My first impression of Taiwan (mainly from movies and TV shows) was that it’s kinda like China. So, I decided to learn more about Taiwan and its night markets in the places we were going to explore. Let me tell you that no amount of prior research prepared me for the foodgasm that was Taiwanese street food. I was seriously spoilt for choice.
The night markets I got to visit were:
Ximen Night Market, Taipei City
We reached our hotel quite late because the immigration process and everything else in between took a while. By the time we checked in and lazed around a bit at our hostel, it was already dark. Thankfully, our place was about a 10-minute walk from the Ximen Night Market.
This night market had the most city vibes out of all the night markets I visited. We did our homework, watching TikTok videos on what to eat, and tried a bunch of food; rice noodles, dim sum, tofu pudding (which is basically taufufa), tanghulu, and more. I’ll review these in a separate post soon.
Fengchia Night Market, Taichung
This is the largest night market in Taiwan, and I can vouch for that. We were in Taichung for two nights and we went there for dinner on both nights. This night market had the weirdest and most random street food.
Wenhua Night Market, Chiayi
This night market was the one I didn’t have much time to explore. Even so, I managed to impulse buy so much food (all yummy btw) I had a food coma after. Here, I saw teh tarik and a few other Malaysian food being sold. Compared to the first two, this night market had less stalls but everything I ate was memorable, especially the fried quail egg. I only have this one picture because I ate everything before I could document them.
Raohe Night Market, Taipei City
Not sure if it’s always like that or if it was because of the weekend but this night market was SO CROWDED! Think Jonker Walk on the weekends. It was filled with so many stalls selling a variety of food, drinks, and souvenirs. I even saw a stall with a Malaysian flag selling durian and durian-related food!
Unfortunately, I didn’t explore this night market properly because of time constraints. The tour guide who dropped us at this night market said that at the other end of it is a wharf. Sadly, I didn’t get the chance to see it. Oh well, next trip for sure!
Yansan Night Market, Taipei
This was the smallest night market we kinda discovered by accident while looking for somewhere to eat. It was about a 5-minute walk from our hostel and we were pleasantly surprised. It didn’t feel like a night market because unlike the others where the roads were partially or fully closed, this one had heavy traffic going both ways. The stalls were also on the corridors of existing shops instead of being on the side of the road itself.
As we walked along the stalls, we saw interesting food items that we’ve never seen in the past 7 days we were here. We quickly realised that the hawkers didn’t speak or understand much English, so I put my broken Mandarin to the test. Fortunately, we understood each other and I managed to have the best lok lok (I don’t know what it’s called there tho) and oyster omelette. I also took my brother’s advice and lined up in a long queue for something that I later discovered was braised pork rice (it was hella delicious, of course).
This was my personal favourite night market because the food felt authentic and it really felt like a hidden gem to me.
To conclude, I would recommend anyone travelling to Taiwan to ditch the restaurants for dinner and instead explore the night markets nearby because that’s where the good stuff is at.