4 Days in Taipei, Taiwan

We spent the last leg of our Asia trip exploring Ray's motherland, Taiwan.  The little island country is known for its street food and small eats, like xiao long bao "XLB" (soup dumplings) and beef noodle soup. Food is typically available at all hours of the day and relatively inexpensive. Although fine dining can be found in most large cities, Taiwan's food culture is best characterized as "comfort food". We only had 4 days to spend in Taipei and barely skimmed the surface of all the yummy Taiwanese food available.

Taipei 101 & Ding Tai Fung

We stayed at the Home Hotel, conveniently located next to Taipei 101. At one time, Taipei 101 was considered the highest skyscraper in the world. Now it's better known as a great place place to grab some XLBs at the world famous Ding Tai Fong. While DTF is already quite popular in America, the ones in Asia are even more special - they have Michelin stars. There are some special items on the menu that you can't find in the US, including the Truffle and Pork XLB made with imported Italian truffles. While not our favorite on the menu (the truffle flavors gets lost in the soy sauce + vinegar dipping sauce), this truffled version is definitely worth a try (preferably sans dipping sauce). Ray loved the beef noodle soup here and swears that it tastes better than the ones in California.
 

Raohe Night Market
One of my favorite things to do in any Asian country is to explore the night markets. These markets are nighttime street markets with rows of stalls selling things like small local eats, clothing, and the ever-so-popular cell phone cases. While Taiwan may be the home of the most well known night markets in the world, they have been popping up all over  North America and Canada within the last couple of years. Vancouver has two night markets that run during the warm summer months. We visited both during a recent trip and had a good time with our friends. For those living in Southern California, the 626 Night Market just finished its third iteration, hoping to re-create the night market experience in the San Gabriel Valley. 
 

In Taipei, some of the more popular night markets include the Shilin Night Market and Raohe Street Night Market, which we went to. The market is situated in the Songshan District, running from Fuyuan Street to Ciyou Temple. It was here that I had the most  delicious meat-filled bread baked in a barrel-shaped oven. Long thongs are used to extract the buns from the sides of the barrel. 


 How the buns manage to stick to the sides of the barrel without falling is beyond me but the end result is a soft and fluffy bun with a crispy bottom, similar to the pan-fried buns served here in dim sum restaurants. But the whole barrel oven thing makes this bun infinitely cooler than the ones cooked over a pan. The perfectly seasoned ground beef and green onion filling made the bun even more delicious - I would go back to Taiwan just for these!
  
The rest of our time was spent with family so there was little opportunity to explore all the yummy food. We will definitely be making our way back to Taiwan soon!