We’ve said before that Night Markets are a quintessential experience in Taiwan: no other country is recognised for their regular epic, open-air evening food fests like this little country, and for good reason. Besides the incredible selection of delicious food for cheap prices and the rows upon rows of food, games, and merchandise, the night markets exist in sheer numbers throughout the island, with each of them bringing something unique.

Location

Keelung’s main night market, also known as Miao Kou Night Market (廟口夜市), is no exception to this rule, with a layout that differs from every other night market we encountered in Taiwan during the entirety of our trip. Much of it is located over two perpendicular roads: the eastern half of RenSan Road (仁三路), and continues north through AiSi Road (愛四路).

How the Night Market Works

We spent a few days in Keelung, allowing us to truly understand the night market and sample a wide variety of their fare. Half of the night market exists in marked stalls with seats that open from various hours throughout the day and generally close late at night with the night market. These stalls are beneath covers, with reflective metallic signs and numbered from 1 through to around 70, located mostly on RenSan Road. They operate just like any stationary eatery, though their kitchen consists mostly of outdoor burners, with benches for their patrons to sit and eat along their small counters.

During the evening, the entirety of the mentioned area is closed off to traffic, and like any other night market food stands and trucks roll in to set up their evening fare. This means that AiSi Road contains much of the food you won’t find during the day. We found that on the blue half of Aisi Road (marked on the map above), most of the fare is typical of what you’d find around Taiwan, whereas the southern half has a few  more interesting selections, including set-ups with sit-down benches along the streets. With the luxury of time and no mind for budgeting, we made it our goal to conquer Keelung’s Miao Kou Night Market – and document it over 3 parts.

The Evening Market

Aisi Road is normally free for use by vehicles until the late afternoon where it is shut down for use of the evening market. Each stand has its own opening times, which varies from around 4-5pm, though by the time you arrive at this time of day there are already plenty of options in the surrounding area.

Scholar Cakes – Steamed Rice Cakes (狀元糕)

There’s no reason with starting off with a sweet, if not to whet the appetite for what’s to come. The scholar cake (狀元糕) has an interesting background – as the legend goes, a scholar who failed an examination created these cakes to earn money as he awaited to take the next one. This is a pretty common story as it goes, though its unique mushroom-like shape is also reminiscent of a graduation cap, which is what we had initially assumed.

These cakes can be found throughout Taiwan, consisting of coarsely-ground rice packed into a mould, filled with fillings such as coconut, peanut, or crushed sesame, before being topped again with rice, packed tightly, and cooked over a funnel of steam. In Keelung, we found this stand about halfway down RenSan Road, though it very well might wander. We bought 2 pieces (one each of sesame (芝麻) and peanut (花生) ), totalling NTD30 (US$1). Expect a queue – these cakes are cooked to order.

The texture wasn’t what we expected – unlike rice cakes like mochi, whose finely ground rice flour forms a dough with water and a smooth, chewy cake, these ones held up with a texture like a firm chiffon cake a crumbled pleasantly in the mouth as we chewed. The fragrance of the rice made for a great accompaniment to the nuttiness of the lightly-sweetened filling. It was absolutely delicious, the filling-to-rice ratio balanced perfectly, and an easy recommendation – best eaten piping hot right out of the steamer.

Braised Eel Soup (紅燒鰻湯)

A common dish in the Keelung Night Market, temporary stand or not, is braised meat potages, which are thickened soups. In several cases the meat is fried before being added to the soup, possibly to keep it from disintegrating, which was the cooking method of the braised eel potage stand.

Here, one bowl of soup is NTD80 (US$2.60), not particularly cheap, but the stand was surprisingly generous with the eel. It also has a couple of slices of Chinese cabbage and a few sprigs of fresh coriander. The soup is savoury with a flavour similar to mushrooms, and has a faint bitterness that one might associated with seafood such as oysters. Thanks to the thickened soup, it has a rich mouthfeel which is lightened by the fresh herbs.

The eel, unsurprisingly, has a texture similar to a tender, fatty fish. The batter helps to retain some of the seasoning of the soup, making it even more flavourful still. Watch out for the bones, of which there are plenty. It’s a nice dinner, rich but not heavy, and paired with a bowl of rice for NTD20 (US$0.70) it would make for a great dinner.

Black Sesame Rice Dumplings in Sweet Soup (湯圓)

Tangyuan (湯圓) is a classic dessert found all throughout Asia, consisting of balls of chewy glutinous rice flour dumplings floating in a sweetened soup. There are countless variations to this dish, including colouring the dough, filling the rice dumplings with things such as crushed peanuts or black sesame, and seasoning the soup with ginger or rice wine.

At Quan Jia Fu Rice Dumplings, there are five items on the menu:

1. (Sesame-filled) tangyuan sweet rice dumpling soup
2. Tangyuan sweet rice dumpling soup with egg
3. Tangyuan sweet rice dumpling soup with rice wine
4. Rice wine sweet soup with egg
5. Tangyuan sweet rice dumpling soup with rice wine and egg

These dishes vary from NTD80 to 100 (US$2.60-3.30), and to many who have never had a dish like this, the idea of sweet soup, much less so with a beaten egg is understandably a strange concept. Having only sparingly had versions of menu item #1 in our lives, we decided to give #2 a go (NTD85; US$2.80). 5 large dumplings are served in a bowl of hot, clear soup with a splash of sugar syrup. The egg is beaten fresh on the spot, lightly cooked from the heat of the other ingredients like an egg-drop soup.

If you’ve ever had mochi, the dumplings are very much just that. With a soft, smooth, stretchy skin cooked through perfectly to remove any unpleasant flavour of raw starch. Inside is an impressively generous amount of lightly-sweetened black sesame paste which oozes out like lava – this is a dessert to be enjoyed slowly and with relish. The soup adds a warm, hearty sweetness, but it was the egg that was the star of the show – it had no distinct savouriness, but instead almost melted into silky strands into the soup to give rise to a sort of creamy texture on the tongue which doesn’t need to be chewed.

This tangyuan was so good we came back another night to try item #5 – if you enjoy the fermented flavour of rice wine, this one is even better, though a little more expensive at NTD100 (US$3.30). Nonetheless, we highly recommend this dish as one of our favourite picks of all of the night market, permanent or otherwise. Even if you aren’t sure about the egg or rice wine, #1 is a safe and delicious choice.

Braised Pork Spare Rib Soup (鄭記排骨)

Much like the eel soup of before, the pork rib soup is also a thick potage filled with pork ribs that were deep-fried prior to its braising. Unlike the eel soup, this pork rib soup is a little cheaper at NTD60 (US$1.95), but it’s very similar in appearance, with the addition of slices of Chinese cabbage and a few sprigs of fresh coriander.

This soup is a little sweet and very rich, with a distinct layer of grease sitting atop the soup. We found that while we ate it we didn’t feel queasy, but it does make for a heavier dish compared to the other potages we tried throughout Keelung. It’s offset a little by the addition of five spice, a common seasoning in Taiwan, as well as what tastes like black vinegar which the pork may have been marinated in before or during cooking. We finished it off very happily – it was satisfying, but we don’t know whether we’d be able to eat such a rich dish on our own, even with a reasonably-sized portion.

With the night market running virtually all day, there’s no reason not to stop by central Keelung for a unique taste of Taiwan, and with choices like this, you would be hard-pressed not to come across something that tickles your fancy. We’ve already snacked our way through the night market, but coming up next are a selection of places you can sit down to eat.