Thursday, January 10, 2008

Taipei - Night Market

What seems to be an important part of the nightlife in Taipei is the night market. Basically, think of the San Genaro festival in Little Italy (NYC) placed in a super narrow alley that's 5x the length, 2x the amount of people, and way more variety of cheap awesome food. It's complete chaos, but the whole entire alley is filled with the amazing aroma of killer street food. In addition to food stalls, there are open stalls for games and even clothes shops. The variety of the street food is endless - from Hong Kong style dim sum, sushi, teppinyaki, and even pastries and fresh fruit. Again the theme is cheap (most items will be less than $1) and lots of variety. All the street food I listed the previous day is available at most night markets as well as some extra pictures I've taken below, which again is probably only a tiny fraction of what you'll find at the night market.

Here's a listing of some of the major night markets in Taipei:
  • Shilin Night Market
  • Shida Road Night Market (Near the National Taiwan Normal University)
  • Linjiang St Night Market (Near Tonghua St and Xinyi Rd)
  • Snake Alley (a tourist trap, something Bourdain would have visited in his first season of A Cook's Tour - eating live snakes and the like)

No comments: