If there’s one thing I’d like to experience again in Taiwan, it would be the food trip that we had. There are lots of night markets and restaurants to eat from but there was so little time. We only had 5 full days and it wasn’t enough, mind you. We were only able to visit two night markets (Shilin and Ximending) hence we did our best to try every street food as much as possible.
The hotel we’re staying is just behind the Ximending area which was actually a food and shopping haven. Every night, after our tiring excursion, we binged on all the milk tea and Hotstar chicken and chips from 7Eleven. We won’t stop until we’re full. On our fourth night, we purchased as much as we could and ate at our hotel.
Eating in a restaurant is a bit expensive but the price goes down when it’s shared (sometimes that’s not the case tho). If you’re in a group, you would most likely shell out 300 or 400 Php per person. We made sure to splurge on one meal a day (typically lunch). Breakfast is free at the hotel (but it’s so-so) and dinner = of course, Night market just because!
INSTAGRAMMABLE PLACES IN TAIWAN
Here are the restaurants that we visited and most of them are really good! If you happen to go to Taiwan, you can visit any of these!
1. Hang Zhou Xiao Long Bao – Value for money!
This was recommended by Jed’s friend who went to Taiwan before. It’s a 15-20 minute walk from Chiang Kai-Shek memorial. It’s one of the best lunch and dinner we had (we came back and had dinner on our last night). Yes, it’s that good.
Mochi red bean bun
Steamed vegetables and pork dumpling
Xiao Long Bao (of course)
Red bean pancake (one of our favorites)
Mixed veggie and meat pot stickers. (Must-eat!)
Share per person 400-450 Php
No. 19, Section 2,
Hangzhou South Road,
Da’an District, Taipei City,
Taiwan 106
2 Modern Toilet Cafe – How Tourist-y can we get? LOL You have to at least order at least one if you’re going upstairs to be able to take photos. Yep. It’s printed on there menu. The place is nice and you can take lots of photos; sitting on the toilet bowl, before eating from your toilet bowl plate and even eating a poo-shaped ice cream. Of all the meals we ordered, we were surprised with Michelle’s choice, Thai Tom Yum Hotpot. It was so good and so perfect for the weather at that time (it was raining and it’s so cold, about 9 degrees Celsius). Serving is good enough for one.
Thai Tom Yum Hotpot (must-eat)
Mushroom and veggie stir-fried cream sauce Au Gratin (I ordered this one and it’s so bland. Such a waste)
Seafood spaghetti with cream sauce
Curry Porkchop
Check their menu here
108, Taiwan, Taipei City,
Wanhua District, Lane 50,
Xining South Road, 7號
3 Hong Bin Restaurant near Yehliu Geopark
Yehliu Geopark is near the port so expect most of the restaurants outside the park offers seafood meals. To be honest, I can’t remember the name of the place because we’re so hungry, when the waitress told us they have an English menu, we decided to just eat there.
(I just googled the place that’s why I found the name)
The food isn’t that exceptional but I loved the Cattlefish with the egg fried rice.
Cattlefish
Egg Fried Rice
Steamed Shrimp
Soup with clams
More about it here
Hong Bin Restaurant
No. 159, Gangdong Road,
Wanli District,
Xinbei, Taiwan
4 Jin Yuan Pork chop (Pai Gu Fan)
This one comes next after Hang Zhou. If you love some authentic Taiwanese pork chop rice at a very affordable price, then you do not want to miss this one. The order form is in Chinese characters so we just pointed to the person managing the place what we want to eat.
We were supposed to have this on our fourth night for dinner but we went around and haven’t found it. It’s crazy. We kept on walking around Ximending but failed haha.
I think we passed by it before but because the restaurant is in Chinese we weren’t able to. It’s near Modern Toilet Cafe. We managed to find it on our last day (Thanks to Google! The wonders of modern tech).
The place gets crowded by lunchtime so it’s best to go there before noon. We were lucky to find a seat and we did not wait that long. The pork chop is seasoned well and tender. If I am not wrong, one meal costs 200-250 Php?. Fair enough.
The place is small and gets really crowded by lunch so better be early.
Porkchop rice with veggies.
No. 70, Xining S. Rd.,
Wanhua Dist
Ximending, Taipei, Taiwan
1 McDo Red Bean pie – Make it a point to grab a bite at McDonald’s and try things that aren’t available in our country ie. this red bean pie is the BOMB!
2 Pineapple cakes at Sunny Hills – A box is worth 500-550 Php at that time. Might go over budget? Try other brands from Pasalubong stores around Ximending for 100 or 110 NTD only.
3 Hotstar – I think we ordered here twice in two days. The best seller is as big as a size of your head. Yep. We didn’t eat rice. It’s enough and some milk tea. LOL You can find branches almost anywhere from what I read especially night markets.
4 Milk tea! – Coco Cafe had the best milk tea we had. This one’s okay too.
5 Stinky Tofu – It smells disgusting and a few bites won’t hurt, IMO. not that bad tho BUT it leaves an after taste in your mouth so… You guys should try it for fun tho.
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