士林夜市 - Shilin Night Market
I had been planning on curbing my over-aggressive binge-eating. Unfortunately, things did not go to plan when V's sister found out I had never been to the Shilin night market. I had first come to Taiwan some five odd years ago, and the fact that I had never experienced it she found as somewhat of a criminal offense. She then graciously offered to take me which I in turn emphatically, I mean also graciously accepted.
V informed me that even Diana who attended our Taiwanese wedding bonanza a few years ago had been to the market, to which I asked why she had never taken me there, to which she did not give a satisfactory answer.
It mattered little as I was about to remedy that grave mistake with a vengeance. The market had apparently been reorganized a few years ago into the building you see above. Before that it was a sprawling mess of shops, but the city moved almost everyone into the stalls that make up an ordinary market during the day.
We navigated our way inside to our first order of business: fishcakes.
Super duper fresh homemade fishcakes. So fresh that the bucket that they blend the mix in is sitting next to the counter. The guy takes out a portion with his spatula, transfers it to the wooden tool in his left hand, and then deposits the dollop into the bubbling oil. He was kind enough to slow down the process enough to allow V to get in some proper pictures of the process.
The result is cut up into slices and served with a sauce. These fishcakes have a much lighter flavor and texture than normal and they taste airy and simply brilliant. This specific joint has a unique taste that you can't find anywhere else and the overall freshness can't be beat. When I go back, that image above is at the top of my list.
The second thing, I ate is much more accessible. There are dozens of places in the market serving up oyster omelettes.
I purposely put up the most disturbing picture of them, but they are delicious. My love of oysters has grown dramatically in the past few years and oyster omelettes are one of the reasons. I get the impression though that there isn't one single shop that does them especially well, and they're commonly found in a lot of night markets. You might be better served going for something that is more of a Shilin specialty, but I just needed to have one.
The key to attacking night markets is to eat strategically. There's too much food everwhere for you to attempt to eat your way through everything. Pick and choose your battles to get to what you absolutely must and you'll undoubtedly overeat regardless.
Next up was something called big-cookie-wrapping-small-cookie. Chinese naming operates on two opposite ends of a spectrum; the names are either completely symbolic or diametrically literal. Big-cookie-wrapping-small-cookie is the latter. Another good example is Really Good Seafood. An example of a symbolism in naming is
Ants Climbing a Tree.
This goodie is pretty simple. The girl takes a thin pancake and heats it up. She then takes one of those cookies in front and wraps it into the pancake with whatever topping you choose. Finally she smashes the innards into bits with her hammer. She looks unhappy while she performs this process quite efficiently.
The result is pretty good but honestly a little disappointing for something endorsed by Chow Yun Fat.
Maybe we need to try again with another topping. If anyone knows about this place tell us what we should put inside because we tried it with peanut and it just didn't live up to the hype.
The indoor market of Shilin goes on like this for a while. There's a million things that we chose not to eat including something called 豪大大雞排 - haoda dajipai. I only recognized the two characters in the middle and called it da-da-chicken. I'm retarded, but actually not that far off because it's just a giant piece of fried chicken steak. Point is, it was too big for us to commit to. Eat strategically young grasshopper.
Another thing we skipped: giant sausages.
I dunno what they're made of, but they sure did look tempting. We passed on those and picked up a couple other items from this stall instead.
Guess what? Chicken butt.
No really. That's a chicken butt in my mouth. It tasted awfully similar to chicken but included some unexpected pieces of cartilage. It was originally served skewered on a stick and taseted pretty good, but my enjoyment of said delicacy was diminished significantly by the in-depth conversation V had with her sister about the poo that used to be in that chicken butt and the consequent microscopic poo remains that invariably remained. Curse them.
The last thing we ordered from the place was something with a familiar naming convention: big-sausage-wrapping-small-sausage.
The big sausage is actually filled with sticky rice and makes for a delicious bun in this Taiwanese hot dog. I freaking love sticky rice, so I personally find this concept absolutely genius. I think it could be even better if there were some more flavorings to the rice, but V tells me there's a place around us that does this even better. Too many things to eat...
Much of the Shilin night market has been consolidated, but a large portion of it still remains on the streets. The outdoor part mostly sells goods like clothes and crafts. We even saw an ABC Mart straight from Japan. But anywhere there are a lot of people on the street, there will definitely be some street food in the vicinity.
We actually had something particular in mind as we headed through several alleys down a path I have no hope in reproducing. Eventually we got to our destination.
Time for some more stinky tofu. They were being properly double-fried this time and V's sister and her husband continued to talk about how good it was while we waited in our longest line of the night. We started to get excited.
First up, I eagerly acted as the guinea pig for the place's cold noodles.
Cold noodles are usually served with a sesame sauce that makes them a tangy but savory treat in the heat. These were a little different as they were especially known for their spiciness. Out of everyone there, I was the only one who really like spicy foods, and we ordered one up with medium heat for me to try and everyone to watch.
They were really good. Sure it was hot but nothing I couldn't handle. I get the feeling that if I ordered the highest level, I could still eat it, but it wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable. The clear vinegary sauce on the bottom is what actually makes this taste so incredible, and if you properly mix the sesame, red, and clear sauces together the resulting concoction is symphony on your tongue. #2 on my list.
Not too far behind is the stinky tofu that didn't appear until after I was done with my noodles. These guys were a little bit more stinky than the last ones we ate but ridiculously airy and crunchy. Also super delicious. I don't know the name of this place or even how to get there, but I highly recommend the cold noodles and stinky tofu...
I was tapped out at this point. I had exceeded my quota for the night but still felt like I needed something sweet to get some of remnant stinkyness off my tongue. You see carts like this all the time and usually they sell sugar-covered cherry tomatoes. Tomatoes are really good but this time we went for some sugar-covered strawberries that really hit the spot. Palate cleansing success.
Not pictured anywhere are the donuts we ate after this...
Point is, figure out what you need to eat and don't push yourself too hard. There are simply too many delectable options available to you at the Shilin night market, and you're just going to end up overeating anyway.
Our time was really running out in Taipei, which means that it was time for me to go get my last-second haircut. We spent a lot of time at the salon while I got a quick trim and then waited for V's perm to finish. As it turned out our friend from Waseda, Jenny, was somewhat in the area, and I left to meet up for our hot date.
Now I know what you all are thinking. *Gasp* You're a married man! You can't go on a date. Truth is that I had Jenny to myself for maybe twenty minutes tops before V showed up with her new flashy hair and then proceeded to monopolize her.
Yep, I sat there as my wife's accessory again as she sweet-talked the young and naive girl. Well, actually most of the conversation was in Chinese and I simply made an attempt to speak up every time I understood something (or thought I understood it). Of course, every time I said anything in Chinese, Jenny would laugh at me which made me feel great. Miwa and Izumi constantly did this to my Japanese. I think that maybe I should stick to my perfect English that usually never gets laughed at unless I intentionally say something funny.
We spent a looong time with Jenny and totally forgot (or at least I did) about our original plan to have a legitimate dinner with Ba and Mama. Luckily we still have one more night to make that happen. It was good to sit down and have a chat, and I'm super glad we're increasing our network in Taipei where we don't really have too many friends. It'd be great if we could get to know as many cool people in Taipei as we do in Tokyo; either way, we'll see you again Jenny, next time we're in town!
Recently it's been raining quite a bit; this has prevented me from running outside and burning off some of my overzealous consumption. The best thing about the rain is that it creates enough ambient noise so that V's parents and Popo don't get disturbed when we make a little noise upstairs in the wee hours of the night. The worst thing about rain is the water in the air.
