We arrive around 2:30pm to sample the first attraction of the day - intestine rice noodles. It's a bowl of thick-souped rice noodles, with bits of chopped pork intestines, topped with coriander. Add some chilli sauce and it makes for a warming and delicious meal. A small bowl costs NT$40. We washed it down with a cold kumquat lemon juice drink with dried plum.
Next my brother spots a little cart selling a kind of sweets literally translated as chilled rounds. They are clear glutinous bite-size balls with flavoured centres. They come filled with red bean, mellon and peach. You get nine for NT$30.
As we ate we wondered for a bit and did a little shopping. Time for a food break, so we had deep fried minced fish cakes. It's topped with a special sauce and is a delicious snack. One portion costs NT$40. My brother Mike and his girlfriend Jeri also shared a thick soup with floured pork. This is the best I can describe it! We walked round the corner and had strawberry and condensed milk shaved ice.
After walking around some more browsing at this and that, we rested our feet at a tea house and I had iced apple red tea, which is just apple flavoured black tea. I also ordered a double flavoured toast which is a thickly sliced piece of toast cut in half, with peanut butter on one half and chocolate on the other. Jeri had an iced passionfruit green tea and my bro had a coffee (just a regular coffee not worth bolding).
Xi Men Ding kept us occupied for hours but someone mentioned smelly tofu and I wanted to have some as it is one of my favourite snacks. My brother knew the best place for it but we needed to take the MRT to another location.
15 mins later we arrive at the smelly tofu shop only to find it was closed for Middle Autumn Festival! So onwards we went to nearby Tong Hwa Street Night Market.
Taiwan is famous for night markets. You'll find streets lined on both sides with a myriad of stores selling the latest and greatest stuff, as well as food stands, stalls and carts. A whole mix of licenced and legal, and unlicenced and illegal vendors are crammed into the street, all for your shopping and eating pleasure. But I suggest you buy whatever you like at that moment, for if your vendor happens to be of the illegal kind, the vendor and cart will in a blink of an eye disappear at the approach or even smell of a police officer so you'll have no chance to go back should you eventually decide two steps later it was a bargin afterall. They are that fast and instinctive. Like rare short-haired bandicoots.
At Tong Hwa we found a stall selling bite-size smelly tofu for NT$55 for a large portion.
My brother also had sweet tofu dessert from another stall, but it was weirdly flavoured with chocolate and other unknowns which is such a sacrilege. The only way to have it in my books is traditional with peanuts.
Next my brother and I spy a food cart selling blood rice cakes and we get a stick, a childhood favourite of his and mine. Pork blood is mixed with rice then steamed. It's then cut up into rectangular portions and skewered, so you get a stick per portion. It is kept in boiled water until you order one. The vendor will then dip it in a special sauce, paint on chilli sauce if you ask for it, then coat it in crushed peanuts on both sides and finish it off with coriander. Only NT$25 per stick.
Jeri on the other hand spies a cart selling chicken bums. It's the very tip of the chicken's rear end which is quite fatty. You get five per skewer. Grilled to perfection they are crisy and moist and beautifully edible and nicely bite-sized!
I get thirsty and murder a freshly squeezed sugar cane juice. It is very sweet and incredily thirst quenching in my opinion.
Almost immediately we find ourselves next sitting at a food stall sharing a bowl of bitter melon and rib soup as well as a medicinal soup with pork knuckle.
Most items are quite cheap at these night markets so it was hard to resist a little more browsing and shopping. It wasn't the end of the night however as we came to the end of the night markets. Around the corner were a number of pet stores where small crowds gathered at the windows to look at the impossibly cute puppies and kittens. Mike and Jeri took the opportunity to buy Du a "birthday" present, seeing today was the fourth anniversary of Du's adoption from the animal shelter to their home. A new collar was added to two items that were already purchased earlier at Xi Men Ding: a New York Yankees top and a demin skirt!
It was 9:30pm as we started towards the MRT but something was missing. I felt I had room for more. So near the station we stepped into a small restaurant that had three tables and a take-out window, and had sticky rice and pork ball soup. A filling end to seven-hour outing!
We come home tired but content. Then we start to torment poor Du by subjecting her to her birthday presents (she does NOT like wearing clothese). But such is the life of a pet. It was such a laugh.
As I started to compose this entry my brother serves up sliced white peaches and passionfruit halves. Always nice to finish a meal with some refreshing fruit.
Did I also mention that Middle Autumn Festival is always around the time of the full moon? I promise you the photo on the left is the moon and not a spot light!
1 comment:
Oh my word.... is that enough food for you T?? Geeee..... i want to eat all those street food too... :)
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