Taiwan Street Food At Taipei's Most Famous Night Market | What To Eat At Raohe Night Market In 2025

This place has seriously great food. We're in Taipei, Taiwan and tonight we're at the Raohe Street Night Market. We were last here five years ago and we remember being blown away. Tonight it is all about eating some really great Taiwanese street food. I'm Thomas. And I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate. We hope you're hungry. Let's eat. This is one of the most popular night markets in Taipei. And we're here right before opening. They open at 5pm, we're here at about quarter to five. And some of the stalls are already starting to sell food. So we're going to kick off at probably the most famous stall at Raohe Street Night Market. And that is the Black Pepper Bun stall. Fuzhou Black Pepper Bun. They are utterly delicious. From what I remember, they make the pepper buns in these clay ovens, bake them. They're full of juicy pork, green onion, sesame. Let's get in. Stuck to the inside of the clay oven and they smell delectable. It's really cool that they're open early. We've scored a lucky one there. Normally this queue is through the barriers and up the street. And that's a memory from five years ago. And I guarantee this place, due to social media and whatnot, has got wildly more popular than when we were last here five years ago. Look, the queue is starting to form actually as I speak. And there's a very pungent and noticeable smell of black pepper in the air as you stand near this stall. I reckon the number of ovens they have is about seven or eight ovens. It's testament to how popular they are because normally these stalls just have one oven on the go. But they are just going for it. They're making the buns at the back there. You can see all the raw filling. And then you've got these coming out of those clay ovens. It's almost like a pork patty in the middle. Black pepper, loads of pork and loads of spring onion in there. And it's a really soft bun covered in sesame seeds. It's just as good as I remember. Tender, juicy meat which is quite coarsely ground. Strong hit of black pepper. And that dough, the pastry, is really easy to eat. It's not overly chewy but it's got a great texture. Mmm, yes. Dumped onto the next snack. It's great to be back at this night market after five years we think it is. We've been to Taiwan, this must be our third trip. Maybe fourth. No, it's our third trip. And last time we came here we purposely stayed near this night market so we could visit it a lot. But that is five years ago. It's really cool to be back in the thick of it again. And it is going to get way busier than it is right now I imagine. It's 31 degrees here today so it is hot. If you're watching from America, it's not freezing. That's hot. That means it's hot. We've just seen a sugar cane juice stand where they freshly squeeze sugar cane. We're going to grab one because it's very good to cool you down. I'm sweating up a storm and this is the perfect antidote. Just cool, refreshing, sweet but not like a cloying sweet. It's just hitting the spot. Alright, more food. Taipei is very well known for its night markets. They're all over the city. This one is very big though. At 500 metres long, it's sort of double sided as well so you've got almost a K of food stalls. It's big. Often they're much smaller. About 80 metres, 100 metres and they feel big. There's a lot of food in that distance but in 500 metres there is a lot of food. There's actually over 400 stalls and restaurants in this complex. Amazing. I've just spotted something that has drawn me in. It is these pineapple buns but stuffed with ice cream. One pineapple bun with taro ice cream. Thank you. One in total. Okay. This is one with taro. Thank you. Two minutes. Okay. They're baking the pineapple buns right here on the street. Pineapple buns, contrary to their name, don't actually have pineapple in them. It's just that the top of them look like pineapple buns and I just ordered one with taro ice cream. I can see the characters for fire and ice or water. And I think that refers to the fact that the bun is hot so it's just come out of the oven. And then he's chucked in a scoop of cold taro ice cream in the middle. The top of the pineapple bun has this crispy, sugary, crusty top. I've got a lady who is desperate for a bite. It's a little bit hot. What's it like? Good. Alright. The birdies will eat it. The birdies will eat it, yeah. They'll have a really good time. Oh man. The bun is so light and crispy. Do you want to take another bite? That's the ice cream in there. It's sweet. It's crunchy. And I love the cold ice cream and the warm bun. Delicious. Thanks honey. It's not money, it's just a little... I don't know what it is. Thank you. You're welcome. Bye bye. I've just taken a stool at this pork ribs and medicinal soup stall. I remember eating here last time and it was so good so I have to get in again. There's all the street food style stand up carts and then there is a few of these street food joints that have seats. There's not that many of these restaurant style ones. This one though, Sheena has been talking about for five years. She talks about this all the time. It's such a strong memory for her. It's very good to be back. Thank you. You're welcome. That soup. Very medicinal smelling. It smells quite bitter. Then you've just got pork ribs. And I absolutely love spare ribs. Quite a few of them floating around in there. And then we've got a side of rice to go with it. There's some fatty pork and I'm not quite sure what the green is. Maybe some melon? Taiwan for the win. When you order a bowl of rice, which is all we did here. We ordered the soup, the tong and the rice. But that rice comes loaded with pork and vegetables and stuff. It sure ain't a plain old bowl of rice. It's hot. Yeah. So I'll try some first and then I'll cool some down for you. How about that? It's hot. Yeah, very hot. It's not too bad. Super tender. Spare ribs. And they've been infused with the flavour of the broth. Again, it just tastes very medicinal. Almost leaves like a tingly feeling in your mouth. It's warming. I'll cool this down for you. You can try some, eh? It's just such a great memory I have of sitting in here and chowing down on this bowl of soup. And it's really awesome to be back. I just love the vibe here. It's really busy but also quite casual and relaxed. Honestly, Taipei does street food night markets like nowhere else. The food is just epic. That's a really unique broth. I've just had some and it's the type of flavour that just transports you back. I feel like it was five years ago. Nice punchy broth. Yeah. It's really good. The night market is lined with loads of arcades. So you've got the main strip which is full of food. And then these outer strips which are arcades, shops, all sorts of things. We're having a slight intermission because Zadie's gotten a little bit distracted. We are going to be heading to that stall next. They've been around since 1964 and they specialise in deep fried taro balls. Come back. Yeah. I'm really intrigued by the egg yolk pork floss taro balls. They look delicious. I think this must be the egg yolk here. You've got the pork floss and then a huge ball of taro. This is pretty cool. The dude's super trusting so you just pay into the till here and then you grab your own change. We're going to go and whip into this arcade and chomp down on these. Change of plans. That arcade was booming pop music which we definitely can't have on a video because we'll get copyright strike. And we'll lose all the small amount of revenue that we would possibly get on a video. And talking about revenue, if you would like to support the channel financially, check out our Patreon page. And that's how you can just get behind the channel a bit and support us. But no matter how you support us, we're so thankful. Likes, comments, shares, Patreon. Thanks heaps. This thing is super golden and crispy. He was making them to order so he would grab the taro dough and then fold the pork floss and the egg yolk into it. And it is stuffed full of filling. It's really hot babe but you can try it. What do you think? Sadie's eating and behind the camera at the moment. I've developed a real love of pork floss on this trip. Here we go, you take that. Go for it. And it just adds so much flavour to everything. From phan tuan or rice balls to this type of thing. It's got so much flavour and it's a really neat texture. The taro is very soft. And then that egg yolk. Wow, it's a really unique snack and awesome that they've been around since 1964. It's now just a little bit after 6 o'clock and it's getting visibly much busier, the market. And the atmosphere really starts to come up because the sun's set now. All the lights are starting to twinkle. It's not nearly as busy as it would be on the weekend. It's Thursday today so it's leading to the weekend but it's not crazy. It's just that perfect balance actually where you can wander freely, look around and you're not bumping into people the whole time. Such a cool atmosphere here. Brilliant. We've had a request. Sadie has asked for a sausage so we're going to grab one of these. Come in like little mini sausages and then big sausages as well. We love the sausages here in Taiwan. I think we'll get you a big one. That's garlic and black pepper, maybe mini. Can we have one cup? This stand really has an impressive pile of sausages. It's a mound of sausage. I like it. I've added a little nibble of the sausage to try and help it cool down. Hot. Still too hot? Still too hot. I'll blow on it a bit more. It's a pork sausage. They're often wild boar sausages here. They've got quite a sweetness to them and this one is so good. It's hot. Try a little bit, see if it's too hot. Hot. Okay, reviews are in. Hot. It's very good. We could eat forever here. There is so much food. We're going to grab our one last thing but it's going to be the bolo bao with the ice cream again because it was that good. We also had a wee accident and some of it went south and hit the deck. I think we'll grab another one. We'll wrap this one up after some epic food. There is so much here though. And a really chilled out vibe. All of the vendors that we dealt with were super friendly and welcoming. Lots of English in case you're worried about not being able to read Chinese. I don't read Chinese, Thomas doesn't either and we don't speak Mandarin. Very easy to navigate. Simple market, great food, great fun, great buzz. Thanks for watching. See you on the next one. There'll be more market videos actually. There's going to be a real almost locals only market video we're doing. This one is pretty touristy. It's quite well known. There's a lot of locals here but there's a lot of tourists here. We're going to do another one that'll be super locals only so watch out for that. Thanks for watching this one. See you in the next one. Thanks guys.