Keelung Miaokou Night Market 廟口夜市

Keelung’s signature night market is known throughout Taiwan for the massive variety of food it offers.  In particular, it consists of an impressive selection of seafood choices and is famous for serving good crab. 

We arrived at Keelung’s main bus terminal and from there, it is approximately a 10 minute walk to the market.  

It is by far the most organized night market I have ever seen.  The stalls all consisted of uniform signage indicating the number and name of the business.  Since everything was posted on top of the booths, you could easily spot the name and number without having to get too close.

Like all night markets in Taiwan, it was very crowded but since it only had stalls on both sides of the road and nothing down the middle, there was ample room

邢記鐤邊趖
Address in Chinese：基隆廟口夜市25-1號

I had read about this rice rolls soup, which is supposed to be a Teochow specialty.  I spotted it at this restaurant first and decided to give it a try.  Interestingly, its main competitor was located right across the street.

吳記鐤邊趖
Address in Chinese：基隆廟口夜市 27-2號

Taiwanese Tempura was next and after trying it, I can confirm that it is very different from Japanese tempura, which is what I will stick to from now on.  The Taiwanese variety wasn’t quite for me.

吳記螃蟹羹 Wu Ji Crab Thick Soup (Booth #5)
I was really looking forward to trying crab soup. I found the noted booth almost right away and sat down at a table of Japanese tourists who were also enjoying the soup. The soup turned out to be filled with Chinese mushrooms which is one of my least favourite foods in this world so that kind of ruined it for me.  Mushrooms aside, the soup was thick, and generous on the crab, so I would have enjoyed it a great deal had it not been for the mushrooms. 

泡泡冰創始人沈家 Pao Pao Ice Shen Family (Booth #37)
There were two shaved iced booths right next to each other (the Shen family vs the Chen family).  We chose the one which listed peanut shaved ice as their signature item.  Now, I am normally a peanut lover, but this was the second time in the same day where a peanut flavoured food had disappointed. The texture of the shaved ice is really nice, but next time I will stick to a fruity flavour.

Keelung Miaokou Night Market 廟口夜市
Getting there: From Keelung station, walk in a southeasterly direction towards the Keelung Harbour Bureau (large orange neon sign).  You will eventually cross an overpass and the market is about a block from the overpass. It is about 650m from the station and shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes.