Taiwan's attractions for many mainlanders are not just its beautiful natural scenery, but also the Taiwanese snacks, especially its night market culture. Pop star Huang Xiaoming was recently spotted "crazily" eating snacks in Taipei's Tonghua Streeet's night market, including the "stinky Tofu." But for many of us, traveling to this island is still not easy due to the barriers to the travel pass application. However, to have a Taiwan night market taste preview, you may want to check out the recently opened Taiwan night market at Qianmen, at least the first of this kind in Beijing.

Walking through crowds of people, both locals and visitors, on the Qianmen Dajie, we still have to pass through the crowded Xianyukou food street that features old Beijing snacks, to get to the  even more crowded Taiwan market street.

The night market is not very big, comprising Alishan plaza, Dajiang and Nanxiaoshun hutong area. Around 20 stands selling different Taiwan snacks are set up along the so-called Taiwan Street, which is home to a lot of permanent Taiwan specialty food stores and the famous Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng's gallery. Some of the food stand vendors are from Taiwan while others are local employees. At around 7 pm, though the dark night has not really falling, long queues have formed in front of almost every stand. The fried durian cake, bird's egg, seafood balls, BBQ saury, fried chicken, sticky rice wraps and shrimp sauce omelet seem to be very popular with a very long waiting line.  

It took us no less than six minutes to finally get our first snack, fried durian cake, but strangely it didn't taste like the typical durian cake we usually have, but more like banana cake. Other tries, including the bird's eggs, fried seafood balls, and the BBQ saury were quite good.


The fun about night food market is walking while eating, but as many of the Taiwan snacks sold there are pieced together on a thin bamboo stick, and quite hot after just being fried or steamed, you'd better pause for a corner space to eat. And also be aware of the bitter gallbladder of the BBQ saury, bite it off before you eat other parts. Regretfully, we did not get to try the shrimp sauce omelet, which has the longest queue, at least four or five meters, making it the most popular stand.

Most of the snacks are sold for 10 yuan or 15 yuan per order, and for us three, the snack tour cost us about 200 yuan. About 70 percent full, but stuffed with mostly fried snacks, we were looking for something healthier, like the famous Danzai noodle and Luroufan, these kinds of food however are not sold through the stands but in the underground Taiwan food plaza. Unfortunately, the waiting line to get in there was at least eight meters, with security guards minding the queue, so again we gave up.

Strolling, eating and checking out the specialty stores, we did not realize we have spent almost two hours there. But feeling thirsty, we were not able to find any satisfying drinks from the food stand. "Taiwan is famous for bubble milk tea, but where are those?" A friend complained. There is only one juice stand, but it didn't look very fresh, so we walked back out to the Xianyukou street, where a big cup of old Beijing plum juice helped refresh us.

Maybe it is the limited conditions of food stands, it would be better if the night food market could be more inclusive of other types of food and drinks, not so restricted to fried stuff. There are also a couple of stands selling T-shirts and some small ornaments, not very impressive, but if you have a taste for cute shirt prints, you may want to have a look, at least the price is not bad, 70 yuan for two.

The Taiwan Night Snack Street will last until Mid Oct.

Open: Sunday to Thursday until 12 am; Friday and Saturday until 2:00 am

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