南機場夜市 Nanjichang Night Market @Taipei

Our first night in Taipei in 2016, and we decided to visit this little local night market (because this was one of two night markets in Taipei that we have not yet been to)!

We have read many blogs and reviews of this night market and had more or less decided on what to try. Nevertheless, we took our time and strolled along. Our first impression was that this night market was not as crowded as the rest and there were plenty of walking space for everyone! We liked that there was a slight breeze and that the weather was not too hot or humid, thanks to a passing shower which provided much of the coolness.

This location is called 南機場 Nanjichang or South Airport because this area used to be an airport used by the Japanese during the Japanese Occupation. Because this was situated on the south of the main 松山機場 Songshan Airport, locals called it South Airport. 🙂

We tried 蚵嗲 Oyster Cake (NT40) and 韮菜捲 Chives Roll (NT25) at 好佳蚵嗲 Haojia Orh Teh first since we were able to get seats before the huge crowd appeared (we read that this stall is very very popular and there’s often long queues). The delicious oyster cake was full of juicy oysters, spring onions and cabbage but the chives roll were nothing to shout about.

蚵嗲 Oyster Cake

韮菜捲 Chives Roll

現炸大雞排 Fried Chicken

現蒸臭豆腐 Freshly-steamed Smelly Tofu

雙味包 Pork and Cabbage Fried Bun

We saw a long queue formed up at 好吃炸雞 Haochi Fried Chicken and immediately wifey joined the queue while I checked out what to order since the stall was showing lots of stuff on its board. 🙂 And in the end, we had to have 現炸大雞排 Fried Chicken (NT50)! The very large piece of chicken was freshly fried and very tender and juicy. We had to leave it to cool for a while before we sank our teeth into it, but we totally enjoyed every little bite of it!

Being quite full after the big piece of chicken, we just walked along and enjoyed the cooling weather and relatively upbeat mood of the market. That’s when we kept passing by 臭老闆現蒸臭豆腐 which was selling steamed smelly tofu instead of the usual deep-fried smelly tofu. We had always skipped over smelly tofu because we had already tried before and I am really not a fan of the smell. Haha… 😦

But this was very different because the tofu was steamed and not deep-fried so it did not retain that much of the smelliness (that’s what the blogs told us). Reluctantly I agreed to sample one portion of 微辣現蒸臭豆腐 Freshly-steamed Smelly Tofu (NT70) and a plate of 海帶小菜 Seaweed (NT20) just in case I could not stand the smell. Surprisingly the tofu was not that smelly, after steaming in the slightly spicy soup. It was soft and full of holes which soaked up the soup but did not leave a lingering after taste. We quite enjoyed the tofu and the strange seaweed snack, especially when we were seated alfresco in the cool weather.

Our stomach were almost calling it a day when we spotted another queue at 鈺師傅上海生煎包, and being an ardent fan of 生煎包 Fried Bun, I had to give it a try! We ordered a 雙味包 Pork and Cabbage Fried Bun (NT12), and boy was there juice! Some fried buns were actually very dry and did not taste good but this was juicy and the combination of crisp cabbage and tender pork together with the bouncy bun skin made this a top-notch fried bun in my list!

Overall we were very happy and satisfied with this local night market and we had already planned to come here again in our future trips because we spotted a few stalls like dumplings, kebabs, sandwiches… Haha!