The Local Night Market

There's a night market near the part of town known as "Little Canada"; the subway station name is translated as"Kaohsiung Arena" but in Chinese? Jui-Feng, the name of the market. It's also nowhere to be seen on my map, despite being the biggest and most popular one in town. I was the only foreigner there when my local friend took me; it was so packed I felt like I was back in Taipei.

First start off with a small bit of something fried:


The Taiwanese know how to do bacon - I went for one of the pink ones at the front. The meat is almost raw (no, I didn't get sick afterwards) wrapped around green onions. So you get to really savour all that amazing fatty-ness but it's offset by the fresh onions. So it tastes light. Oh, yeah, he also used to work at this stand. So we didn't pay for anything the whole night. Awesome.

Then we move on to heavier fair: Barbecued tofu with pickled cabbage.



The tofu is really soft, but given great texture by getting a crisp outside and then being topped off with pickled cabbage. Then a bunch of hot sauce and sweet barbecue sauce is thrown on. These are things that people in the West trying to cook with tofu need to remember: texture and flavour - you gotta work both for it to be good. But it really, really can be.

An amuse - bouche of taro, strawberry, melon, and mystery flavoured sweets:



They're kept on ice, and very cold. The outside is gelatinous (think flavour-less jello) and then the inside is flavoured in a powdery yet doughy way. It's light and refreshing and not too sweet. Like I said before, interesting textures, not very much sugar.

Finally, I love being on the ocean; the seafood here is amazing.



Snails: chewy, lightly cooked, spicy. Eating them involves and expert digging system with an oversized toothpick and lots of napkins.



Best sashimi and roe - fresh, nothing on top.

Then a nightcap of gambling:



Pick 15 blocks, flip and match the pictures. If you get a diagonal, you win. I didn't, nor did I see anyone else who did. Thankfully my food stupor kept me from caring too much.