Taipei, Day 2 - Shilin Night Market

As the afternoon rain drenched the city in a hot sticky mess, I was happily taking a nap in my cute little room. I woke up refreshed, and the rain eventually tapered off to a small drizzle, just in time for my evening... erm... late afternoon activity: the famous Shilin Night Market (士林夜市). It's the most famous and largest night market in Taipei, filled with food vendors and knickknacks for sale. I'm ready to eat some more!

I'm still too stuffed to creatively assemble sentences together, so I'll just let the pictures tell the tale.

The view from Jiantan station (劍潭站)>. Hills!

Still drizzling rain. I got to the market very early (about
5pm), so it was not crowded at all. Some of the
vendors were still setting up for the night.

A vendor selling black pepper buns (胡椒餅). Each bun
is stuck inside the walls of each cooking drum, which
makes the outside crispy. Here he is carefully taking
out the buns one by one.

My own black pepper bun! The outside is slightly crunchy and the dough
is chewy... a delightful texture!

The insides of the bun, stuffed with moist chunks of pork and green
onions. This was delicious!

There are various low-tech games set up all along the market.

The latest in Taiwanese fashion!

A vendor selling oyster omelettes (蚵仔煎)

The smell of stinky tofu was EVERYWHERE.

Fried crab

<>大腸包小腸, or literally 'small sausage wrapped in big sausage'.
The 'big sausage' is actually made with sticky rice. It's grilled, cut in
half, then stuffed with a regular meat sausage.

What is this Taiwanese obsession with wrapping
food in itself? This one is literally 'small bun wrapped
in big bun'.

The vendor takes a thin pancake (kind of like a crepe), and puts one of
these fried pucks inside. It's then topped with your choice of topping
(can be savory or sweet). He then bangs the whole thing with a hammer,
smashing the fried puck, then wraps up the crepe.

I don't know if I love this. It's not particularly flavorful (I got sesame
flavor), but the textural contrast between the soft crepe and crunchy
smashed puck is interesting.

This still sells all sorts of seafood

My $1 cup of mango green tea. Yummmmmm.

Interesting sleep masks for sale

So many claw machine games, all filled with cute
figurines

Another vendor cooking oyster omelettes, I think

My own oyster omelette. I don't know why, but I've never had this
dish in New York. It's interesting; a sticky batter mixed with oysters
is fried up with an egg, and topped with a brown-ish gravy. The result
is texturally challenging: soft and slimy. I didn't love the omelette
itself, but the barely cooked oysters were juicy and delicious.

Walking around the market, I easily saw at least three different shaved ice places. I briefly considered a third paobing for the day.... but my groaning stomach begged for mercy. No more!! (At least for today)