fountains. There is a spring at the back of this store, provided sweet springs water. The citizens over there are using this spring water, thus they named the store with this name.

They have different flavors of grass pastries, such as sweet red bean, taro, peanut, ginger with mung bean, pickled sliced Chinese carrot, pickled vegetables with bamboo shoot, etc. The texture of this pastry is very chewy. I like the sweet flavors more, since I view this pastry as a dessert as well.

 

My Rating: