In my quest to try experience the various night markets around Taiwan, I found myself at Ningxia Night Market (寧夏夜市 / ning xia ye shi). I don’t have a lot of photos here, since I was exploring the market with a bunch of others, but I do have some thoughts.
Anyway, this night market is a short walk from both the Taipei Main Station (台北車站 / tai bei che zhan) and Shuanglian Station (雙連站 / shuang lian zhan). This makes it an easy stop for tourists coming in and out of Taipei Main Station to experience on last night market. Though there are tourists, it definitely doesn’t feel as touristy as, say Shilin.
Ningxia Night Market spans one long street with four rows of vendors (two on the edges of the street and two back to back in the center). What sets this night market apart from the others I’ve been to are the number of juice vendors and people selling oyster-related dishes. The market is also famous for a shop that sells goose dishes.
After going up and down the street, I settled on snacking on an okonomiyaki from Osaka Yaki (大阪燒 / da ban shao).
As I watched them make my okonomiyaki, I was amused by how they used a round tin to keep the shape of the dish as opposed to free-handing it or using a small pan.
The okonomiyaki was finished with shaved bonito and Japanese mayo. It was a nice little snack as we figured out what else to eat.
Figuring that we should try an oyster dish, we headed to Yuanhuan Bian (圓環邊蚵仔煎 / yuan huan bian e zi jian) to experience a good oyster pancake. I previously had an oyster pancake years ago while at UC Berkeley. The taste was good, but I felt like the sauce overpowered the dish. Here, everything was so well balanced. The oyster stood out, just as much as the sweet and savory taste of the sauce. This was probably one of the best oyster pancakes I’ve had.
Full from dinner, we headed out to grab dessert. Without hesitation we headed to Ganji (甘記 / gan ji) to get something cool to combat the otherwise hot summer night.
Ganji has a variety of desserts to choose from, listed on the table. We ended up getting a red bean shaved ice (紅豆刨冰 / hong dou bao bing) and mango snow (芒果雪冰 / mang guo xue bing). The mango snow was a little sweet. The mango ice cream on top didn’t help much, but it was still enjoyable. The red bean shaved ice, was more to my taste and the brown sugar was a nice touch.
Overall, it was a nice night being able to share food and experiences. If you find yourself with the desire to try out oyster pancakes, do stop by Ningxia Night Market and give Yuanhuan Bian a try.