I'm still a tourist... (士林夜市) Shi Lin Night Market

I put this post off for a long time. It's partially because I know I can't really do it justice, and partially because, well, there's just so many freakin' pictures to upload that I didn't want to write a super long post. In any case, I'll try my best haha. Anyhoo, no matter what, when I'm in Taiwan, I'm still a tourist. As such, I go to touristy spots like night markets, I get glares when I talk, and I'm pretty sure they're judging me for taking pictures. Yes it's true that I have black hair (temporarily orange) and squinty eyes. I look Chinese. I speak Chinese. It's still blatantly obvious that I'm not native though. People can tell with a quick glance, and when I open my mouth, my somewhat subtle Beijing accent affirms their suspicions. Anyway, my point is, I don't really fit in. So when I had the opportunity I made sure to hit up all of the most popular food spots at 士林 with no regards for my dignity. Starting with... shaved ice. (edit: wow, in rereading what I wrote in that blurb, I realize how incoherent my thoughts are. I mention a bunch of things that are completely unrelated and attempt futilely to explain them. Whatever, it's my blog, and they made sense in my head. Sorry.)


At a place called 仙人掌 (Xian Ren Zhang) or in English... 'Cactus,' I started my days meal. Apparently this shaved ice parlor has been around since the 50's, it was also a place my mom used to frequent back in college, so yeah... it's old as crap (she would kill me if she knew I wrote that, good thing she doesn't actually read the text on my posts). Anyway, they have all the traditional flavors you'd expect... the red bean, mango, strawberry, pineapple, oatmeal, but I chose to go with the sesame flavored shaved ice. Shred as 雪花冰 or 'snowy ice,' it has the consistency of overly airy ice cream, with really fine shards indistinguishable from bite to bite. The sesame flavor was a nice change from the heavy sweet syrups normally associated with shaved ice. Think, tahini ice cream. It was definitely worth the price... regardless of how much it was. Come on, it couldn't be more than $3 at worst. I'd make a trip out of my way to try it, although I doubt I can find the place again without getting lost. Fail.


After going the reverse meal route with dinner first, I headed over to the main food center, which is basically a giant conglomerate of food shacks under a covered roof. This was where I ran into the 大腸包小長 (Da Chang Bao Xiang Chang) translated as 'big sausage holding little sausage' stand. Sorry for the stupid translation. It's just a hot dog. With sticky rice as the bun. I don't know why they can't just call it a rice hot dog.


In any case, for 50 NT ($1.50) you get a fairly decent sized Chinese sweet sausage, roughly 8", roasted over an open flame, and marinated in a variety of flavors (black pepper, vodka, original, spicy, mustard, and garlic), which is sandwiched into a bun made of sticky rice grilled into a compact neat package. They put some other condiments underneath, which I presume was cabbage and the sauce from the picture, and there ya go. Delicious in a bag. I don't think there was anything extraordinary about the stand in the photograph, but you should do yourself a favor and try it for the innovative nature of the synergy between sausage and rice.


I also got a giant piece of chicken. For 50 NT ($1.50... I swear they standardize prices to reduce competition between stands), you get a giant flattened piece of chicken that gets fried in breadcrumbs, and spiced (if you want it) enough to make you hate your tongue. It used to be bigger... I think. Maybe it was because when I first got it, I was like... 14, but maybe they downsized. It's still about the size of your face, and when you consider that 85% is edible, the remainder is bone, that's still a really good deal. I was tempted to go buy pineapple buns at a bakery and sandwich this sucker inside, but my wallet told me not to.


I went back to the shaved ice shop to take a break. This time I got an ume shaved ice. Basically Japanese plum plopped onto shaved ice. I was expecting something kind of maroon, but instead I was greeted with what appeared to be feces on ice. I wasn't too excited to eat it, and when I did, I was sorely disappointed. Overly tart, and oddly crunchy ice completely ruined it. The fact that it looked terrible just sealed the deal. Biggest waste of 40 NT ($1.10) ever.


Final stop on the day was a Thai place that was panda obsessed. To be completely honest, I only went in because they were pimping the panda posters so hard. I love pandas. Be honest, you do too. If anyone hates pandas, stop reading this blog right now. This is a panda loving zone and you're not welcome here. Anyway, I wasn't terribly hungry so I only got some of their more unique items off the menu.


Awww yeah, stinky tofu. I get this all the time, but I was curious as to how the Thai rendition of it would taste. Honestly? No real difference. The pickled cabbage was sweeter than what I expect from a stand, and it wasn't spicy at all, but the tofu was predictably awesome. The skin was sufficiently crispy and still pocked with oil pockets, the inside was spongy and soaked up the sauce like a boss (ha that rhymes), but most importantly, the smell was pungent and insulting from the first whiff. Excellent. This was 45 NT ($1.50) well spent.


Now what's this fried hockey puck of golden deliciousness? I swear to god, I didn't purposely frame the shape with the outline of 'delicious foods.' It kind of just happened.


It's fried ice cream! You're given the choice of ice cream flavors including the traditional vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, as well as the flavors you'd expect in Taipei... those being red bean, taro, and almond. I chose taro, which would explain the slight tint of purple. I honestly wasn't sure what to expect. They brought it out in a paper bag, which still managed to burn me. I was worried that by the time I had taken my picture and started to eat it, that I'd be left with a draining pool of taro cream. Actually... forget I said that, that sounds delicious. I'm not sure how they did it, but the ice cream was solid... yet yielding, the skin was crispy and piping hot. In some sort of engineering miracle, these... panda workers managed to defy heat transfer. On a completely unrelated side note, my sophomore year materials and energy balance professor said that chemE's invented the McMuffin. I laughed at her at the time... a lot... but I kind of see what she meant now. Anyhoo, methinks maybe some form of secondary starch might've been used to stabilize the ice cream, not unlike gelatin (although that would melt at near room temperature). I give up, my head hurts.


BONUS PICTURE. Panda. Yum. Restaurant. OG kickin' it since 2007. Full disclosure though, the food there really isn't that good. If they didn't have the appeal of a panda, I doubt anyone would walk inside. There were a lot of flies.
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Red bean love

I like posting in chronological order, what can I say. This bowl of shaved ice came from a shop located in 師大夜市 (Shi Da Night Market) called 三兄弟豆花, which translates to 3 brothers almond tofu. First off, I want to point out how absurd Taiwanese/Chinese people are in their translations. Did you know that 師大 is actually called Taiwan Normal University in English? I'm not sure what genius thought that up, but it's straight stupid. It doesn't really make sense, but it certainly is funny to me. Now, back to the shaved ice. Instead of a traditional 紅豆牛奶冰 (red bean milk shaved ice), this one was actually a 雪花冰 (snow flake ice?). I might've hit on this in a previous post, but let me rehash the idea... you take heavy cream and sugar and mix it into an ice mixture before shredding it extra fine. The result is a semisweet ice base that tastes sort of like vanilla ice cream. When you combine this with the standard red bean syrup mixture, and also more condensed milk, you end up with a shaved ice dish that retains a more consistent sweetness. The texture is an added bonus, with an instantaneous melting on the tongue. No crunching through unevenly shredded ice, good for the lazy (i.e. me). That's all for tonight, I'm kind of pooped after the ordeal that is Ben & Jerry's free cone day.
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Random food from 逢甲夜市 (Feng Jia Night Market)

So as a continuation of my orientation trip theme, I'll condense all of 逢甲夜市 (Feng Jia Night Market) into one giant post. Since we stayed in the 台中 (Taichung) area for most of the days, it's only appropriate that we visited Feng Jia at least once. Claimed to be one of the largest in Taiwan, it actually didn't disappoint in terms of size or variety of food, in fact, my only gripe was that the people who planned out the itinerary made it so we only had about an hour to see the entire thing. That is... we had an hour to check out half a kilometer of stores, plus all the branch streets that encompass the night market. Something about that didn't make much sense, especially given the fact that we were allotted something close to 2 or 3 hours for dinner on the first night. Anyway, I really shouldn't complain, I guess getting to go in the first place is something I should be grateful for... I wouldn't have any other reason to go to Taichung in the first place. Completely unrelated side tangent, before we got off the bus, they told us not to eat strange or unclean foods, or anything that might make us sick (bump that... if I'm in a night market I'll never get to return to, I'm eating anything I damn well want to).

Uh, if you know me at all, you realize that I'm a shaved ice addict. There... I said it. I will walk much further than anyone else you know just to have ice and syrup. As stupid as that sounds, it's true. In any case, I made my group members eat shaved ice before splitting up and eating 'normal' food (sorry guys!). Naturally, since I couldn't wait, we stopped at the first shaved ice place we came to that wasn't called Meet Fresh. Called 頂好 or literally translated as 'the top,' it was a small shack of a store, which was run by a singular old lady. You have no clue how happy it made me to see a giant neon sign that said they had shaved ice + 5 toppings for 35 NT ($1). Anyway, inside it was pretty cramped. Only 4 tables, half filled, we actually had to stand around for a while before we could all sit down (there were 10 of us after all). To the left was the counter with an awesome array of toppings, from solid taro, to red bean, to flaked ginger, to tapioca balls, and maybe 10 or so other bins I can't remember. If you had to characterize it as something, it's a standard mom and pop shaved ice place that you don't see as often anymore in Taipei (that is... if you include the requirement of a general level of cleanliness).


I got the 抹茶紅豆冰 (matcha red bean shaved ice) for uh... maybe it was 50 NT ($1.50). Honestly I wasn't really counting, since I was more focused on eating. I was originally going to get the 5 topping thing, but then I realized that I haven't been able to find this in Taipei for that cheap before (it's also a relatively rare flavor combination). Anyway, it's not a traditional shaved ice plate... instead, they take what basically works out to green milk tea and freeze it, proceed to shred it into 雪花冰 (xue hua ice) which is much thinner and sorbet like, then top it with the requisite red beans and condensed milk. The resulting concoction works amazingly well. The slightly sweet yet bitter green tea ice has a really smooth texture, and the flavor contrasts and mellows the overly sweet condensed milk on top. The red beans add a subtle earthy tone, and just a bit of textural difference to the melting ice and creamy milk. The only question is... how can I recommend something that I can't ever have again?! Ha, seriously, go find this store... it's near the entrance of main street.


We did want something salty to eat, so after the dessert, the we (the guys) split up with the rest of the group since we just wanted food. On one of the side streets we found fried mushrooms... of course since we're in Taiwan, they were 木耳 or 'Jew's Ear.' I forget how much they were, but definitely no more than 50 NT ($1.50) for a single serving. They consisted of a cup of the Jew's Ear mushrooms which were breaded and deep fried, topped with two sticks with a different variety of mushroom. I didn't buy these, but my friend Paul did... and he seemed to like them. I did however sample them, since they had people walking around with single mushrooms on toothpicks, and I could see what's so appealing. A crunchy exterior hides a juicy, soft, yet chewy interior. In addition to that, they had a nice mild taste that you could smell after the first bite. So if you find fried mushrooms, you should give that a try. I'm pretty sure where you get it from shouldn't matter too much.


I also ended up getting some takoyaki, or fried octopus balls. I realize that these are really commonplace in Japanese izakayas, but they do them differently in Taiwan. First off, they tend to be more of a street food, and not something associated with alcohol (well... actually, those two aren't mutually exclusive, since public drunkenness is pretty normal at night markets. Anyway, I had been lusting for some octopus balls for the longest time (you know you want them too...), so I went and got them from the only stall I saw selling them. For 50 NT ($1.50... I think everyone agreed on a price here lol), you get 6 balls topped with your choice of 2 flavors. The flavors range from original (soy sauce based), to pork floss, peanut flour, curry, and a few others I can't remember either (I'm sorry! It was a long time ago). I chose original, because you have to have a basis of comparison, and also peanut flour, since I needs mah proteinz! Seriously though, more of the same... which is to say... culinary excellence. Soft, yet still crunchy exterior yields to a soft interior where a layer of fish paste exists. Within that is a mixture of octopus chunks and Chinese style vegetables (cabbage, carrots, radish) which melds into a slightly fishy, but still curiously different taste. It was after I finished that I realized that 'flavor' just meant what condiment they put on. So... the original was salty, and the peanut was slightly sweet, with a hint of peanut. If I make that sound like a bad thing, I don't mean to... these were really good. Even if you can't find this specific stall (I probably couldn't find it again), just try Taiwanese takoyaki, it is vastly different (not superior... just different) from Japanese style takoyaki.


Last thing I bought, is supposedly something that Feng Jia is famous for. Super tall swirl ice cream! I had found this small stall in one of the alleys and ordered up a swirl chocolate/vanilla cone. See the picture next to the machine? It's supposed to have a perfect peak, and be about a foot long. When my vendor person did it, she screwed up the first time... it broke at about 8" and she had to scrap that. Second time, she got it up to the 10" mark, but the tip wasn't straight. Third time's the charm right? Nope, she managed to mess it up again... full 12" without tip... but it still fell at the end. At this point I was kind of getting impatient, so I just told her it was fine... paid my 30 NT ($1... actually less than a dollar) and bailed. You read that correctly, it's a dollar... for something that's more than a foot long of ice cream. Way to rip us off Ben & Jerry. So I left, content with my monstrosity of ice cream, eating as quickly as possible since Taiwan is still about 80 degrees at night. When we turned the corner, I found a more legit place selling the same thing. About 10 different flavors including matcha green tea/chocolate swirl, and for 25 NT (75 cents or so) to boot. I bet they don't screw up the peak either! OTL, life's not always fair is it... so if you go looking for really tall swirl ice cream, go to the 25 NT one on the big main street!

I have to race one of my bosses on the erg for a 2k today, so I meant to keep my run short. Final distance ended up being 6.56 miles... oops! Ha, no I probably subconsciously ran further so I'd have an excuse if I lost horribly. Let's hope I don't shame C150 too badly (he did say he hasn't erged for about 10 years).

distance for the day: 6.56 miles
distance biked for the day: 0.00 miles

distance on the year: 409.40 miles
distance biked on the year: 142.68 miles
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Assorted sweets at 羅東 (Luo Dong)

Chalk it up to laziness (yeah, I'll admit it), or to shorten my backlog of random eats, or because my sister has been calling for more food pics, or perhaps because I'm just a tad bit bitter I won't be able to have any of these crazy amazing desserts again for what seems like an eternity, but I'm condensing my remaining dessert posts from 羅東夜市 (Luo Dong Night Market) into one mega post with tons of food porn. Prepare to be amazed.

First up was a 豆花 (Dou Hua) stand. How do explain dou hua... it's the silkiest of silky tofu varieties. Essentially the center cut of silken tofu, which gets sliced by a large ladle into thin slices, traditionally placed in a bowl of boiled sugar water. Often flavored with ginger sugar, brown sugar, peanuts, regardless of style, it always has a strong almond scent that always takes me to my happy place haha. Served hot or cold, dou hua is traditional night market food, and you can find it x10 at every one. Luo Dong's standout in this genre of food is a place called 包心粉圓專賣店 (Bao Xing Fen Yuan Specialty Store). How am I supposed to translate that?! If I was forced to, I guess it means 'filled heart dumpling specialty store,' but I'm pretty sure it sounds way more elegant if I leave it Chinese. Anyway, 粉圓 (Fen Yuan) are something that almost every ice store makes (Meet Fresh is famous for theirs...). They're gelatinous rice that is molded into really 'QQ' balls that aren't too off from mochi. Soft and yielding, yet surprisingly resilient, they offer the perfect complement of texture to the thin shaved ice, or in this case... silky smooth tofu.


I got the 綜合牛奶豆花 (mixed milk dou hua), which was 50 NT ($1.50... don't quote me on this, it was a while back!). Ridiculously thin curd tofu is topped in a cup with a generous serving of shaved ice made with milk, then topped with more condensed milk, plus a heaping serving of peanuts and tapioca balls, finally drizzled with almond milk. Yum. Oh I forgot to mention the hot ginger flavored sugar syrup (sounds gross to those who hate ginger, me included, but it's not what you think) that's given alongside in another cup. It's something that I would eat in the summer or winter. Would I recommend it? Uh, no time to respond, too busy wiping the drool off my keyboard. If you find yourself at this night market, it's really easy to find... it's a circle... just keep walking, and look for the absurd line.

Next up on the docket was mango ice! I know that Ice Monster is all the rage in Taipei (and in the Philippines too apparently), but I'm weary of them since 1. their prices are absurd... almost 2 times the price of most places and 2. I've gone 3 times and gotten sick 3 times. That's exactly what I'm not looking for when I want shaved ice... and empty wallet and an upset stomach hours later to remind me about how stupid that decision was. Anyway, I found this gem called 'Summer Snow 巧味冰庫' (Summer Snow... er something unknown... fridge :D). As you can see, my translation skills are top notch lol. The store was pretty packed, and had a nice store front, so I got suckered in. Their specialty is 雪花冰 (snow flower ice as a literal translation), which to summarize is usually when you take a flavored milk... common flavors are mango, vanilla, milk, matcha green tea, and then you shred the ice from that. The result is really thin crystals which have a creamy texture as opposed to the graininess of normal shaved ice. It's more akin to a sorbet in that it melts on your tongue with a smooth context rather than just... crunch.


Anyway, I got their 芒果雪花冰 (mango snow ice) which I'm pretty sure was 100 NT ($3). Half a plate of freshly shaved mango dipped in mango juice syrup, half a plate of thinly layered ice made from the aforementioned condensed milk/mango ice, topped with a scoop of mango sorbet, and drizzled with more mango syrup, this can probably induce a sugar coma if eaten too quickly. In any case, it was absolutely delicious, the ice was smooth, and closer to ice cream than shaved ice, and the mango was ripe enough to have the delicate sweetness (even without syrup), but still raw enough to have ample resistance when bitten into. Did I mention it was only $3? Again, I don' think I need to explicitly say this, but it's definitely recommended, and I would eat a bowl here everyday if I could. Well... I'd rotate with Meet Fresh and Tai Yi, but you get the point.

Hrm... last dessert item I had was another thing that originated from Luo Dong. It's found pretty much at every stand along the street that sells ice cream, so there's no point in telling you a specific store name (uh, to be honest, I don't really remember the name of the cart I got it from... I just picked the one with the longest line of people). In any case, it is pretty much peanut candy and ice cream, which sounds really plain... but it's really not. Let's see, for 35 NT ($1), you start with a lumpia skin (the Vietnamese rice roll wrappers), and then you start off with a spattering of peanut flour, the guy then takes a giant chunk of peanut brittle candy and starts shaving off layers of it into a small collector and dumps that on top, then a generous serving of cilantro is cut onto that layer of peanut candy, and finally 3 scoops of different flavors (vanilla, banana, and strawberry were mine) are put in the middle of the roll. He expertly rolls up the wrap and bags it in one swift movement, and voila... a peanut flavored ice cream burrito thing. Sounds terrible I'm sure, but if I've come to learn anything from my summers in Taiwan, it's that things that usually sound gross are usually okay, if not exceptional.


Look at that burrito like goodness, to the unknowing, you'd probably thought I just bought a simple vegetable roll. Upon biting, look at the cross sectional goodness. It makes me happy that the salty flavors of cilantro and the peanut shavings can coexist with ice cream. Refreshing and somewhat different... I really had no complaints. Yeah... brb, still wiping saliva off my keyboard, but definitely recommended.

I went for a nice long distance run today. As soon as I left my apartment, I still had that lingering stinging pain in my right hip, but I decided I could probably run through it. After about half a mile it either went away, or I stopped feeling it. In any case, I ran to the street where 饒河夜市 (Rao He Night Market) is located, then I doubled back to Da An Park, over to CKS Memorial Hall, and back home. Without realizing it, I did a 9.51 mile circuit (I had planned on 7 or so). All in all, a rather good run I'd say.

Oh, the following series of posts all take place outside of Taipei, where I didn't pay for food or housing, so it'll be less reviews, and more so... just pictures.

distance for the day: 9.51 miles
distance biked for the day: 0.00 miles

distance on the year: 399.65 miles
distance biked on the year: 142.68 miles
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