Taiwan2014之梅雨的季节- Hsinchu Chenghuang Temple Night Market (新竹城隍庙夜市）

We had the luxury of travelling in a car this time round and thus did no research of the night market in Hsinchu.

姗姗姐explained that most if not all of the night markets in Taiwan started with make shift stalls around temples. And therefore, you will find a temple around the nearly every night market.

The temple near the night market that we are going is called 新竹都城隍庙 (Hsinchu Du Cheng Huang Temple). Mr Love and I did went in and walked around after eating to visit the temple but most of the deities here are not known to us and thus we did a simple praying and left.

Crowded Saturday

 There was this long street of vendors selling all different kinds of street food here. But our hosts had other plans, thry brought us to the area where sitting is available, intending to let us try the different food of Hsinchu.

The layout here is pretty similar to the old Shihlin night market but the food they have here are totally different. Most stalls sell meat balls here which is not readily available in Shihlin night market. I didn't see any stalls selling fried chicken though. Even the vermicelli(bee hoon) sold here is cooked differently or with different ingredients. Do what the Romans do in Rome. We let our hosts do the ordering since they will know what is the best around here.

Famous braised pork rice

Since it is still early at 5pm, the crowd is just filling up. We found a seat with ease. We started with ordering braised pork rice at 1 of the famous stall here Liu Jia （柳家）. They have been here for around 30-40years? Couldnt remember.

But even the way they named their braised pork rice in Mandarin is different from what I know. The ones that we used to eat in Taipei is called 卤肉饭, here it is called 肉燥饭. Frankly speaking, I didn't know what is the difference since they look and taste the same to me. Hehe. But I must say the version here is served with leaner meat which suits my taste since I don't fancy fatty meat.

The queue here is never ending. Throughout the half an hour we are here, the queue maintains at 10pax in the queue at any 1 time. But they moved pretty quickly though.

柳家肉燥饭

Also on the table are 贡丸，肉圆 (both meat balls) ，干米粉  (dried bee hoon), "Fen zan" which are ordered from the same stall.

Meat ball stall

Crowd is filling in

1st dish served is called Fen Zan(粉 ) . It looks some sort like meat wrapped inside intestines and I am hesitant to try this dish for I have fear of innards. So 姗姗姐assured me that it is not any innard of any kind but flour. Yes, the brown in colour outer skin is made of flour and dunno what mixture which makes it chewy and springy as you take a bite into it.

The inner part is minced meat and it is served with some sweet sauce and ginger to give it a better taste. I must admit that though the dish looks so so only but it actually taste good when you add all the combinations to together while eating.

Then came the 肉圆 (meatball) which is anything that we know of in South East Asia. It is extremly large in size and looks soggy on the 1st look due to the sauce on it. Haha

The skin tastes like those of 水晶包 kind and inside the meat is seasoned with 红糟. I was a bit amused by the size of it. We shared 2 among the 4 of us and I took more skin than the filling since I am not a pork person to start with . The trip here today is a bit overdosed on pork if you asked me. But since this is the speciality of Hsinchu, we have to try it.

Very large 肉圆

贡丸(gong wan) was served next and yes I finally saw something I knew (meat balls) though it have a different name here in Taiwan. Seriously I don't think there is any difference between the 2 but the meat balls were nice and does not have the meaty taste than those we have in Singapore. I totally hate eating meat balls here.

I like the soup though. Its like a clear and refreshing though cooked with meat. Again I took more of the soup than the main character (meat balls) hehe.

贡丸

Vermicelli is the local product of Hsinchu and you can find alot of stalls here selling different kind of it along the street. We tried the dried version instead of the soup 1. Its well cooked but not too dried. As you know vermicelli dries up pretty fast and will not taste that good after a while. But the version here was not anything like that.

It was a plain and simple dish with bean spouts, soy sauce and some fried onions added to it, but nevertheless it tastes good.

Dried bee hoon

We were full and tired by the time we finished the food and touring the temple and decided to go back to the hosts' house for a rest before deciding whether to have supper or not. On our way to get the car, we came across a stall that sells 润饼 (Run Bing) which is similar to popiah of Singapore.

There are also different flavours to choose from and we ordered 1 spicy 1 to share. Inside, there are veggies, eggs, crushed peanuts, spicy sauce and I forgot what else. The skin used to wrap the ingredients are just like our popiah skin but with a more heavy flour taste.

Different flavours to choose from

I didn't really fancy the Taiwan version popiah as I loved the piping hot ma-guang they served in the local version. The 1 in Taiwan is cold on the other hand, which is doesn't taste as good in my opinion. Also, the spicy version here is too spicy for my liking. Am lucky we ordered 1 only.

With this, we proceed home to get a much needed rest. Its been nearly 36 hours that both Mr Love and I didnt get a good rest. We worked a full day on fri before taking a mid night flight to Taiwan. Didnt catch much of sleep in between too.

Boss busy preparing our order

Map to night market from Hsinchu train station