taipei: street eats

here's a long post for all the street eats. i'm not being lazy, i'm being efficient ;p



here we have curry fish balls on a stick, at danshui. as fish balls come and go, its closer to the consistency of a sotong ball but what made the difference was dunking in fragrant japanese curry. the rather chatty uncle who sold it was still doing his market testing i think. he asked us how it was and whether it was nice. he also told us of how it was slightly different from those that are in hongkong - assuming that there are of course, i wouldn't know. i havent been back in years. but it was good enough for me to get a stick of my own after guinea-pig rae went for it.



cute. lol.



we also tried their local takopachi at danshui. kind of like the 'bomb' thing at shihlin but it tastes a lot better, although different from the one we have here. very hearty and they come in boxes of 6. we also waited quite a bit for this one, but i think it was pretty worthwhile. it came piping hot which was very nice for that day. it'd been a bit nippy earlier at fisherman's wharf cos of the rain.



fresh tie dan (铁蛋） along with pre-packaged ones in the background. i think i'm a proponent of eating food fresh, because the difference is quite something. i love the fresh ones but really don't care for the packaged ones. its not quite like ru dan or cha ye dan but its not that different either.

oh btw, those foot high soft-serve ice-creams at danshui? just like any other soft-serve. still a fun seaside-town eat though.

and then there is xiang xiang ji (香 香 鸡). now this is possibly the best i've ever eaten. period.



i think i had a pack nearly every day i was there. found near the main station exit into hsimending, it had a longish queue at almost all times of the day. and the queue doesnt move very fast cos of wok constrictions. one big wok-full of chicken's probably only good for up to 6-8 small bags. so most people wait between 5-10 minutes, depending how many wok-fulls behind you are. well worth the wait, i assure you.

actually there are a lot of other street eats we had, but didnt have photos of. i had this mochi red bean shao bing at danshui which was not too bad, but was rich enough to really stuff me even though i only had one. we also had a lot at shihlin but the two nights we were there, we were either too bogged down with shopping or too frazzled from the crowd to take photos. aside from this:



mango ice. slurp. actually this is a picture from the last visit with june and char cos i was too busy eating this visit. hehhehheh. and i had the strawberry-mango mix instead too. still good. oh incidentally, if you haven't heard, there's an Ice Monster in PS now. its the taiwanese franchise come to singapore but seriously, something always goes wrong along the way. if you're looking for that soft, almost cotton-y mian bing they have there? well it got lost in transit. cos the ice here is like all ice-kachang here. course. its rather sad really. but the toppings were pretty good so as local ice-kachangs come and go, it was pretty good... if you discount the price. at $4.50-8.50 a plate, i guarantee you its not going to be that hot with the locals.

anyway, that's all the street eats i have for you. but just for good measure, here's a couple of pictures of the gems you find in the little alleys near fu xing. i love that place.









this last picture's particularly sad. read the sign and then try spot the live little pig in the tiny pen by the door. it was so agitated cos it could smells of its brethren on the tables wafting through the main door. poor thing!