We spent the night roaming the streets of Ximending, a short 5minute walk away from our hotel.
I had expected a night market atmosphere, similar to the Raohe night market we went to yesterday but it wasn’t quite so.
Ximending has a vibe, similar to the back alley shopping areas of Shibuya and Shinjuku of Tokyo, except a little less quirky, and dotted with sporadic stalls of street food that seemed intent on migrating every hour or so to a different location. I suppose to go where the crowd was.
One of the entrances to Ximending.
Streets of Ximending.
I suppose it wasn’t very crowded, being a Monday night and all.
No Shinjuku/Shibuya is complete without the ubiquitous ABC mart, or ten, that dots every street corner in Tokyo. So of course they had one in Ximending.
Taiwanese sausages. They have the texture of regular sausages, and taste like lap cheong.
The grill burns the outside of the sausages slightly, leaving a nice crunchy, just lightly caramelised coating that gives way to a sweet and juicy centre when you bite into it.
Fried potatoes. Apparently famous, and there were long queues at their other outlet in Shihlin. Or so the guy at counter told us.
It starts from mashed potato balls, which are then coated with bread crumbs and deep fried to give it a crispy shell.
After frying the potato, they cut it in half and put on every imaginable topping. Chopped broccoli, bacon, ham, chicken, pineapple, hard boiled egg, corn and sour cream.
All of it is then drowned in a sea of artificial cheese sauce that tastes better than it looks.
The end result. Unlike the Taiwanese, we haven’t yet mastered the art of eating and walking so we stood in a corner and took turns with the single spoon we had. It was chockfull of gooey cheesey goodness. Yummy!
We decided to try this restaurant, seeing how there wasn’t too much street food to pick from. Helmed by a father and son team since 1946 it said.
It was an odd setting. A Chinese eatery, the kind you’d find in Hong Kong serving Chinese and Japanese food.
Chinese tea and very Chinese plates.
I guess you shouldn’t expect a lot by way of service in such joints. The waitress looked surprised when Boo asked for some ice after she plonked down his can of Coke and a straw. She came back with a cup of ice, a tiny one.
I haven’t quite mastered the art of ordering sashimi in Mandarin because I don’t know what the fishes are called. I ordered this thinking it was salmon belly, turned out to be hamachi. It was really good. The slices were big and thick, and the fish was really fresh.
Boo looked around confused, after the waitress our plate of hamachi down. “Where’s the sauce”, he asked. “Right there!”, I pointed at the unassuming bottle. “But that’s not even real soy sauce!”, he said. I gave him a look. “I’m sure it’ll do”, I said, filling his sauce plate. And it tasted just fine.
Uni and ikura handroll. The Taiwanese like putting random things in their handroll, and this was no exception. Aside from shredded lettuce, I discovered fried bonito bits and sesame seeds when I bit into it. Quite a pleasant sweet surprise. Both the uni and the ikura were really fresh. The uni was creamy, and the ikura just slightly sticky and salty.
Ikura and sticky yam. I ordered this thinking it was ika. See, haven’t figured out Japanese names in Mandarin.
Steamed clams.
Fresh and juicy. I’m not sure what type of clams these were, but they tasted like abalone – as in flavour, not texture. They do have awesome clams in Taiwan. I read somewhere it’s because of the spring water quality on the outskirts where these clams come from that make it so fresh and yummy.
You can’t go to Taipei, land of bubble tea and not have bubble tea. Boo said this was famous so we ordered a honey green tea to try.
The mascot of Ah Mao risotto is a dog, so lying outside the shop is who I can only imagine to be Ah Mao. He was such a tame sweetheart. Or maybe just pooped after a long day of work.
Came across a fruit cart and decided to get some strawberries because the ones we had bought the night before in Raohe were really sweet. It was a lot more expensive than Raohe though. Actually, everything in Ximending was generally more expensive than Raohe, especially the shopping. We also got a bag of rose apples. They weren’t cut, so we asked if she could, whilst we were paying. She nodded at us as if we were idiots and proceeded to hack at the plastic bag of rose apples in her hand, with a knife. It looked more like she was smashing them. A few more random hacks and she put it into a bag along with the strawberries.
We were stuffed when we stumbled upon Ah Zong mian xian, but bought a bowl back to try because we’ve heard it’s really really good.
A bowl of Ah Zong mian xian. “So damn good”, according to Boo.
will travel for food and love 