Taipei - A foodie's guide (Day trip to Shifen and Jiufen)

Ms Strawberry will notice I've skipped a few days of our itinerary in this blog. But I have a friend visiting Jiufen relatively soon so I dedicate this eating guide to her. I hope she finds this useful on her trip :). 

Shifen (十分)

 It's terrific weather and an exciting day as we venture out of Taipei to the northern region. There was the option of hiring a tour taxi for the day but due to cost & flexibility (we don't like people waiting for us and hurrying us along), we decided to explore via public transport (i.e. the train).

If you require detailed information on how to get to Shifen, Jiufen & explore the Pingxi area by train, please leave a comment with your email and I'll be happy to send you our itinerary. But long story short, there are plenty of trains from Taipei Main Station to Ruifang (the trouble is simply getting on the right train), but from Ruifang to Pingxi area there is only 1 train every hour. So make sure you plan ahead to avoid wasting time.

 And the food journey begins. As soon we got off the train at Shifen I was greeted with the stuffed chicken wing stand. STUFF CHICKEN WINGS!! I instantly imagined Manpuku's chicken wing gyoza's been pumped out of a production line for hungry bystanders waiting for their train.

I was somewhat disappointed when 1. we had to wait ages for them to cook and 2. when we discovered they were filled with rice instead of meat. O well, it was a good snack to keep Aunt T happy-go-lucky before a hike.

 I had read about this peanut pancake dessert thing. You can also get this in Jiufen, so if you're not going to Shifen, you don't have to miss out!

Basically its a paper thing pancake, coated in shaved peanut brittle, with two scoops of ice cream then wrapped up. It's also served with a sprinkle of corriander which we opted out for. Yummy! It kind of reminded me of mango pancake - but a peanut and ice cream version.

 We got hungry after lots of walking so got a few extra snacks. They were pretty subpar except for the baby sausage. Taiwanese sausage is the bomb. You pretty much can't go wrong. We wouldn't eat it all in one so, so we bagged it and kept it in our backpackers as a convenient travel snack.

Jiufen (九份)

It was mid-afternoon by the time we arrived in the hillside town of Jiufen. We got lazy and caught a taxi from the train station instead (which was the best $10 we've spent) as it was getting overcast.

After getting off the taxi, take a few scenic photos before heading into Jiufen old street. To make things easy, the following eating guide is in the order of what you will come across as you follow the meandering old street. 

Stop 1. As soon as you enter the old street, you'll be overwhelmed by food choice. Directly on the right hand side we found a lady making Stinky Tofu. Stinky Tofu is a Taiwan specialty. And if you're like me - I'm not a fan of stinky tofu - you ought to reconsider and try this anyway. Tasting these have totally changed how I see stinky tofu. Unlike the version you commonly find elsewhere e.g. China, the version here is more moist, cooked in a soy-miso-like sauce, topped with sour pickled cabbage.

There is of course the option to add chilli if you like - and I highly recommend it. The combination of flavours work really well and if I go back, I would definitely get this again.

Stop 2. Not too far down the street on your left hand side, you'll come across Zhang Ji Traditional Fish balls. You won't miss it because there's always a crowd of people as this is the most famous place to get fish balls here. We did the touristy thing - got the Mixed Balls Soup, which we found ok.

The fishballs were nice, but I didn't find it outstanding and memorable. By all means, if its a cold day its a pretty warming, decent soup - but maybe come back for this on your way back because really, there's a lot of good food you'd want to save your stomach for.

Stop 3. We walk a bit more and found a lady making King Mushrooms. This is my first time having really good deep fried King Mushroom. OMG I can't believe its not meat! The grilled one was dismal - I wouldn't bother getting it. I suspect this isn't a Jiufen specialty though, but keep in mind to buy some at some point in Taiwan, maybe at a night market.

  Stop 4. Then across from the mushrooms there was a lady grilling snails and squid. I had some of the sea snails which were okay too. Again, probably not a Jiufen specialty but they were nice. But probably lower on my list of foods to try here.

Stop 5. Now we come to this shop called Ah Lan Glutinous Rice cake. To give you a perspective of how much we liked this shop - we bought from them 5 times. We were full and indecisive, so we started off buying 1 to taste, then went back for more and more.

These sticky rice balls are unlike any elsewhere in the world. The taro ones are savory and won Ms Strawberry, while I fell in love with the sweet red bean grass balls. We see people buying dozens of these and I would too next time I'm here. I ate a few 2 days later and they were just as good!

Stop 6. This is the one you've been saving for. Lan Ah Po Yu Yuan. We are no strangers to Meet Fresh and Taiwanese taro, pumpkin etc balls of all flavours but this is the REAL DEAL. It is unlike anything you've tasted. You can choose hot or cold but we chose hot.

The amazing thing is you can really taste each different flavour in the balls and they all had a slightly different texture due to their key ingredient. If you eat nothing else in Jiufen, you have to try this!