Our hosts drove us to 一中街 (YiZhong street) where the night market is located. It actually walkable from our hotel too. They gave us simple instructions on how to get back to our hotel later.
It was still bright when we reached Yi Zhong street, not knowing what and where to start with, we simple just walk straight after alighting from the car. We will be on our own for tonight since our hosts are going to stay with their friends. Having been to Fengjia Night Market the other time, we welcome the idea of visiting another Taichung Night Market.
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| A catchy name |
1st stall we saw sells deep fried squid, I lost count of the number of times I had this dish in Taiwan this time haha but am still not sick of it. Ordered a small portion since Mr Love is not a fan of squid.
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| Different portion sizes to choose from |
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| The store sign board |
The thing about Taiwanese street food? You have an array of sauces to choose from to go with your food.Many a times, I am too caught up reading and then making a decision on the sauces and jammed up the queue. Guess I am not too use of having so much choices of sauce.
Generally, these are the few flavours that are available not matter what kind of food they sell. Namely original, seaweed, salt and pepper, terriyaki, lemon and spicy. Most stall will have one or two special flavours of their own.
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| Preparing my order |
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| Seaweed deep fried squid |
We continued our walk and came across a stall selling fried sweet potatoes. I am seriously not a fan of sweet potato and thus Mr Love brought a portion for himself. He did hesitate for a while as this is a pretty filling snack and he gotta finish it by himself. Still he gave in to his craving Haha.
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| Sweet potato fries |
Since there was a heavy downpour earlier there is not much of a crowd to speak of ad we easily found a spot to stand and enjoy our snacks. From where I stood, I noticed a stall selling beef cubes. Looks tempting and went over to take a look after I finish the squid.
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| Beef cube stall spotted |
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| Cutting the beef into cubes |
Turns out, they are selling beef cubes directly grill by fire flames and the fire flames seems very strong, can feel the heat even though I was standing a distance away from the stall. Again, there are a few toppings to choose from and I chose pepper and salt this time round. Prices were not steep either, a small portion cost NT50, large is NT70 if I am not wrong.
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| Different toppings to choose from |
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| Grilling the cubes |
The beef were really very tender, not over grilled though the fire flame seems strong. Pepper and salt retained the juice of the meat and I can practically taste the sweetness of the meat. In Singapore, the small portion will set you back by at least SGD10 and you might not get beef as fresh as this.
We did spotted the small franchise in other night markets but didn't try anymore.
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| Our small portion beef cubes |
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| Crowd starts to fill in |
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| YiZhong 2nd street |
Beside the beef cube stall is a mysterious stall that we cannot make out what it is selling based on the signboard. A long queue was forming and we couldn't see well what they are preparing too. Out of curiosity we stood there and observed what the others are buying.
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| Mysterious stall |
Turns out, they are selling deep fried chicken cutlet. Haha. With the black signboard and design, one really cannot tell this is a deep fried chicken stall. Anyways Mr Love is craving for chicken cutlet so we queued up for one. They will only start frying the cutlet when you order so gotta wait for a while before your food is served.
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| Selling chicken cutlet |
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| Chicken cutlet |
We took a break from eating after the chicken cutlet and walk along a apparels street. There are shops on the left side and make shift stalls on the right selling random stuff. I zoomed in on stalls/shops selling accessories.
Taiwan is well known for it's night markets' street food and affordable Japanese/Korean inspired clothes. But many don't mention their affordable accessories which many claim imported from Korea. Since I am unable to buy their clothing due to my big size, I buy accessories to go with my clothes. Muhaha. I usually will buy more earrings and once in a while necklace or bracelets.
If you look well enough, it is not too difficult to find stalls that sell earrings for NT100 (SGD5) and their designs are all very trendy. There are higher pricing ones but usually I won't buy anything more than NT200 (SGD10). Hehe
I brought a pair of earring for NTD100 here and a necklace for NT100 too. Hehe But I took some digging in a few stalls before finding the treasures haha. Like treasure hunt but I enjoy this in night market and even more when I snag a few cheap and pretty accessories.
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| My NT 100 necklace:) |
We came across a Takopachi stall and brought a portion to share 6 of it only costs NT40 and the filling inside are generous. Very pleased with the purchase and with this, we ended our night market walk and proceed to walk back to our hotel which is 20min away. Luckily we had the unlimited 3G data plan and used Goggle Map to direct us back the hotel.
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| Last snack for the night |
If you asked me, I like Yizhong night market more than Fengjia Night market which is also in Taichung. For 1 Yizhong is nearer to Taichung Train station which makes it more accessible especially if you are in Taichung for the 1st time and stayed around the train station area.
Also though it is of a smaller scale than Fengjia, I find it easier to go around with only 1 long main street with stores and stalls along the way. Fengjia is much bigger which shops all around the food street. We didn't managed to cover it the other time we went and find it like a maze when we were walking in the night market.
Lastly I heard that crowd in Fengjia is crazy during weekend i.e Fri-Sun. While we were in Yizhong on a Sunday night, the crowd is manageable and we moved around with ease. This is essential when I wanna go around the stalls to "dig" the treasures. Hehe.
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