Piggy from Piggy’s Cooking Journal met up with me and she was my dining companion for the night I went to Shilin and Shida night market. It was the first time we met, but we bonded easily over food and spent the night eating and talking about our blogs and lives.
We started the night at Shilin and I was blown away by the sheer number of stalls there. There was a constantly long queue at 豪大大雞排, quite literally meaning gigantic chicken chop.
OK, it IS huge. One piece costs NT50 and as it was my first time in Taiwan, I had to do all the typical tourist things like queue up and buy this chicken chop to see what the fuss was about. My conclusion is that it’s a delicious snack for those who love deep-fried food, but as I’m not a fan, I could do without eating this the next time I’m in Taiwan.
One of many stalls selling oyster pancakes.
Ridiculously long sausages that are almost one feet long.
The next snack I tried was this 官財板. You can choose from different fillings like chicken, black pepper beef, mutton, pork or even have it sweet by ordering the pineapple filling. The savoury ones had a filling that was like a salty gooey paste filled with mince meat. Maybe it was just that the one made by this particular stall wasn’t good, but I didn’t think very much of 官財板.
What I loved in Taiwan was how fresh and big all the fruits were. All the fruits looked so succulent and the colours were so eye-catching that all I wanted to do was stuff my face with them – especially the mangoes!!!
At Shida, we came across people fishing for prawns.
T-shirts with cheeky messages like 女人是對的 (Women are always right), 單人 (I’m single), 你不是我的菜 (literally translated it means ‘You’re not my dish’, but the Taiwanese use it to mean you’re not the kind of guy/girl I’m interested in).
Black pepper meat buns 胡椒餅
I love eating fresh spring rolls, so I had to have this Taiwanese version called 潤餅 that’s filled with shredded pork, pork floss, crushed peanuts, spring onions and bean sprouts. It reminded me of Singapore’s popiah (a favourite of mine).
Scores of people were lining up to pick these bits of food to go with their bowl of noodles. By the time we got to this stall we were pretty full already, so we didn’t have any more room to wolf down a bowl of noodles.
I couldn’t resist having this big cup of crushed ice and fresh mango juice topped with mango cubes to cool off in the summer heat. The drink was so cold that I had brain freeze at my first sip.
To further quench our thirst, Piggy and I sat down to another bowl of dessert. This time, sweet beancurd topped with shaved ice, green beans and grass jelly. And that was the sweet ending to the night tour of Taiwan’s famous night markets.
