I am usually not a big fan of street food especially when I am travelling as I get conscious about the food hygiene in general. However, when I visited Taiwan for the first time back in 2018; I was in love with the street food in Taipei and nearby towns. I had the good fortune of meeting some fellow travellers in my budget hostel who happened to speak Mandarin and were excited to explore the city together. It just happened like that as I was travelling solo. Best way for any solo travellers out there to stay at a budget hostel and meet new people at breakfast! This was one of the last trip I did as a solo traveller before meeting my GF.
Coming back to the main topic of food; oh boy! how delicious it was and especially the food items we tried at Jiufen town. This town is a bit far from Taipei but well connected by a bus route. We had a days outing at Jiufen just to explore the local food that's quite famous in the region. I never knew though that it would be so much crowded.
By the way, the guy you see in the middle taking a picture is Serge; I met him and a brother-sister duo in hostel and we spend the day together around the town. He's taking my picture it seems; though I never got a copy of that. Below is the picture of my travel buddies; Serge, Tom and his sister Hiu. Tom and Hiu had come from Canada but could still speak Mandarin well. That in fact became a big advantage for us since Serge and I couldn't speak any Mandarin and they could help us understand what each of the local food items are made of.
Serge on the other side was a bartender based in UK and had left his job to explore the world for 6 months. He told me that he had basically used all of his savings from the bartending job to travel the world. I was so inspired by him; little did I know that I would end up travelling a lot in coming years.
First thing that pops out from taiwanese street food is the Tofu. You will notice multiple varieties of tofu being cooked and served to locals. There was a famous variety that I tried here known as 'Stinky Tofu'. Basically, it stinks a lot but tastes better once you take a bite. It is quite popular amongst locals. here below you can see a type of tofu immersed in a oily broth and you get to choose the two flavour to mix with it. A spicier one with lots of red chillies and the usual one with normal seasoning (though this one also looks piping red hot).
We saw a cook at another stall who was about to fry tofu. Look how delicious the tofu looks!
Jiufen had tinniest of lanes to walk through and cross to the other side. This town had something to offer for everyone. For the coffee loves, there was a stall we found that was selling the slow dripping coffee! Yes, it had an authentic cafe too.
Taiwanese street food includes lots of frying. Literally, you can fry anything and it still tastes better. We came across a stall that was selling only fried food. All types of sea food and few veggies simply fried and served hot on the display.
Some stalls were selling the steamed dumplings too. These kinds of dumpling you would notice in nearby Asian countries too including Hong Kong, China and others. I personally like pan-fried dumplings more than steamed but there is a good loyal customer base for the steamed ones.
Another famous local delicacy is Taro balls that's served with a gravy. Locals and travellers enjoy it a lot while eating at the street stalls.
Another food that's consistent across Asian dishes, especially in Taiwan is the pork! You would see plenty of dishes being served made of pork in the town.
We also had some soupy noodles and thousand years old eggs along with plain tofu.
Now lets talk about some of the deserts that we tried and I had it for the first time anywhere. I had never seen such deserts before. While walking around, we found a stall that was selling a version of pancake sandwich that's filled with a red bean paste. Sound delicious right? it was tasting even better. Food stall vendor was basically pouring in the batter slowly into round shaped grills and then adding a red bean paste in between before closing both the lids. In the end, you get a round shaped fluffy and thick pancake like you can see below;
Look how amazing the shape of these pancakes is;
Another version of a desert made from pancakes we tried was an ice cream sandwich. Basically the vendor put the ice cream inside two smaller pancakes and handed over to us. I must say that was the best sandwich I ever had in my life!
One more sweet desert we had was made of peanut butter, ice cream and rice rolls. It had these three ingredients put together in a shape of wrap and was simply mouth-watering.
That covers all the food that we had in Jiufen town. Hope you liked the post and got some idea about what to expect while eating in this small town. Do go with an empty stomach, otherwise you will regret not having enough space in belly to try more food items! Do share you comments as well and any of you own experiences while eating in Jiufen. Happy travelling!
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