Three days feasting in Taipei
Taiwanese capital offers foodies’ bounty
By day, Taipei resembles other capital cities throughout Asia. Contemporary buildings of concrete, steel and glass dominate the skyline in commercial districts, mingling with a vast network of dilapidated low-rise apartments. Cars, scooters and yellow taxis whiz by streets crowded with dense throngs of pedestrians from all walks of life: businessmen in suits, mothers pushing strollers, millennials snapping selfies.
Not quite as pristine as Singapore but cleaner and less dense than Hong Kong or Shanghai, Taipei’s streets are especially enthralling at night, when the busiest thoroughfares light up with staggered, twinkling signs projecting Chinese characters in primary colors.
Taipei also happens to be one of the most popular food destinations in Asia. It’s known as the home of thin-skinned soup dumplings; the place where pearl milk tea (aka boba tea) was invented; where stinky tofu is a delicacy; and where crispy seafood on a stick is a night-market must.
On a recent rainy evening, I found myself on a nondescript side street in Taipei’s Zhongshan District, huddled beneath a fabric awning in front of Fu Ba Wang Pork Restaurant. I was waiting in line for a taste of lu rou fan, or minced pork and rice, another one of Taiwan’s most comforting and classic dishes.
At the entrance, a cleaver-wielding cook sat behind a stainless-steel counter where huge slabs of pork, braised until the skin gleams a caramelized golden brown, arrived steaming from the kitchen and were promptly dumped into a vat of opaque brown sauce.
Fishing a juicy slab from the vat, the cook chopped it up into tiny bits, placing small amounts over a bowl of rice before ladling it with sauce. It wasn’t fancy, nor was it expensive — the dish cost less than $1. But the kernels of rice were a thing of beauty, glazed with a sheen of unctuous, savory sauce and punctuated by bits of skin and pork that melted on the tongue.
Moments like this were the reason I was in Taipei.
I had arrived three days prior, without a real plan other than to eat well. Though it hadn’t been part of my original 10-day itinerary to Bangkok, I added the stopover at the last minute, which was permitted without a fee because I flew Taipei-based EVA Airways. Splitting up the legs between Bangkok, Taipei and Houston also meant that my transit home would be shortened from 22 hours to 15, nonstop. With no visa requirements for Americans visiting Taiwan for less than 90 days and a favorable exchange rate ($1 equals approximately 30 New Taiwan dollars), it was a no-brainer: This was my chance to visit a bucket-list foodie destination with minimal hassle and expense.
Cultural considerations, life-changing bubble tea
The idea of feasting in Taipei sounded good in theory, but there were challenges. For starters, everything is written in Chinese, from street signs to addresses on Google Maps and Uber. I don’t read or speak Chinese.
Researching the city ahead of time, I also found that the majority of English-written articles on Taiwanese cuisine were by U.S.-based, non-Taiwanese writers. I wanted to dig deeper, to discover what really good Taiwanese food tasted like from a local perspective.
Enter my friend George. Born in Taiwan, he’d lived most of his life in California but had relocated to Taipei full time a few years ago. A hard-core foodie, he is always trying new places, looking for those humble, unpretentious spots that Asians prize most, the ones where it’s all about the food.
With the benefit of a Western and local lens, George was the perfect guide to help me experience Taipei’s best eats in a short of amount of time.
To start, we met at a branch of Chun Shui Tang, the teahouse credited with the invention of “boba,” or “bubble” milk tea, which has become increasingly popular in the States.
It was love at first sip. Chun Shui Tang’s milk tea was hands down the best I’d ever tasted: smooth and milky, the tea’s strength in perfect balance with the added sweetener and cream.
“It’ll ruin you,” George warned with a knowing smile. And he was right: Would I ever be able to find anything close to this back home? I don’t think so. From that moment forward, “It’ll ruin you,” became the theme of our food adventures.
Starting with classics
I quickly learned a few things about eating in Taipei. First, residents think nothing of hopping in a taxi for a 10- to 15-minute drive, just to try one small snack. Second, long, fancy sit-down meals, though available, are not generally what the city is known for. Like Fu Ba Wang Pork Restaurant, many spots are little more than food stands with seating in the back. Also, cash is king.
There is no right or wrong way to explore Taipei’s food culture, either, other than to keep an open mind and save room in your stomach so you can try more things. Porkbased dishes and starchy, chewy cakes rule.
Given three short days, my focus was to try the foods uniquely indigenous to the region.
Niu rou mian, or beef noodle soup, is widely considered the national dish of Taiwan. Taipei holds an annual food festival to crown the best-tasting version of the dish each year. You can find it at many restaurants throughout the city, and when you ask locals for their favorite, a heated debate often ensues.
George’s pick, Shi Ji Hot Pot Restaurant, had an award-worthy niu rou mian. The broth was a luscious, chocolate-brown color with a strong fullbodied savoriness. The noodles were springy and al dente. As for the beef — both brisket and tendon were tender and masterfully prepared.
I had never tried the traditional Taiwanese meatball, or rou yuan, until George escorted me to Tonghua Meatball, another tucked-away hole-in-the-wall beneath a brightly lit sign.
Inside, the restaurant had just a handful of tables. The meatballs were kept in a vat of hot oil, then cut through the top with scissors to reveal the meat filling. I found the dish rather weird — it was more of a gigantic, chewy-skinned dumpling with a pork and bamboo center than a meatball. Even so, I couldn’t help but marvel at the texture of the dense, glutinous outer shell. The Taiwanese prize this chewy quality, called “QQ,” Dining hubs
Taipei has many night markets; we hit Shilin Night Market and Raohe Night Market, the largest and oldest, respectively.
At Shilin, a sprawling labyrinth of alleys and stalls was filled with street-fair-type games; flea-market-style vendors selling everything from souvenirs to underwear; and food carts offering everything from offal (kidneys, chicken hearts, tripe) to Taiwanese fried chicken, fish balls and pork sausages. At Raohe, red entrance gates led the way to many food options, such as oyster pancakes and lots of stinky tofu.
Both were fun for people watching and late-night grazing — and, since nothing cost more than a few dollars, it was enough to buy and try rather than to finish every last bite.
I highly recommend exploring Yongkang Street, a known epicurean destination in Taipei. Spanning several blocks with more than 30 eateries, the spot has one place to try above all else: the original Din Tai Fung. World famous for its xiao long bao , or soup dumplings, the multilevel restaurant impresses. The soup dumplings are exquisitely crafted, the dumpling skins impossibly thin yet resilient and moist, with a lusciously plump soupy pork filling.
Also worthwhile? Tian Jin Onion Pancake, a street stand nearby, where the line of waiting customers is constantly 10 to 20 people deep. Here, two female cooks perform culinary acrobatics over a sizzling flat-top grill, one pouring batter, then flipping the onion pancakes as they cook; the other flipping and smashing pancakes before folding them into a small paper bag for takeaway.
Savory and flaky, with a pull-apart, chewy center, the plain onion pancake — which costs about 80 cents — was nothing short of phenomenal. Hungry for return visit
In the end, I’d tried obscure spots and famous restaurants. Had my world rocked by snacks purchased off the streets for less than a dollar and snacked nonstop until I could snack no more.
Was it enough? Not nearly.
I missed out on a sesame seed pepper bun at the night market, and there were several more night markets and massive underground food halls that I would have loved to explore.
No, three days was not sufficient — but as a stopover on my way back to the States, it was a great introduction to Taipei’s sensational food culture.