Raohe Night Market @ Songshan MRT. Best Food including Michelin Bib Gourmand Selection🌜

🌜Fuzhou Ancestor Pepper Pie 福州世祖胡椒餅. Fuzhou pepper bun is one of the things every visitor to Taipei must try. Here at Raohe Night Market, there's the famous Fuzhou Ancestor Pepper Pie right at the entrance arch. There are many pepper bun brands in Taiwan but Fuzhou Ancestor is the only one in the Taipei Michelin Bib Gourmand Selection 2018, 2019.

There is always a long queue of locals and tourists waiting for the freshly hand made pepper cakes. It's hand rolled dough, filled with minced pork seasoned with black pepper and lots of diced spring onion. The pie is the size of a tennis ball and sprinkled with sesame seeds before it is baked in a tandoor stye, charcoal fired oven.

The thin crust which is peppered with sesame seeds outside is chewy and slightly crisp. The pork ball inside is tender and juicy, tastes savoury sweet with a mild peppery flavour. The diced spring onion is moist and adds its characteristic grassy taste and aroma to the cake. 

Restaurant name: Fuzhou Ancestor Pepper Pie 福州世祖胡椒餅
Address:  No. 249, Raohe Street, Songshan District, Taipei City, Taiwan 105
Nearest MRT: Songshan (Green Line)
Tel: +886 958 126 223
Hours: 5:00pm - Midnight










🌜A Kuo Lu Wei 阿國滷味. Braise and stew meats stalls are common in Taiwan night market and A Kuo Lu Wei 阿國滷味 is the only one in the Taipei Michelin Bib Gourmand Selection 2019. There are so many stalls at Raohe and a dozen stew stalls alone, so it is quite easy to miss A Kuo's stall. Various meats are stewed in soy sauce and herbs, so the stews, tender and juicy have a mild savoury herbal flavour. The items to go for are duck wings, duck tongue, and pork uterus 脆肠 😱 The latter is the top pick 😲 because of its tender crunch.

Restaurant name: A Kuo Lu Wei 阿國滷味 
Address: No. 759, Section 4, Bade Road, Songshan District, Taipei City, Taiwan 105
Nearest MRT: Songshan (Green Line)
Tel: +886 2 8981 8517
Hours: 6:00pm – 11:00pm

 

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🌜Chen Dong Pork Ribs Medicinal Herbs Soup 陳董藥燉排骨. There are 2 herbal pork rib soup stalls in Taipei's Michelin Bib Gourmand selection 2018, 2019 - Hai You in Shilin night market and this one, Chen Dong in Raohe. 

At Chen Dong, the famous herbal pork rib soup is made with grandma's recipe. The fall-off-the-bone tender juicy meat is well infused with savoury sweet herbal flavours. Ribs and jaggy bony parts attached to the vertebrae served in soup in a paper cup. Takes a bit of effort to get out the last bits of meat from the bone crevices but it is worth the work. The brown colour watery soup tastes mildly sweet herbal savoury (with prominent taste of liquorice and sweetness of gogi berry).

Restaurant name: Chen Dong Pork Ribs Medicinal Herbs Soup 陳董藥燉排骨
Address: No. 160, Raohe Street, Songshan District, Taipei City, Taiwan 105
Nearest MRT: Songshan (Green Line)
Tel: +886 910 901 933
Hours: 4:30pm – 12:00 midnight





🌜Shi boss spicy tofu 施老闆麻辣臭豆腐. This stall was in the Taipei Michelin Bib Gourmand selection in 2018, but was dropped in 2019 - don't know why lah.

It's a large piece of boiled stinky tofu with around 4 cubes of duck blood curd in a bowl of savoury herbal spicy soup. The stinky tofu, soft and porous has a bit of soy bean flavour and a mild "sourish stink" (from fermentation). It is complemented by savoury spicy flavours from the soup. You can choose the level of spiciness including non spicy.

The mildly savoury duck blood curd is like jelly, smooth and jiggly soft.

Restaurant name: Shi Boss Spicy Tofu 施老闆麻辣臭豆腐
Address: No. 189, Raohe Street, Songshan District, Taipei City, Taiwan 105
Nearest MRT: Songshan (Green Line)
Tel: +886 926 770 956
Hours: 4:30pm – 12:00 midnight






🌜Beef Noodles and Beef Entrails Soup 紅燒牛肉麵牛雜湯. The 4th stall at Raohe to clinch a Michelin Bib Gourmand honour, it serves tender juicy stewed beef with noodles in a beefy savoury subtly herbal broth. Enjoy it with stewed beef intestines, tripe and tendons. It's an unassuming no name stall - its name is just the dishes it serves.

Restaurant name: Beef Noodles and Beef Entrails Soup 紅燒牛肉麵牛雜湯
Address: Raohe Street, Songshan District, Taipei City, Taiwan 105
Nearest MRT: Songshan (Green Line)
Hours: 5:00pm - 11:00pm

 




🌜東發號 油飯・麵線 literally Dong Fatt Oil Rice & Rice Noodle (Mee Suah). Local peoples' favourite with no Michelin Star or Bib Gourmand accolade. It's a good non tourist trap to get an excellent oyster mee suah. It's the quintessential small dingy, century old Taiwanese hole in the wall food shop to get an authentic local experience.

The tea colour watery soup is savoury sweet (and not thicken with starch). The soup is made by boiling pork bones and large intestines. The pieces of pig intestines are very well cleaned and cooked to just the right doneness, so they are tender with a slight crunch to the bite. The thumb size oysters are very fresh, plump and juicy. The oysters taste sweet briny like the sea. The rice noodles (mee suah) are soft and smooth.

Add a little bit of their house made chili sauce to spice up the flavours.

Eat the mee suah together with a bowl of minced pork soup. They are also famous for their oil rice which is glutinous rice cooked with pork, dried shrimp, mushroom, ginger and sesame oil.

Restaurant name: 東發號 油飯・麵線 Dong Fatt Oil Rice & Rice Noodle
Address: No. 94, Raohe Street, Songshan District, Taipei City, Taiwan 105
Nearest MRT: Songshan (Green Line)
Tel: +886 2 2769 5739
Hours: 8:30am – 12:00 midnight







Of course, Raohe is more, much more than these. It is one of Taipei's largest and most popular night markets boasting the whole range of food and snacks to rival the best in Taiwan. Just go wild and splurge your calories on fried chicken chops, grilled sausages, bubble tea and all kinds of imaginable and unimaginable foodie goodies. What I mean is, just go lah!

Date: 4 May 2020

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