TAIWANESE BREAKFAST STREET FOOD in Kaohsiung, Taiwan!! Guide to BEST Local Food in Taiwan 2019

Welcome to another episode of Chopstick Travel. I'm Luke Martin and today we are in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. We have an exciting episode for you. Kaohsiung is a city we keep coming back to because there is so much delicious food. Kaohsiung is kind of like Taipei's little cousin with a southern flair to its cuisine. Lots of snacking to be done here in the city and we are going to be taking you for a full day of eating from morning to night, all kinds of delicious authentic Taiwanese street foods. We are hungry, let's go get breakfast. So our first stop of the day for breakfast is behind me here. This place is extremely popular here in Kaohsiung. It's called Xing Long Ju and they serve all kinds of traditional Taiwanese breakfast items. Opens at 4am and closes at 11am. So exclusively for breakfast, we are going to go inside and order up a couple different things. We have our breakfast and are sitting down now. This place is an institution here in Kaohsiung. It's sort of cafeteria style, so you grab a tray and you walk down the line picking up all the different various Taiwanese breakfast items. So we have two of their most famous dishes. The first one we have over here is the You Tiao Xiaobing. So it's this baked Xiaobing bread on the outside with tons of sesame seeds. You can see it is super flaky, it's kind of breaking apart. And then inside is You Tiao, which is the fried Chinese cruller. We also ordered ours with a little omelette down here. So this is like a carb overload. Over here we have the baozi, classic steamed pork buns. I believe these ones are pork, probably with some greens, maybe mustard greens inside. And then we also have a milk tea. Let's start with the You Tiao Xiaobing. Very awkward to eat. Big sandwich. Pretty good. It's very different than typical breakfast in the West. It is a carb overload, like I said. Lots of bready textures. It's not my favorite breakfast dish, but it is very Taiwanese, and it'll definitely fill you up if you're looking for a quick breakfast. These baozi are just so soft and warm. I just love the feeling of this texture, and I can tell that it is going to be quite juicy inside. Oh my goodness. Instantly it's kind of crunchy because of those veggies inside, but just look. So much juice. That is amazing. So, so soft. I love that. That was a pretty good breakfast. Really easy introduction into Taiwanese breakfast. Authentic, and like I said, you can just order cafeteria style. So very easy and very cool setting. But that wasn't enough for breakfast, we went light, so we're going to head to another spot to get one more thing for breakfast. So we have come to a market here in Kaohsiung, but you can see it is completely closed down. None of the vendors are open, but there's a little shop selling mantou inside of this market. So we're going to go over and finish off our breakfast. So we just visited the mantou shop. It is right, as I said, inside this market. It's a very quiet shop. They're also making noodles, fresh noodles, and then they're drying them, packaging them up for sale. And unfortunately they didn't have the brown sugar heitang mantou. They were making it, but it's not done steaming. So instead we've got two different kinds here. The first is white sugar. So you can see they've marked it with a red dot on top. So we know this one has sugar in it. It is not stuffed with anything. It's very simple. It's pretty much the simplest form of breakfast here in Taiwan. Over here we have a non-sugar version, and I'm actually not exactly sure what is on top here. It looks like maybe some crushed sesame seeds, but I don't know exactly. So I'm going to have to try it to find out. But let me rip this one open so we can see inside and you can see that beautiful steamed bread texture. Oh yeah, look at that. That same texture that we had with our baozi at the breakfast shop. So let me try this out just plain. It's good. It's almost like a white roll. It's really flavorless, but the texture is really fluffy, a little bit bouncy, and light. So this mantou here, this is kind of the mystery mantou. We're not exactly sure what it is, but the texture is super thick. This is a very, very hearty snack, and it will definitely fill you up like Luke said. So I'm going to take a taste test, try to figure out what it is. I'm not really sure, but it looks good. Oh wow, that's so thick. Actually, I don't think this is any flavor. This is actually whole wheat, I think. It just has a whole wheat flavor. Very tasty. Very simple, very plain, but a nice little snack to have in the morning if you're hungry. But let's go get something else with a little bit more flavor now. We are sitting down now having a proper meal. We are at a place called A Cai Chicken Silk Noodles. So they're serving chicken noodle, which I find in the West is quite common. I remember eating it a lot as a kid, chicken noodle soup, so it's a little bit different here though. So let me introduce. We've got the soup version here, which is served with these really thin looking noodles, a little bit of lettuce, and it looks like some fried shallots on top too, and you can see the shredded chicken, and it smells really strong of chicken. I see some green onions floating around in there as well. Over here, we have the exact same dish, except this is the dry version. So without the soup, you want to mix this up a little bit, and there's some sauce in there to help stick those noodles together and give it flavor, and this looks really good. Let me first start by trying the soup. Oh wow, very chicken-y flavor. I've got to try some of these noodles because that's what we're really here for. Let me try these dry noodles first, and lots of little bits of chicken. Nice texture. Very chewy noodle, thin in size, but firm feel to it, so it doesn't fall apart in your mouth like some thin noodles might. I actually really like the soup though. I'm going to try the noodles with the soup version because that soup is super flavorful, and I'm going to get that nice piece of chicken here. It's not necessarily that special of a dish. It's kind of like an instant noodles, like an instant ramen, but the flavor of the broth is really what makes this different and unique, and also those chicken bits in there are really good. This is quite good. I definitely like the soup version better. It's easier to slurp up the noodles. So I'm going to spice things up a little bit. I have two sauces on the table, a sweet-looking sauce and a spicy-looking sauce, and I'm just going to go ahead and dip the noodles in all of it. That actually adds a lot of flavor to it, and that red sauce is very, very spicy, so if you like spicy, I recommend that. We're finished up with our noodles. Those are really good. This place serves quite a few different types. We just ordered the two most basic types, but they have all of the different ingredients that you can include in your noodle bowl, braised organs, some braised eggs, all different kinds of things. I think I saw some seafood up there, even. So that was really good. It is so hot here in Kaohsiung. We definitely need to cool off, so I think we're going to go get a dessert before we wait until the evening when we'll pick back up with you guys. What we are having for dessert today is called douhua, which is a very typical traditional Taiwanese dessert. It is a soft tofu pudding. The place we got it here behind me is making this all handmade, so it's really, really high-quality stuff. And you can see we ordered up a twist on the traditional douhua. So traditionally, this is the douhua right here, the very soft tofu pudding, and traditionally it would be served with these peanuts, which are either steamed or boiled. So after years, it would have been that boba was introduced. This is not a very traditional dish here in Taiwan, but this is something more new. And then one thing that I definitely haven't seen at any douhua shop is this, which is calamansi, which isn't even a very common ingredient here in Taiwan at all. And I have no idea what this is going to taste like, so I'm going to squeeze it, make sure I don't get the seeds, and squeeze that calamansi juice, which is sort of like a cross between an orange and a lime. So this should be interesting. I can't really imagine what this is going to taste like, and I'll just get rid of those seeds, and let me go in for a bite with some of the peanuts, some of those tapioca pearls, the boba, and definitely some of that tofu. Wow, that is unique. I don't know what I really think about that. It is very different than anything I've tasted before, because douhua is typically quite sweet. The douhua texture is so silky smooth, so, so velvety, almost creamy. The boba, of course, chewy and QQ, which is sort of bouncy. The peanuts are soft, but they definitely got a harder texture than the tofu. But then with the flavor of that calamansi, it's unlike anything I've ever had before. I'm actually going to squeeze a little bit more. It's good, but it's different. It's not what I'm used to, because typically, when I eat douhua here in Taiwan, I just get the peanut, and it's very sweet. And this is salty, sweet, all kinds of different textures going on. And that calamansi really is the unique key ingredient, which makes this place very cool. It is my turn to try the douhua, and I can say that it smells very interesting. And I have a little bite of just the douhua by itself. I'm going to give it a try. Oh, wow. That is silky smooth. It just crumbles in your mouth. And this is all handmade here, so I think that's why it is so soft. You can't buy this in a store. It's incredible. And really cold. Sabrina just said that this is what? The best douhua I've ever had in the whole country. That was amazing. The calamansi, perfect touch. Wow. Yeah. That's a big statement. Because there is some good douhua. Yeah. I challenge you to tell me what is better. Let us know down in the comment box, what's your favorite douhua? Awesome. That was delicious. Really good way to cool down. Cool dessert. Really unique. Sabrina loved it. I liked it a lot, but not my favorite. I like it more sweet, but the sourness was really unique. You should definitely try this out if you're ever in Kaohsiung. So I think we're going to take a little bit of a break, wait until the nighttime, wait until the sun goes down and the temperature drops a little bit, head back out into the city, check out some things, and take you guys for some more food. It is evening now in Kaohsiung and we have come all the way out to the Shoushan Love Lookout. It is beautiful here and it is a great place to come out and see the entire city of Kaohsiung. So we're just checking it out. We're walking around a little bit. So I definitely recommend coming out here if you have a clear, beautiful day here in Kaohsiung. So the Shoushan Love Lookout is up a set of stairs, quite a big set of stairs, but it's definitely a rewarding view. Nice and quiet up here. Not very many people at night whatsoever. And the views of the city are absolutely gorgeous. Lots of picture opportunities with the love sign as well. So we're going to head down the hill to the Love River next to check that out. We have come to the Love River here in Kaohsiung, a river that cuts right through the center of the city, all kinds of walking paths, all kinds of parks. And at nighttime, the bridges actually light up different colors. So we are at the Kaohsiung Bridge, just taking in the views of the river. All the different colors reflecting off the water is quite beautiful. Very nice place to take a walk, very peaceful and nice place to cool down at nighttime. If you want to come check out the Love River here in Kaohsiung, you can actually take the LRT, the light rail transit, which is a unique feature of Kaohsiung. You can take it to the Love Pier station and then you can check out where we are now, which is the Kaohsiung Bridge area. If you want to walk though, it's also very cool to just come and watch the trains go by. Very picturesque. And actually, there's some fireworks going off in the background. So we're going to take a walk down the street and just check out the river. Finished off with our walk along the Love River. Very beautiful, definitely a nice place to cool down at nighttime after a long day of exploring Kaohsiung. Lots of beautiful sights of the city along the Love River. And actually, the last restaurant we want to stop at today is right along the river too. So we're going to go in and try it out. We are sitting down for our final snack of the day here in Kaohsiung. We're right on the side of the street and having a very authentic traditional Taiwanese dish called Tongzai Mee Gow. So you can see it here. And actually what Tongzai means is tube and Mee Gow means rice cake. So they steam the rice in the tube and then at the bottom of the tube, they have all of the meat. This place has been around since 1956, it's called Beigang Tongzai Mee Gow. And they're famous for having one of the best Tongzai Mee Gows in Taiwan. And you can see there's big chunks of meat on top here, which is definitely unique because a lot of times it's just minced meat. So let me go in and I'm going to get all of that rice, that sauce and some of that meat on top. Mmm. Wow. That is good. Very traditional Taiwanese flavors. A little bit of an anise flavor, definitely some five spice. Very tender meat. The rice is glutinous, so a little bit sticky. But then it's contrasted with the really liquidy, melt-in-your-mouth pork that's on top. And we've also got some pickled ginger on the side here, which is a nice compliment for this little bit of sweet pork and rice. Let's try a little bit together. Mmm. Almost a little bit sour and a little bit spicy with that ginger. Traditional and delicious. Whenever I come to a restaurant, I'm always on the lookout for some sauces and there is one here. It looks like, I don't know, maybe a spicy sauce, maybe a fermented bean paste sauce. I'm going to put it right on top of my rice, which I've already kind of mashed up. But then I realized that there was a sauce, so I'm just going to drizzle that all over. It looks good. It's actually a little bit vinegary, a little sour and a little sweet as well. Not really what I was expecting, but it's really good. All right, that's it for today's episode. What an incredible day of eating here in Kaohsiung. We keep finding ourselves back in the city because the food is just so good. Very traditional, authentic, southern Taiwanese fare here in Kaohsiung. Make sure on your next trip to Taiwan to try to make it down here to explore a different side of Taiwan. You can visit the restaurants we visited in today's episode. You can find the information for them down in the description box. Make sure if you haven't already, subscribe and leave us a comment down below what you thought looked the most delicious. And we'll see you again from Taiwan soon. Bye-bye.