Taiwan - Where is your favorite place for...

[daveinmd]

Hi folks,

I'll be in Taiwan for about 10 days in January, and I need advice. I used to live there when I was in middle school. Moving from the U.S. to Taiwan was a shock; my hamburger loving, Chinese-food disliking palate made adjustment difficult (besides the obvious cultural and language issues), and I actually lost several pounds my first year (if you can imagine losing several pounds in a 10-yr-old). But, in my 4 years there, I picked up a love of Taiwanese food that I keep to this day.

I have a ton of wonderful food memories, and I bet you do too. What I'm looking for is your favorite foods in Taiwan, and where your favorite places are to get them. Some of my favorite foods, and where I used to get them:

- boiled dumplings and hot-and-spicy soup (in the mini-market area near the Farmer's Hospital in Taipei)
- wonton soup (the Taiwanese version with really thin, light wrappers and very flavorful filling, in a small ice shop in Taoyeun)
- beef noodle soup (favorites from 15-20 years ago are Old Chang's Dan-Dan Noodles in Xen-Ai Rd, and a large open-air stall near the Pei-Tou market with lots of tables set up in the open)
- meat/fish paste combination (xuo gung) in a thick broth w/noodles (20 yrs ago, there was a great place in the temporary market near Pei-Tou underneath the construction site of the light rail)
- 4 Gods soup (intestine and various herbs in broth, at the same vendor in the market)
- stinky tofu (20 yrs ago, an old former soldier had a tiny pushed stall in an alley-way in Peitou. The tofu was beautifully crisp, the sauce was so savory and garlicky, and the pickled cabbage was perfectly complementary to the tofu; more recently, I had very good stinky tofu at a place in Shih-lin night market where I waited 30+ minutes in line)
- literally, "meat balls" (xuo wan); a pork/bamboo/mushroom mixture in a large gelatinous dumpling that is deep-fried, then cut into pieces and sweet/spicy red sauce poured over it (at the same vendor in the temporary market)
- salt water duck (or goose) (don't know where we used to get it -- but oh -- it was amazing!!)
- Taiwanese breakfast -- sao-bin-yiao-tou dipped in sweet soy milk (there was a terrific place at the base of Yangmingshan which made its sao-bin fresh in an oven after you ordered it, also made a great egg "pancake" (dan bing))

I'm hoping to get to relive some of these, and make some new food memories, too. Where are your favorite places for your favorite Taiwanese foods? We'll probably travel a little up and down the island too, so don't limit your choices to the Taipei area.

Thanks for indulging me, and I hope I get to hear about a lot of your favorite places!

[cindytong]

Dave, reading your post makes me homesick (I grew up in Taipei)! Most of the items you listed are "night market" food, so IMO you can find good ones almost everywhere, but hard to find information about which ones are the best. If you can read Chinese, then here is a website sort of like yelp and chowhound with great food reviews: http://www.ipeen.com/

Re: beef noodle, I just posted some information I found in a different thread: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/647060

Enjoy your trip. I will be back home in December and I can't wait.

[K K]

There's way too much good food all over Taiwan, let alone just Taipei county and city. I have a ton of favorites and not enough time to cover in 10 days, but you can still get a lot of mileage out.

For the complete list of everything I've tried (or most that I recall)

http://www.yelp.com/list/its-yelp-taiwan-san-francisco

As for the highlights

- Tu Hsiao Yeh Dan Jai noodle, with 2 locations in Taipei. www.iddi.com.tw. Splendid. Get a noodle bowl (or two), a side dish that represent the best of Tainan (Shir Mo Yu or milkfish, grilled with a side of lime) is a good one.

- For four gods soup, the version sold at Lan Jia Gua Bao by Gonguan (across Taipei University) is pretty darn good. They specialize in Gua Bao, upwards of 5 different cuts of pork (from lean to extreme fatty), shaved peanuts, in house made buns. Too good for words.

- Beef Noodle Soup....this is a whole new category out there. Lin Tung Fong (I reviewed it) is very good by locals standards. The noodles are on the thick side but the broth is excellent (free refills too). Niu Baba/Beef Daddy I have not tried yet, but it is considerably way more expensive and designed for the beef noodle purists who want to go crazy, with like Japanese beef (cooked by a beef noodle fanatic himself, Tony Wang). There is another beef noodle place I have yet to try, run by a guy from Middle East or Iran, who does a fusion spicy style using imported Middle Eastern herbs and spices.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjMyED3LCo
and menu/address: http://persian-gulf.web66.com.tw/web/Home

Finally this place by Ji San MRT station: http://0228349739.travel-web.com.tw/
damn, their CLAMS beef noodle looks gooooooooood.

Shih Lin night market is too touristy these days, with tons of bus carrying visitors from Hong Kong, Japan, Korea even on weeknights. While I had decent stinky tofu there, I thought the less mainstream night markets had better fare. If you ever trek over to Yong Ho township, their local night market, Lir Hua, has even better stinky tofu if you can believe it (just for example). The only things I will eat at Shih Lin are their branches of Ay Chung noodle, the Pork Pepper Bun (headquartered at Rao He nightmarket), and their Shen Jian Bao. If you are visiting again, perhaps the Hao Da Ji Pai (giant fried chicken steak, made with chicken of course).

Taiwanese breakfast...too many places out there, but Yong Ho township really has the best in terms of soymilk in Taipei county. World Soymilk King is 24 hours and the most famous (where the soymilk has a signature "burnt" earthy taste) and their shaobing and yohtieo cannot be beat. I personally prefer Yongshin soymilk which is much further away and residential. World is closer to Dingxi MRT (probably a 5 minute walk?) but Yongshin is maybe 20++, closes earlier.

One of my favorite night markets is Ningxia Road, focusing on old time Taipei (from 30++ years ago) style street food snacks. Fantastic oyster omlette and many other little things, much less touristy and more local. If your Chinese reading skills are up to snuff, this website is fantastic resource for a general look at night market fare (mostly reviews by random bloggers linked

)

http://nightmarket.funp.tw/

Keelung is another great spot, but you're looking to pay NT$1000 one way from Taipei for about a 30 to 40 min ride. But you will be rewarded with 200 food stall choices (on the main strip alone). It's like Las Vegas, except all food porn.

[cindytong]

KK, great info, especially on the night markets. One of my favorite night markets that you didn't mention is JingMei. It's right next to a MRT station, and it is not touristy at all, actually it has a nice local flavor to it - the old time Taipei like you mentioned. It's where I used to go all the time when growing up.

[huaqiao]

Shilin has always been way crowded, but it's so convenient. The one thing I would go to Shilin specifically for is the herbal pork ribs. Dunno what the Chinese name is. Rao He Night Market has a lot of stands that sell this as well, but I prefer the places at Shilin across the street from the Aquarium. Winter's probably the best time for it, too.

My go-to night market when I lived in Taipei was Tong Hua. Not because it's the best, but it has a decent selection of food, is less crowded, and is easy to navigate since it's just one straight street. Unfortunately, not as convenient to get to as Shilin.

[K K]

Yes, the herbal pork rib soup is also famous at Shihlin, called Shi Chuan Pai Gu Tang. 十全排骨湯. Don't let the "10" fool you, some places have upwards of twelve herbs. The better places to go would be the ones not inside the night market itself, but on the main road somewhere (ie a proper sit down restaurant that is not part of the various food stalls).

Another fun place for first time visitor would be to take the MRT underground station red line all the way to the end at Dan Shui. You can spend 4+ hours there easily just walking around the old streets. Lots of tasty snacks, very famous for fishball soup (fishballs are perfect toothy bouncy...mostly made with sharkmeat but superbly delish with ground pork or ground eel inside, Fuzhou style), Yu Soo (crispy chips made with dried shaved fish) over thickened daikon and katsuobushi (bonito flakes) broth, Tieh Dan (simmered quail or chicken eggs) aka Iron Eggs. Other must-try items include black bean tofu custard, and something called Ah Gei, a derivation of Japanese "abura age", almost like a vegetable stuffed tofu stew inside to keep it short. You could walk across the bridge to the other side of the bay (Ba Li / eight miles), rent a bike. Basically a nice little adventure.

Rao He also attracts tourists, especially the "Chinatown" looking monument welcoming gate by the entrance, but nowhere near as big as Shihlin, which is definitely worth visiting at least once just to see what choice and variety really means.

For the more seasoned travelers, it might even be worthwhile to spend a day or two to try out the regional specialties of Taichung or Tainan, many of which are likely not available or not even as good as what can be had in Taipei. It's definitely less than 2 hours on the high speed rail from Taipei to Taichung, but navigating beyond there could be daunting without a guide.

[huaqiao]

Might be easier to do if you have a local leading you in Danshui, but I thought checking out the wedding cookie shops was cool. I hear it's the famous place to get them. The shops are on the inner road, not along the water. And I remember getting some yummy free samples.

In any case, Danshui is definitely worth a visit. Great people watching and a good place to grab squid on a stick. :D

[K K]

Never tried the squid, but you can't beat freshness...

http://251.travel-web.com.tw/Show/Style3/News/c1_News.asp?SItemId=0271030&ProgramNo=A100020000001&SubjectNo=78294

The Double Happiness (wedding) cookie you speak of has a few shops like this one

http://0226213010.travel-web.com.tw/

The curry meat cookie looks interesting!

[cindytong]

Actually for Keelung, you can easily take a train there from Taipei main station. The famous Miaokou night market is near the train station. I believe the train ticket is about NT$50 one way.
http://tourguide.sinotour.com/scenery...