Taipei Taiwan Night Market Tour(Shilin Night Market 士林夜市)

Hey guys, it's Mike from Taipei, Taiwan with my friend Arthur Lee here. Hi everyone. First night market I've ever been to in my whole life was the 626 Night Market in LA, which, total bust, sorry guys, too expensive, lines were too long. You should not have to pay $3 for barbecue skewers, that should not happen. Tonight, we're at the biggest night market in Taipei. Is this the biggest one in Taiwan? Uh, I'm not sure, but it's definitely the most famous one. It's the most famous one in Taiwan, I'm thinking it's probably the biggest. This place has a lot more than just food, right? Food, I think games. And there's an astronomy station here. Astronomy station? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're at this entrance, I think that marks the spot of this whole area. Shilin Night Market is massive, it's not just one street, right? Yeah, it's a whole district of food and vendors. Our first stop, Arthur tells me, is one of his favorite places, Fried Chicken Steak. Yeah, right from the beginning of this night market. I'm really happy right now because, you guys see that sign right there? It says, you can make it spicy or not. Of course, we're gonna make it spicy. We definitely got lucky because right after we lined up, look at this line here. Crazy line right now. We got some reinforcements. My friend Yuting is here and she's starving. Arthur, you ate a little bit, I don't know why you did that. Sorry. But we got our first item of the night, the Fried Chicken Steak thingy, which is about the size of, well, your head. My head's pretty big, so let's try this. What do you guys think? Good? Delicious. They didn't really chop this up for us. They just kind of give it to us in like a chunk. So I'm gonna be a little barbaric here. Oh my god. That's awesome. That's really good. Whoa. It's better considering its price. It was 70 Taiwan dollars, Taiwan Yuan, which is like $2. And it's sweet, it's a little sweet on the outside, a little spicy. The flavor is soaked through. It's very tender, it's very moist, and it's white meat. The second thing we're eating is recommended by Yuting, is a potato place. This is really unique because the potato is like a stuffed potato, but it's not. Because the potato is deep fried and they stuffed it with all sorts of mysterious things. I recognize some of them, but I'm not really sure of all of them. There's corn here and ham. And I'm thinking sour cream, I'm not sure. And what is, what do you think the sauce is? No idea. Cheese? Yeah, it's cheese. It's orange-y. Okay. Alright, so this is one of your favorite things. I got the biggest spoonful. You guys are kind of like, you just got the toppings. Oh wow. That's really good. So the potato is crispy on the outside, really kind of mushy like a mashed potato on the inside. And the toppings are, not all of them is really hot, which is fine because the potato is hot. I still don't know what this is. You guys said this is cheese sauce. Yeah. Yeah, cheese sauce. It's kind of like diluted down cheese a little bit. Is that an egg in there? Yeah. Oh my god, okay. I'm gonna take some of the egg. Because that's insane. That's exciting. I love the potato skin, how crispy it is. I like that. This egg is insane. What? I mean, it's just like a regular egg. Not something I would think I would get at a Taiwanese night market. Because it's kind of, this is kind of Western. You know, cheese, potato, ham. It's all Western ingredients. But I gotta say, it's good. What's this? It's like a piece of fruit here. Pineapple. That's a pineapple. Yeah. That's good. Hey, that counts as my daily allocated serving of fruit, I think. So I'm being healthy with my cheese and potato, eating some fruit. This is insane, what they just introduced me to. I've heard of milk. And then there's fried milk. What? What exactly is fried milk? It's, what is fried milk? I mean, you just pour some like milk into like a fryer and fry it? This is fried milk. And it kind of looks like a fish ball after it's done. The owner of this stand has been, you're already starting. The owner of this stand was very, very specific. She said not to take one bite of this thing. Kind of like a soup dumpling, you can't just take a bite. So she said be careful, it's really hot. So I'm going to be very careful. That's hot. And that's good. Whoa, look at this. This kind of looks like, like I said, a fish ball on a stick. And when you bite into it, check that out. That's delicious. Kind of like a fried tapioca almost. Vanilla is tapioca. Oh, that's good. That's really good. And it's hot. It's burning hot. Yeah. You can't, she's right. You'll burn yourself if you bite into this whole thing. I'll tell you though, I can feel my arteries clocking up. Because is this, I mean, this is really good. I'll mess you up a little bit. And it was only 50 Taiwan Yuan for three of these. That's pretty cheap. That's like two bucks, less than two bucks for three of these. I mean, this is simply good. It's so simple that I feel like, you know, maybe a couple years of my life went down the drain because I ate one of these. This is what I'm talking about. This is a night market party. We just increased our group to six. Yeah. So we got Jefferson, Leanne, and Dressy. I got that right. And we just got this thing. This thing is crazy. This is a chicken on the outside. It's kind of shaped like a sausage, but it's not. It's chicken on the outside with stuff on the inside. Stuff. I don't know what kind of stuff. Chicken. Chicken on the inside. Chicken on the inside too? So we got different flavors here. This is the spicy one. That's pretty spicy. No, that's pretty good. That's spicy. Yeah, so it's really just chicken wrapped in chicken. I mean, it's a different way to eat chicken, I guess. This is a crazy fishing game. You can actually fish for these fish, and you win fish. And there's, you can fish for shrimp over here. This guy's fishing for shrimp. What do you get to keep? You get to keep the shrimp. Yeah. And I'm assuming you keep the shrimp because you go home and cook the shrimp. So it's kind of like you're buying shrimp, but you're working for it. Yeah. This is kind of a crazy fruit stand we saw here. They gave me this to try. That's good. Whoa, what is that? You just ate that. I just ate that? Yeah. That's delicious. Oh my god, that's crazy. It's kind of like a lychee, a pear, and an apple all in one. This fruit, I never had this. This is like a xiantao, which is kind of like a holy peach. This is also eggy. That's what our friend here said. Oh, wow. It's like an egg. Yeah, definitely. It's like I'm eating an egg yolk right now. Like a sweet, custard-y egg yolk. And toast. I honestly don't know how I feel about this. It's very eggy. It's really dry. You know what I do like is, I love this. She knows how to sell me because she's... Sugar apple. It's what? Sugar apple. This is really good. I see a sign I like. It says delicious food, so we're going to go follow it. I'm in food heaven right now. Check this out. I've actually heard of this. This is da bing bao xiao bing. It basically means big pancake wrapped around a smaller cake. And these are the smaller cakes here. They have peanuts, like taro. So this is sweet. Red bean. Oh, it also got savory. Pepper, spice. All right, this is really awesome. Those are the big pancakes over there. There goes the smaller and she smashes it. And that's our pancake. It's made with brute force. We got the three most popular flavors. They're all sweet. Sesame, peanut, and taro, which I don't like taro. Yeah, that's a nice bite. Nice healthy bite. Is that good? Awesome. I don't know. She looks confused. I love it. That's pretty good. It's like a cereal flake on the inside. The wrap is good. It's like a mochi wrap. I like that. It's like cookie inside. This is one of my favorite things. This is a special Taiwanese sausage, right? Yeah. It's really famous. The lady said it was so good that if I eat it, I want more. I can't get enough. It's like crap. That's really good. Whoa. She didn't die. That's really good. That's definitely the best sausage I ever had in my life. I can say that. Best sausage ever had in my life. I need to like find a way to take this home and breed it. Grilled oysters with some oyster sauce and garlic. This is really good. Smells so good. This is why you need a big group of friends eating one market together. Cheers, everybody. What do you guys think? That juice is really good. So all they put in there is a little garlic, a little oyster sauce. Oyster sauce on oysters. This is called Kwan's Hai Ping. It's basically a massive, what we like to call in the States is, this is a Texas toast. And they filled it with like awesome fillings. And you're supposed to eat it like a hamburger. It's a ham toast. Wow. It's crunchy. It's creamy because there's cheese on the inside. There's meat on the inside. It's definitely really good. But this is another one of those food items that is going to take some years off your life if you eat like a bunch of them. This is a Taiwan staple. The O-wa-tien, O-wa-tien, oyster pancake. You don't like it? It's definitely slimy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's really slimy. Is it supposed to be slimy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah? You know Slimer from Ghostbusters? It's like I just ate Slimer. I feel bad because Slimer is a friendly ghost. This stand we're at is really famous. You guys said there's always a line. Yeah. Always a line. But it's closed. It's papaya milk. Wow. It's good. It's not overly sweet. I don't think they add sugar in here. It's a little bit of sugar. It's good. It's very milky. I like it. All right, you guys know what I smell? It stinks. It's stinky tofu. You guys like stinky tofu? Yeah. You do? I really like it. I like to eat that, but don't like to smell it. Yeah, I'm not into that at all. I can smell that a mile away. So I gave in. I know it's a common food item in Taiwan. We're going to go try it. Stinky tofu. And these people are professional stinky tofu makers. You see these cauldrons of boiling stuff? That's all different types of stinky tofu. This is our stinky tofu right here. And it's boiled. Fried stinky tofu is not as stinky, I guess. Boiled one is major stinky. I don't understand it because I think it tastes the same as regular tofu. But it stinks. But why don't you just eat regular tofu? The stink adds a distinct flavor to it. Yeah, but it adds a stinky flavor to it. Which to normal food, that's not a good thing. You know how when we smell something, it smells bad, we throw it away. But this, we just eat. I'll take a little bit. No. Don't smell it, just eat it. That is putrid. Oh my goodness. Oh, we got another gagger over there. This guy likes it. Cheers. Oh my god. You like that? Oh my god. That's so gross. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Let's see what you got. Don't smell it. Just eat it. I'm really afraid to eat it. To put it into her mouth. Come on, do it. Do it. Yeah. I think the smell will stay until tomorrow. Oh. Oh, she might. I don't like it. Oh my god. Now I'm afraid to eat it. Maybe I just won't eat it. I'm not gonna smell it. Really bad. Oh my god. Oh, that's really bad. It's not just the smell. It's the taste. Oh my god. It's different from tofu. Hey, you can drink the soup. Yeah, that's okay. Thank you. And that's really bad. The more you chew, the smell goes into your nose. Do you guys ever take a date to eat stinky tofu? No, never. It's street food. Like, first date, you take a girl, and you're like, let's go eat some stinky tofu. Oh, okay. No. Not a good idea. First date, we go to someplace fancy. Yeah, someplace fancy. This is definitely, you shouldn't do this. That smell's gonna be with me for the day I die. The soup is kind of spicy. And the tofu is kind of... Let me ask you, does the soup stink as well? No, not nearly as much. It stinks, but not as much. Alright guys, that wraps it up for our food adventure here at Shilin Night Market. And I gotta say, food adventures are way more fun with more people. More good friends. So, thank you all so much for joining me. Thank you. What did you guys like the best? Stinky tofu? No. Papaya milk. Sausage. Yeah, sausage. Bacon oysters. Oysters. Mango ice. Mango ice, we didn't have that. I really liked the sausage too. I really did not... I mean, that stinky tofu almost killed me a little bit. I don't know about that. Thank you all so much for joining me today. Thank you. Good night from Shilin Night Market, Taipei. See you guys. Bye bye.