dessert/japanese: I recommend TSUJIRI

TSUJIRI 
at SONGSHAN CITYLINK

松山旗艦店
No. 11 SongShan Road 2F
(02) 2747-6338

MRT: SongShan

$ (about NT$150) 

Kid friendliness: yes

Visit reviewed: 1/3/2016

Happy new year!

Tried Tsujiri's matcha shaved ice for the first time yesterday. The cup of shaved ice has chunky ice soaked in sweet matcha syrup, a bit of condensed milk atop and a layer of sweet Azuki red beans in the middle and two chewy mochi balls. There's a larger version that serves 4-6 people for NT$250, or you can choose to have it topped with matcha or vanilla soft serve. You can see the similarities to Hawaiian shaved ice when you eat Japanese style ice-- less cluttered with toppings, and all about the flavors and intensity of colors of the syrup soaked ice. Their shop at Songshan Citylink has a sit down area as well as savory foods like green tea soba that I didn't spot at their smaller shops at Hankyu mall and Breeze Xinyi. Tsujiri has apparently been around since 1860 in Japan and they have three shops in Japan vs the four that are in Taipei!

Couldn't think of any other places with Japanese style kakigori shaved ice in Taipei-- any recommendations?

OTHER LOCATIONS:

Hankyu Mall

No. 8 ZhongXiao E. Road Sec. 5 B2

(02) 2723-8458

Breeze Xinyi

No. 68 ZhongXiao E. Road Sec. 5

(02) 2722-6786

Sogo (on ZhongXiao)

No. 45 Zhongxiao E. Road Sec 4 B1

revisited/night market: i strongly recommend RAOHE NIGHT MARKET

Raohe night market is one of the most popular and oldest night markets in Taipei. A short subway or taxi ride from Xinyi or DaAn districts, Raohe has two bright signs marking the front and back main entrances of the night market.

I had what I thought was some mediocre food the last time I visited Raohe with some out of town friends, so it's been a few years since I've had the urge to revisit. Thanks to some new friends from Singapore who chose it as our meeting spot, I fell in love with the popular flaky pepper buns, the grilled oyster mushrooms, mango shaved ice and found a vendor serving one of my favorite night market snacks, the ice cream "burrito" with peanut candy shavings and cilantro. 

The pepper buns at the entrance of the Raohe night market and can be spotted by a winding queue of people waiting and a team of quick fingered people wrapping minced pork and green onions in doughy balls to be cooked in tandoor like ovens. The result is a pepper bun that is too hot to hold, a crunchy crust on the bottom and peppery and sweet meatball inside the bun. It's worth coming to Raohe just for this. 

Here's a glance at some of the other stands I spotted at Raohe. What's your favorite thing to eat at this night market? 

 

Rubber duck cotton candy 

Get your Taiwanese sausage from this vendor.. The first one we got from another vendor was so bad- pretty much just fat inside a sausage casing and the first time I had to throw something away that I bought at the night market. Taiwanese sausage should be firm and slightly chewy, on the sweet side and not all fat!!! 

Yeaaa. Favorite!