14 BEST Taiwan Night Market Foods You Need to Try!

Hey, what's up guys? I'm at a second night market. This is called Lin Jiang Night Market. This video is going to be totally about whatever I see that looks good, I'm going to try it. If it looks good, it's going to make it into this video, I'm going to tell you guys about it. Grilled sugarcane. I've had sugarcane before, just like sucking on it. This is good, I've never seen that before. Grilled sugarcane juice. Oh, I like that. Ah, that's nice. Here we go, get a big piece of garlic in there. Oh, it's good. This guy was selling me on the chicken head, it's got to be really good, right? It's good. You got to get the garlic in there. Can't go kissing people after eating this. This guy is Wu Lai Ah Zhong. Is that your name? Wu Lai Ah Zhong? He grabs his own pigs, own wild boars. He like hunts them. This guy's awesome. And this is his signature boar skewer. Oh my god. Alright, wild boar. That's nice. I like the sauce. Spicy. This is really crazy. You can eat the snake here and it's not like the snake is sitting in some container all cut up. They're live in cages. That's creepy to me. These are sweet potato balls. They're basically sweet potato puffs. They're kind of like overgrown corn puffs and they deep fry it. You can see here, this guy is really using a lot of effort to fry these things. And they come out nice and fluffy and airy. And then you can get them sprinkled with different kinds of flavor. I got mine with mason, which is a berry flavor. The more you chew, the more flavor it releases. It gets sweeter as you chew. Like I said, it looks like an overgrown corn puff. Definitely put that on your Taiwan night market list. I've seen a lot of places like this at different night markets. And they sell like these crazy little cuts of steak. And they flavor it with like cumin or different kinds of salt. And typically that's not something you would really think about when you think about Taiwanese night market is steak. Oh my god. It's pretty good. And I'm not saying they're using the top quality meats or anything. But I'll tell you what. This is pretty flavorful. But it's darn good. There's a good balance of fat and lean meat here. And they season this really, really well. These would look like little alien pods of things. These are what's called liang yuan. And the full name is liang sha yuan. And these are little pods of green bean, red bean, and taro. And they're covered inside what the guy told me was sweet potato flour. And this is really cool. I mean, take a look at it. Kind of looks like a little alien pod. And if you're not careful, they spawn little aliens and jump at your face. And don't put this whole thing in your mouth if you do get this. Because there's a little layer of paper on the bottom. Oh my god. It's cold. It's crazy. It's good. It's really cold. It's surprisingly cold. And it kind of tastes like a little layer of mochi. Like really cold mochi. With mashed taro on the inside. The outside is lightly sweet, which kind of really balances out the inside really well. It really does taste like a cold, slimy mochi. Let's try a red bean one. And this time, I'm prepared for the cold. No I'm not. That's too cold. That is really slimy. It's much thinner than a mochi. It's kind of like a mix between a mochi and a jelly. You know what it kind of tastes like? You know Slimer from Ghostbusters? This is going to the best things I've found in a night market video. But of course, this is not food. This is just pure adorableness. Oh my god. Adorableness overload. Besides the cute little mice, or hamster, whatever they are. Bunnies. Look at that. Cute little hedgehog. Hey hedgehog. Hey guy. Cute little hedgehog. My quest for awesome night market food in Taiwan has brought me over to the Ningxia Night Market. I'm here with a couple of my friends, Feng Wei and Feng Yi. And they're going to show me what's really good at this night market. With every single night market, as you're walking, you get this whiff of what can only be described as a bathroom. And of course, that's your stinky tofu. So there's a lot of stinky tofu stands here. And the smell is pungent. Right now, we're going to go try a night market staple. The Luo Hua Jian, or oyster pancakes. And that's supposed to be really good. So this place that they took me to is supposed to be one of the best in this night market. We're going to go try it out. This is our finished oyster pancake. Look at that. Nice sauce on top. What is this sauce? Tastes a little peppery. What kind of sauce is that? Oh. Sweet and sour. This one? Yeah. Some sweet and sour sauce. A little bit of a kick, not too much. It's good. It's better than the one I had at the Shili Night Market. This is really good. There's a lot of cornstarch in here to kind of make it really gooey. So it's a little bit slimy. It's not like a typical scallion pancake where it's kind of crispy. It's a little slimy. But this is pretty good. You guys like it? Yeah? We're walking past this roast pork stand. And they sell something called Matsusaka pork. And they cut it into these really thin little slices. And it smells fantastic. We had to stop and get some. It's so thin and nice. It's kind of like a char siu. Oh, that's nice. It's very charred. A little crispy. Yeah. Nice balance of fat and meat. Very nicely seasoned. That's good. You like it? Oh, man. Again, it's called the Matsusaka pork. And as my friend, Fa Wei, said, nice texture going into your mouth. Makes your mouth happy. Has a happy mouth. That's good. That's what you want. You want the food to make your mouth happy. You guys are wandering around the night market. And you see something like this. Make sure you get it. This is a, in Chinese, it's called Bao Jiang Yu. And it's basically a donut with a salty egg in the inside. Check it out. It just oozes out when you open it up. It's burning hot. So you got to be careful eating this. This is kind of like a Liu Sha Bao. You know, one of those steamed buns with the egg yolk on the inside. But this is the fried version. The donut-y version. The better version. That's not cheese, people. That's a salty egg yolk. So good. Yeah. It's basically a donut on the outside. And salty sweet egg yolk-y stuff on the inside. Delicious golden yolk-y lava right there. And it's like raining right now. So it's kind of raining on my egg yolk. So I'm eating egg yolk and rainwater. This is my friend, Wendy. She's taking me here. Apparently, she's going to show me some good places. But she just told me she thinks everything is good. So, I don't know. Now, you guys see behind us, there's that massive temple. Now, Wendy's told me there's a reason for that. It's because back in the day when Taiwanese night markets started, it all started around temples. Because people would go to temples. And when they would come out, they'd be hungry. They want things to eat. So then these vendors start setting up to kind of provide these guys food. And that's basically how night markets kind of started. And if you go to night markets in Taiwan, a lot of them would be around big temples, right? So yesterday, after I left my hotel, I walked around, I was starving. And I saw this thing called And I got one. I didn't know what it was. So it kind of looks like this sesame bun, although it's kind of shaped like a mantou. And I got one. I bit into it. It was really unassuming. I bit into it. And then I was in pancake heaven. On the inside was onions and meats. And it was so juicy and delicious. It's so peppery. I didn't know that was like a really famous night market item here at Yao Club. Yeah. Winnie took me to this place. It's supposed to be one of the most famous place to get hu jiao bean in Taiwan. It's like 4 in the afternoon. The night market really hasn't started yet. And look at the line for this place. Winnie, I got one for you. Okay, thank you. And I got three for me. So take a look. These look like regular buns with some sesame on top. If you smell it, oh, it's delicious. It smells so good. Yes. They bake this fresh. And what I could tell was makeshift iron ovens. They shove it full of meats and scallions. I mean, full of scallions. They really put a lot of scallions into this. You know how I know it's good? I didn't even bite into the meat part yet. And it's already good. And the juice from the meat has already seeped into the bun. It's already delicious without even biting into the meat. Oh my god. It's so good. This has got to be one of my favorite night market items ever. So you bite into it. It's crunchy on the outside. It's moist on the inside. Obviously, because the pork gives off so much juice. I can tell why they call it hu jiao bing. Because you get a nice hit of hu jiao flavoring in this. Like nice peppery flavor into this. Another favorite of mine at this night market is yaodun paigu. Which translates to medicine stewed ribs. These are pork ribs. And they're stewed in this medicine-y, herby soup thing for a long time. I don't even know exactly what's in this. All I know is that if you smell it, it smells very Chinese medicine-y. If you taste it, it's a little sweet. And the ribs... Wow. Super tender. Full of flavor. I'll tell you what. With all the herbs they put in here, this is definitely good for you. I'm back at the Shilin Night Market. Because I wanted to get more of those sausages I had the other night. There it is. This is what I'm here for. One of my favorite food items at this night market. If you guys come to Shilin Night Market, you gotta come see this auntie. And you gotta try one of these sausages. And these big ones here, they are by far the best. I have not seen another night market where they serve something as good as this. I've been thinking about this for the last couple days. This is by far the best sausage I've ever had in my life. Never had it so good in my life. If you're a fan of Chinese sausages, this is like 20 times tastier. It's better than any hot dog you'll ever have. It's better than any bratwurst, whatever. Forget all that. Come here and get this sausage. I'm not even kidding. Fly to Taiwan tomorrow and get this sausage. You're gonna thank me. And you gotta eat it with some raw garlic. Best night market food item ever. Here's something else you might see at night markets around Taiwan. It's called Da Chang Bao Xiao Chang. Big sausage wrapped around a smaller sausage. It's basically a Taiwanese hot dog. And what's kind of misleading is that white thing. Initially I thought that was a sausage. It's not. It's like a rice bun. So basically, this is a rice hot dog. And on the inside there's some preserved vegetables, some cucumbers, and some sauce. Yeah, this is it. This is a Taiwanese hot dog. Absolutely nothing wrong with this. This whole thing is sweet, smoky, garlicky, and delicious. So if you're a hot dog fan, definitely try one of these things out. I'll tell you this right now. A rice bun, much better than one of those typical buns that does nothing and then falls apart. This thing is fragrant. It has so unique flavor. Definitely adds a lot to the sausage. I mean, I wish like hot dogs in the US would have like rice buns. Let's put this awesome sausage on top of another sausage with a piece of raw garlic. That's how we're going to do it today. Sausage upon a sausage upon a rice bun shaped like a sausage. With preserved vegetables and garlic inside. Yeah, you can't get any more Asian than that. After a nice meal, you want something good to drink. Stop by one of these booths. They sell natural sugar cane juice, cold, and it's delicious. I had to stop by the fried milk place again because I feel like my arteries are a little too healthy. I want to clog them up a little bit. It's essentially a fried milk donut. And it's delicious. So bad, but so good. Those are some of my favorite food items at Taiwanese night markets. This video could be two hours because I could just keep on eating and eating and eating. And I would because everything is so delicious. This has definitely been such an awesome experience. I've been wanting to do this forever. I've been wanting to go to Taiwanese night markets for the longest time. I'm glad I met with a lot of local friends who were able to show me around a lot of these places. Show me a lot of the food that they like. You can't just come to Taipei and yelp everything and expect to find the best food places. You really need to have locals show you around. And I was lucky enough to have that. So thanks to all my friends who showed me around and took me to all your favorite food places. You guys were so awesome. And thank you all so much for watching. I'll definitely be back soon. If you want to check out what other things I did in Taiwan, definitely check out my vlog channel. That info is in the description box. Thanks again, guys.