Shida Night Market Eats

Getting to Shida Night Market requires a fair amount of walking needed from Taipower Building Station. Famously patronised by Cat B taiwanese actresses (won't name who but if you follow 女人我最大, you'd know who exactly!) for accessories and bags, Shida Night Market caters mainly to the university students studying nearby. What differentiates Shida from the other Night Markets is, things have to be cheap and good since students have an eye for value-for-money anything!

Right at the entrance lies two stationery shops which were impossible to penetrate or even attempt to buy anything - really cheap stationery and festive related paraphernalia. Queues were insane.

old school soup stall

Here's one of the few stalls that allows you to quickly grab a bite whilst seating down.
menu

30 holysmokes years of history!

fishball soup

Tasty broth with radishes and fishballs. A more decent fishball than those attempted throughout the trip, at least the level of flour was not over powering.

A tip to note, any stall with a queue - whether food or not, usually is worth the while with exceptions. Patronise at your own discretion!

rules

Hsu Ji dishes out advice for first timers.
more people

MUST TRY!


store

Since 1984, they must have done it so right to last through the years and only specialise in 生煎包.
to be cooked

Say hello to these uniformly kneaded buns.
queue number

Queue number, I felt really bad ordering just one when even the ang moh next to me gamely went for eight! With the copious amount of food scheduled for this night market visit, you'd understand why I stopped at one by the end of this entry.
hsu ji

Yes, I kick myself for ordering one of this. Chewy exterior with a really appetizing minced meat filling. Flavourful pop of heaven this is. Stopping at one should never be an option. I wish I had thirds of this.

The amazing bit about night markets is, having a paperbag of something hot in hand and shuffling through the crowds to the next eat-stop.


crowds

I would not even classify this crowded - hordes of people.

lantern

Lantern Braised Meat! The stall that garnered most raves online and join the queue we did!

yumms

Redefining mind-boggling but at least there was some order in terms of ordering and the lady behind the counter hollering out recommendations on their best sellers.

our picks

A rather sheepish selection of greens, some signatures and 王子麵. Supposedly taiwan's famous brand of instant noodles.

the mess

Pass over your basket and wait in line.

steamy

So your basket of goodies gets placed in line in the most extraordinarily orderly fashion, gets cooked according to your place in line. Almost like a magician pulling off a trick, after that cloud of steam...

prepping

Your dish gets cooked after saying V-I-O-L-A. A quick squirting and bathing of gravy and sauces together with a scattering of preserved vegetables and chives, your dish is presented back to you.

mee

NTD 100 for a plate of this and that and all things delicious. I like 王子麵! Chewy and bouncy that did not succumb to the boiling temperatures of the gravy. Preserved vegetables were appetizingly good too. Thumbs up for affordability and tasting so hearty!

restriction

Punishment for not taking away - every diner needs to order NTD 30 worth of drinks, yet the irony is nothing in the menu costs NTD 30!

drinks

Honey lemon which tasted mountains better than milk tea - the worst milk tea attempted so far.

Slightly further down the street is yet another outlet selling the same - 大台北.

crazy queues

Does not lose out to Lantern in terms of queues.

mass

An equally maddening range of ingredients though somewhat similar.
i wonder how they remember

YES you guessed it right - join the queue we did! The experience at 大台北 was alot less orderly, infact they seemed to thrive on chaos. I lost sight of my basket of goodies but the workers could identify, thankfully. The trick is trying to remember what you even put into the basket...what if someone really does order the same combination?

Stand around and literally wait till you can identify and recall what you really ordered. I'm not too sure if prices are the same as Lantern but we did not order the same fare for a fair comparison.

two plates

The same pile of ingredients that gets tossed in too.

huge1

The same Prince Noodle here was soggier beneath the pile of ingredients and gravy.
huge2

Somehow I love the taiwanese greens which are different from those we have in Singapore. This was alot more shoddy than Lantern, parts of it were tastier than the rest.

menu

The same requirement for drinks.
drink

Comes from the stall just next to it.

ack

Nothing memorable.

Every meal without dessert is sin so trot we did till we found one!

menu

i-Baked (http://ivybaked.com/) is unique in a manner that there are no other competing stalls. Cookie icecreams they sell! Apparently this is opened by a celebrity called Ivy, not that I know who she is!

shop

I smell christmas already.

cookies

Choose your cookie flavours over the counter.

counter

And then icecream flavour.

ibaked

Find a seat in their cushy cafe and enjoy the dessert!

cookie icecream

Sticky Hicky - Almond Cookie with Toffee Candy
Eat My Nuts - Walnut White Chocolate Cookie

Both cookies were soft baked cookies and were hinging on the suicidal sweet, honestly with both equally sweet it is quite hard to differentiate the flavours. Vanilla ice was milky though not the bestest icecream eaten. Not too bad a dessert (NTD 90) - you need to throw the calorie counter out for this one!

crepe stall

Crepes or 可麗餅 as they are known as forms one of the longest queues at the entrance and queues for this are more insane than maddening. Order from one counter and wait at the other.

crepe baker

Two helpers manning the exterior grill and I was hoping so bad that this dude would be making mine - the lady ended up with overbaked crepes!

crepe

水粿樂園 (NTD85) consisting of strawberries, peaches and bananas, a generous dollop of whipped cream, biscuits and marshmellows and two scoops of mango icecream. The icecream tasted more like sorbet though. Huge portion of what looked better than it tasted.

corgi alert

Special mention goes to this uber duper freaking cute corgi called Ma-lu! Very tame sweetheart!

Shida Night Market

Comments

  1. Haha how did you know the dog is called Ma-li?

    ReplyDelete
  2. cos we made friends with the stall owner and started chatting! hahaha...

    ReplyDelete
  3. 灯笼卤味 gonna shift already! Apparently some people paid high price to buy over the shop space.. =(

    I had one of my most memorable meal at 师大 too, a western restaurant called Happy Chef that has top notch quality at cafe prices, right along the same alley as the bag-gish blog shop 蓝天小铺

    ReplyDelete
  4. 灯笼卤味 gonna shift already! Apparently some people paid high price to buy over the shop space.. =(

    I had one of my most memorable meal at 师大 too, a western restaurant called Happy Chef that has top notch quality at cafe prices, right along the same alley as the bag-gish blog shop 蓝天小铺

    ReplyDelete
  5. wa...even this u also know! Didn't see Happy Chef at all. =( I like 灯笼卤味!

    ReplyDelete

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