If you’re reading this post, then you likely know it’s going to be about food! Shilin Night Market is one of the most famous night markets in Taipei and is the place where I had a lot of Taiwanese food firsts. There is an entire underground section for the food vendors at this market. It had moved indoors and underground in 2011 before my first visit and I remember thinking that it was quite a small space to host such a famous night market. It turns out that they left all the non-food merchants outdoors and moved all the food stalls into a basement. The Taiwanese government claimed that this is to ensure the cleanliness of the food. It’s kind of strange seeing all these food stalls in a basement though. I’d imagine that the smells would be a bit much at times as well! However, even with many of the stalls selling fried foods, the smell was never that strong, so they must have some great venting system in place.
The most memorable food item for me is the sausages. It’s cut up and sold by weight but usually they give you the option of purchasing half of one or a whole one. They had a variety of flavours including black pepper, wasabi, and garlic, but I went for the original, which I had pretty much been dreaming about since I first tried it in 2011. Just like in 2011, I purchased half of one first but then end up purchasing the other half before leaving the market.
Next, we decided to sit down and have a meal at one of the “restaurant” stalls. We ordered 3 items – eggs, tofu and beef with veggies. The grill was right in front of us and instead of using plates, they just laid a piece of aluminum foil in front of us and put all the food we ordered onto there. No dishes to wash! What an interesting experience.
One of the things I remembered clearly from my first trip to Shilin was all the bittermelon juice stands. I made up my mind to definitely try it this time around and I’m sure glad I did. The juice was sweetened and very plesant. At the same stall, we saw this interesting fruit called 黃金果, that google translate just calls “gold fruit”. It was similar to a mangosteen in which you just take off the thick skin and eat the seeds in the middle. I think the stall owner tried to pull a fast one on us though, as the minute we said we’d eat it there on the spot, she decided to change them up for us so that we get ones that were more ripe.
We had lurou rice earlier in the week and loved it, so I wanted to try it one more time at Shilin. We saw two girls eating a very tasty looking one from this stall, so we sat down and ordered it as well. Although it looked like every other lurou rice, the taste was very different from the one we had earlier in the week and I was really disappointed with how oily and tasteless this one was.
Some other must tries from my previous trip here that I just didn’t have room for this time include the fried milk, fresh fruit, oyster omelette, smelly tofu and shaved ice. Back in 2011, the had all the fruits on an open table like in the picture below and you could just choose whatever you want and then they’d weigh it for you and sprinkle some plum powder into your bag. Now, it seems like all the vendors have decided to just pre-package all the fruits and don’t allow you to pick and choose anymore which is too bad. One of the things I liked the most was trying some of the more exotic and less common fruits. It was a much better value to have those mixed in with the more common fruits.
This was the very first place I tried oyster omelette (蚵仔煎). I’m not a fan of oyster at all, but I did try this dish when I went to Xiamen earlier in the year and it was much better than I expected. And since Taiwan is the place that is actually most famous for it, I was hoping that it would be just as good. It turns out that I liked the Xiamen version better, likely due to the sauce being sweeter.
My first Taiwanese stinky tofu experience was also at Shilin. I was expecting it to be drenched in sauce but in reality it was served almost dry. It was definitely not as stinky as I expected though. Probably a good thing since we were in an underground food court with nowhere for the fumes to escape. We had sat down to eat our oyster pancake and smelly tofu, and right next to our table was a stall selling grilled squid and other unidentifiable items.
Another Taiwanese first for me was trying Shaved Ice (剉冰) at Shilin. I had tried something similar in Xiamen earlier in the year and loved it and have been wanting to try it again ever since. Unfortunately, they told me that if I wanted the Red Bean flavour (which I did), I’d have to wait at least an hour. So we settled on some mixed fruit flavoured ice instead. I definitely think that the red bean would have been better. The mixed fruit was good but lacked the density and texture that I was looking for.
I had noticed this woman making these little peanut snacks and thought it looked pretty cool. Turns out it was called “small bread in big bread’ ( 大餅包小餅). I love how Chinese names are always so literal! It basically consisted of a tortilla wrapped around this crispy, fried bun/cracker thing, topped with a flavour of your choice (peanut, sesame, etc.) It was quite interesting watching her make it. The taste was okay, but not my favourite Taiwanese snack.
There are just so many delicious foods that I still haven’t been able to try in two trips to Shilin. I can’t wait to go back again to try some of these other foods I missed out on.
For more Shilin Market photos, please visit my Photo Gallery of Shilin Market
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