Wie heißt es so schön: Auf vielfachen Wunsch einer einzelnen Person... 😎 @Aga was curious what I was buying on our night market, so I disguised myself as a tourist and took photos today. I only photographed some of the food stalls. At many other places the food wasn't that clearly visible. I also skipped double or triple appearances and completely ignored all the other stalls selling clothing, phone cases, cosmetics etc. Anyway, here we go. (Sorry, photo-heavy...)
Let us start with Oden, which came from Japan. Taiwan was occupied by Japan between 1895 and 1945 and that left an imprint on the island, not just culinary. It has gotten cold recently, so I may get some in winter, but not today.
Outside of winter I am not a big fan of hotpot. But when it is really cold, even I may order one. I would however go for a "small hotpot". Here you can choose one based on beef, pork, lamb, seafood...
Something sweet for a change: sweet potato balls. They are fried, so I haven't eaten them for quite some time, as I try to avoid deep-fried food.
We move into Cantonese cuisine with Shaomai. Buy ten, get one free, for 150NT$ (or 15 for one), about USD5. I never ate anything at that stall, but might one day.
This is the stall @aga@diasp.org asked for, fried mushrooms. Yes, I know, I just said I try to avoid... As I said, I try to avoid deep-fried food, I didn't say how successful I was with that. (I am, usually. I had way more deep-fried food in the past.) You can pick just one kind of mushroom or get a mix, which is what I usually do - but not today...
Of course you can find fruits in different states (fresh, dried,...) on a night market. It is usually prepared into bite-sized formats, so that you can eat them right away.
🎵"Chestnuts roasted on an open fire..."🎵
Fish balls. You may notice that the water in the right bowl is red, do I really need to warn you? You can choose from either bowl or mixed, plus an additional condiment like pepper, seaweed, lemon-pepper-salt, curry, wasabi or "hot powder".
Crêpe, Taiwan style. You can select different flavours, the ingredients get added and then the crêpe will be rolled into a cone. I think I never ate those, I'm simply not interested.
Shrimps, anyone?
We are back to Japanese cuisine, sushi. One USD is about 31NT$ now I think, so you can get one for half a buck or a little more.
Not only chestnuts get roasted, here is a BBQ stall. There are several kinds of meat on offer, but also plant-based items.
Stinky tofu. Sorry, no actual photo of that tofu, just the stall. I'm not a fan of it anymore, but mostly because it was quite spicy a number of years ago but is rather boring now. There are other forms of tofu that are way more interesting.
Corn, steamed...
...or roasted.
Yes, there are bakers. But I only buy something there around 02/30. Sorry, but I really have no interest in most of their offers, I rather bake myself. An egg tart once in a while, that's about it.
Strawberry baskets forever...🎵
This is where I bought dinner today. The smaller dumplings are also available cooked (though not usually on night markets), the longer "guotie" are always fried, or rather a combination of cooked and fried, as both water and oil are added to the pan in which they are fried.
Feeling hungry now?
