Wandering Fel

 

When we came back in early March, there were so many lanterns put up for decoration right across the night market. Roosters to bring prosperity to the whole businesses in the neighbourhood, perhaps?

 

 

 "And that morning, gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean."

While the trace of bad experiences may be gone, the trace of good journey lasts forever and the yummy trace of that one night at Rui Feng night market lingers until now. Rui Feng Night Market is one the biggest night markets in Kaohsiung. It is also one of the most popular night market with visitors from outside Kaohsiung. The night market was so crowded on a weekday night but we did not really mind the crowd because where there's a crowd, there's definitely a queue for those popular food stalls. 

I realised that the food sold at night markets in Taiwan has become modernised in a way. For instance, I did not recall I had ever seen any churros in any night market in Taiwan four years ago. But now, churros seem to be a basic staple at every night markets in Taiwan including at Rui Feng Night Market. Lured by the colourful churros, I decided to try the chocolate one. Sweet and yummy, especially when eaten when it's still warm. 

One sure sign that a certain food is getting the hype is by looking at its advertisement. If the food stall display a certain type of proof that their food has been advertised on TV before, you may want to give it a try. Chances are you will not be the only person who queue up to try the food. Hahaha. 

So what are these long sticks that this stall is selling? They are actually long potato sticks. The stall is manned by youngsters and one of them was in training because we could see he's being mentored while garnishing the long potato sticks with mayonaisse and seaweed. The newbie's last attempt was a failure so the mentor apologised and asked us to wait for a better "creation". Haha jiayou young-un! #supportivejiejie

The potato sticks are a DOPE. Oh my gawd, they are crispy, tasty and they go well with the mayo and seaweed. Initially, I had my doubt because it seems that they put so much mayo on this food but oh boy, the mayo sauce taste nice too. This taste better than any fast food chain's fries that I have ever tried. Really. A must try when you visit Rui Feng Night Market. 

The next stall that we are going to try is actually selling food inspired by Middle Eastern culture. Thankfully, there is English translation for the flavours available. 

They are the fillings for pita bread. We had a bit of a situation here because our hands are full with other food, we kinda had difficulty to take out our wallet and pay. Up to the point, the lady behind the counter offered to help us to carry the food...not the pita bread though, the other food from the other stall. Hahaha. She even offered to help eating the food. Full of humour, I see. 

We took a pit stop to consume the food that we have bought so far because otherwise, a similar "tricky" situation will repeat itself at the next stall. The ideal place for a pit stop to consume your food at Rui Feng night market is to find a closed stall and just park yourselves in front of the closed stall and nobody will chase you out. Smarty us, right? 

Moving on right along, I remembered my friend's advice to try the fried mushroom at any night market. So we immediately made a stop to check out the stall once we saw the first two characters on the banner which supposedly means mushroom. 

You can take a bite for testing before buying the fried mushroom. There are two flavours provided, one is original while the other is black pepper. 

We prefer the original flavour and ordered a small cup of fried mushroom. Turns out the smallest cup can contain so much mushroom pieces. Happy customers, indeed. Imagine if we have such night market in Singapore, I will end up having this kind of food everyday for dinner. Whee~~~

At this rate, you must have thought that my food is a bottomless pit. Well, looking back at these pictures, you may be right. But it will be such a pity to come in and come out from any night market in Taiwan with only one food in stomach. Don't worry, we are already at our last stop at Rui Feng Night Market, ZNEG's Fujian Chaomian. 

Chaomian means fried noodle so there can only be one thing that we should order from this stall right. Yes, fried noodle indeed. Unfortunately the taste of this fried noodle is kinda so-so for night market standard. But anyway, we were pretty satisfied with our visit to Rui Feng Night Market. It was way better than its counterpart, Liu He Night Market. So, if you only have one night in Kaohsiung and can only choose one of these two night markets to visit, I would recommend you to visit Rui Feng Night Market instead. 

Rui Feng Night Market is located at:

Okay, we are now checking out our first night market in Kaohsiung, Liuhe Night Market. The night market is not that big as it is located along Liuhe Road but it does have some interesting stalls to check out. 

For instance, this is the first time we saw this kind of food at night market. For a moment, we were kinda wondering if we were in Taiwan or China. Well, at least there is something for everyone here at Liuhe Night Market, including bugs lover. Me? I'm gonna skip this one thank you very much. 

Ah, finally we saw something which looks...hmm, safer to eat. I think I saw something similar to this at Raohe Night Market before but not sure if the black pepper buns are the same with the stall which forever has long queue there. 

The production line for the black pepper buns seems to be very productive. These two ladies alone can produce so many buns at one go. Looking at how many buns these two are making, it seems that black pepper buns are quite popular in Liuhe Night Market. 

Based on my observation, I noticed that there are many stalls selling noodles at Liuhe Night Market. But I was not in the mood to eat noodles that day so I just looked at the stall without really buying anything. If you love noodles, you may want to give it a try though. Who knows Kaohsiung is famous for noodles? Hahaha. 

Kaohsiung version of big sausage wrap small sausage. But I have eaten this street food at Fengjia Night Market in Taichung before so I wanted to try out other food if possible. Oh my gawd, I sound like a picky eater half way on my trip. LOL. 

Some seafood delicacies are also available here but lazy to eat stuff with shells. Hahaha please don't start to throw rocks at me. Lazy foodie I know. Before I knew it, I was already at the end of the Liuhe Night Market and have only eaten the black pepper buns. I wonder why but this night market is kinda boring to me. Oh well. It's just my personal opinion though. 

Liuhe 2nd Road, Xinxing District

Kaohsiung 

6PM onwards (although some stalls are opened from 5PM)

This was actually my second night here since there is no other night market that I feel like visiting in Taichung. The previous night is barely enough for me to cover the whole night market to be honest with you. This time around, we started our journey from the non-food section of the night market because our tour guide/ driver dropped us right smack in the midst of the night market (which he claims unknown to many tourists). 

I thought I would not succumb to non-food stuff at night market but apparently Fengjia Night Market has proven me wrong because within a good one hour or so, I ended up with so many shopping bags on both my left and right hands. Cheap t-shirts and socks are everywhere here I think I have met my yearly socks quota. Hahaha. 

Right, it is the time now to fill in our tummy again. We had actually narrowed down our to-try-food to two stalls in Fengjia Night Market. One is Dody Duke cheese potato. 

The cheese potato offered at Dody Duke is different from the cheese potato sold at Ximending. The cheese is not as many as the one given by the cheese potato stall at Ximending but I think the ingredient used by Dody Duke is more fanciful in a way. I mean what is Katsuobushi?

I decided to go for Spicy Chicken Corn Brocolli cheese potato. Taste not bad but I suppose it will taste better if consumed immediately upon buying. 

Fengjia Night Market is located at: 

Fengjia Road, Xitun District

Taichung City 407

Opening hours:

5PM to late (Daily)

Continuing on our foodie adventure at Fengjia Night Market, this night market in Taichung is simply a food heaven. So many type of food is offered in the biggest night market in Taichung (or maybe Taiwan) from heavy dish (e.g. Noodles, rice, etc) to fried stuff to light bites. Since we already had the cheesy fried chicken and fried squid, we decided to go for something sweet (and yet, still fried), sweet potato balls. They are piping hot so better let them cool off for a while before consuming them. 

When we went deeper toward the side of Fengjia Night Market which is just one step away from Fengjia University's gate, we saw a snaking long queue for something which looks like Gua Bao (Meat-filled Chinese Buns). Since the queue is so damn long and the Taiwanese is known for their affinity to queue for something good, we decided to join the queue. Easily suggested by the peer pressure it seems, we are. We could only see what's on the menu when we are nearer to the gua bao stall named Bun Bun. Some of the name is not easily translated into English to be honest with you. For instance, what seems to be pork belly bao in the picture is called Five Flowers Meat Bao in Chinese when you directly translate the name into English. Hahaha. 

I decided to go with Beef Filled Bao instead. You can add cheese or egg or more meat if you'd like to. I personally prefer the Gua Bao sold at Gongguan Night Market in Taipei though although this one ain't bad either. Make sure to eat them immediately or at least within few minutes of buying because they are not that nice when they become lukewarm or cold. 

Spotted new flavour of Lays which are not available in Singapore when randomly venturing into convenience store in Taichung. I'm such a weak person when facing against wonderful variety of chips. 

I can resist better against sweet stuff though like this strawberry frappucino which definitely is not coming out from Starbucks. 

Variety of Haagen-Dazs, omg there's a Winnie-the-Pooh one. I will surely buy it if not for the fact that the size of one tub will not be so merciful toward my existing belly. When will I be able to eat so much without gaining weight?

At the end of the day, I ended up with three different kinds of potato chips while travelling buddy bought her Ovaltine cookie. It's blatantly obvious who is the chips-junkie here. Hahaha.

Fengjia Night Market is the biggest night market in Taiwan and it is super popular with both locals and tourists. This was my first time at Fengjia Night Market though because despite being in Taiwan for 7 months back in 2013, I have not had the chance to go to Taichung. Probably partly due to the fact that I was not really confident in conversing in Mandarin and Taichung does not really have the convenient of subway which means you have to converse with either cab driver/ anyone who drive you around here. Now, I still don't have the required level of conversing professionally with people but I have gathered enough heck-care attitude with my super basic Mandarin and decided to just go by with it in Taichung. 

The heck-care decision was worth it though because otherwise, I would not be able to join the queue for this yummy fried squid in Fengjia Night market. Tee-hee. 

There are so many flavours available for the fried squid although all of these flavours are basically in powder form. I find it so tourist friendly for the stall owner to show the English translation for each flavour. Otherwise, tourist with crappy Mandarin like me can probably only understand flavour number 4 because of the character "Hai" which means sea, which most likely lead to "Seaweed" flavour, which I don't mind. XD

Anyway, we really went for seaweed flavour at the end. Voila, the powdery seaweed fried squid to satisfy your taste bud. It's chewy, salty and sea-weedy (does such word exist?) at the same time. Serve as a great snacks while waiting or queuing for other food which is swarmed by more people. 

We were actually in the midst of waiting for another food while ordering the fried squid. The neighboring Cheese Chicken stall is so popular with the crowd, the stall owner has to keep the order in check by tracking the order manually via pen and paper on his notebook. 

To be honest with you, I can't help to be lured by this Cheese Chicken stall because of the picture alone. The picture of the fried chicken filled with oozing cheese can make any passerby at Fengjia Night Market drool and join the queue. You will be given a number and the stall owner will call out your number (in Mandarin of course, so you better learn the basic numbering in Mandarin) once your fried chicken is ready for collection. 

Totally don't know how the real food blogger manage to capture Instagram worthy picture of street food because I already have difficulty in carrying all my stuff plus my phone and the fried chicken is so piping hot. So yeah, here you go, my best-shot fried chicken. I did not even bother to try to capture the oozing cheesy moment because I was so busy eating it. Hahaha. #failed

Fengjia Night Market is located at: 

Fengjia Road, Xitun District

Taichung City 407

Opening hours:

5PM to late (Daily)