Taiwan2014之梅雨的季节-中坜观光夜市（ Zhongli Night Market)

I once read in a foreigner who is staying in Taiwan blog that he finds Zhongli Night market the neatest among all in those he visited and got interested in this night market.

Again, it is out of the way if you are staying in Taipei since it's between Hsinchu & Tao Yuan and besides Taipei have more night markets that you can ever finished going to and will not consider others unless it's your Nth time in Taipei.

Train ride from Taipei (South bound) is around 45min if taking an express train. Station name is Jhongli/Zhongli(中坜). Turns out, the train ride from Hsinchu (Northbound) is as long as from Taipei. Around 45min again if it's an express train.

Having no other plans after Neiwan, we decided to make a trip down to Zhongli even with the long travelling time. However, we must keep in mind the returning train time since last train to Liujia from Hsinchu is 11pm+.

Train to Zhongli

We reached Hsinchu from Neiwan at around 19:00 and thus is only able to catch the 19:17 train to Zhongli which will reach at around 20:00. That leaves us an hr plus before we need to catch either the 21:22 or 21:46 train to enable us to catch 1 of the 2 last trains back to Liujia.

Time was certainly not on our side. The night market is around 20min of walk from the train station and we decided to take a cab to save time. This is the 1st time that I had bad experience with the Taiwanese. No cab was willing to take us because of the short distance!!

Every cab that we approached referred us to the cab behind. Initially I thought the cabs in front were those for long distances and went all the way back to the line. But alas, it turns out that everyone was waiting for a long distance passenger and there was at least 20 cabs on the street in front of the station. I seriously cannot comprehend. You rather wait for the whole night than to take a passenger and earn some monies?

After 20mins of walking frm train station

After asking about 5cabs, we gave up since time is tickling by and we are super hungry by then. With the help of our trusty Ipad map we navigate our way to the night market. And it is true that we will need walk 20min thru the streets and alleys. Not sure why but there isn't any one else walking to the night market like us. Guess most of them who visited this night markets are locals and will have their own mode of transport.

Grilled chicken thighs

True to what the blogger mentioned, this is 1 of the neatest night market I ever seen. The stalls are lined up along 2sides of the street and 2 rows in the middle. Thus there are 2 walking paths for market goers to walk along the street. The night market is a long street that you can walk through 1 stretch and come back to the starting point via the other stretch.

Flavourings

We were dying of hunger by the time we hit Zhongli night market. Having brisk walked here from the train station. The 1st stall we came sells BBQ chicken thighs and again you get to select from various toppings. Wanted to order 4 at 1 go but Mr Love talked me out of it since there are tons of other food to choose from. So, we ordered 1 seaweed flavour to try.

The signboard

Was lucky that I listened to Mr Love cause the grilled chicken thigh is not nice at all. I think the marinate didn't seep into the meat and thus the grilled chicken didn't taste as fragrant as it should be.

We then saw a stall selling Taiwanese sausage and I choose a black boar meat 1. Hehe It cause NT35 a stick here.

Grilled Taiwanese Sausage

While I was ordering Taiwanese sausage, Mr Love went to the next stall to check out what they are selling. Turns out, it is smelly tofu. Something that we did not try after the 1st trip as Mr Love had got stomach upset after trying it.

This time round, it is Mr Love who wants to try again and the sauces are separated from the deep fried smelly tofu. The previous version we tried had the sauces poured all over it. We brought a share and there are a spicy sauce and 2 different side dishes along in the box. The sauce itself was nice, being spicy and sweet at the same time. I didn't try the side dishes though. But I love the idea of separating the sauce since we can decide how much we wanna dipped the tofu with.

Our smelly deep fried tofu

While Mr Love was waiting for the smelly tofu to be ready, I saw an accessories stall and was immediately attracted to it. Went to take a look and was happy to find that they are selling at NT100-120 a pair depending on the design. Perhaps this is more of a local night market and thus prices are more localized and the vendor did not suspect that I am not a local. Hehe

I took a liking to 2 pairs with 1 costing NT100 and the other NT120. The vendor gave me a NT20 discount and I brought 2 pairs within 5min and went back happily to find Mr Love. He was impressed with my shopping speed. Haha.

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My fav muisc notes

There are really a lot of food here to choose from which is different of what we saw in Taipei night market. But then again, night markets' food usually changed after a while since every year we will find different food in the night market.

We then saw a stall selling something special that we didn't try it in any of the night markets before -Pineapple prawn balls with mayo. The prawn balls are pre deep fried and the stall vendor will refry again when you order from her. A portion here costs NT150.

Pineapple prawn balls

Signboard of the prawn balls stall

Although the prawn balls cost a bit more expensive than other street food in this market, this proves to be worth every cent it cost. The prawns are big and juicy topped with pineapple and mayo. Eating this pipping hot is the way to enjoy this dish.

The portion

Time is 20:45 by the time we covered half of the night market and I was quite frustrated by the lack of time to enjoy this night market which has so many things to offer. More often than not, we just cast a look on the stall and need to decide in a split of second whether we are interested in the food or not.

There are also a lot of stalls here selling goods other than food like accessories, clothes, shoes, underwear and handphone accessories and we didn't have enough time to shop through the stalls here.

Next food we had is fried pork ribs. I didn't really like this as the pork used is not exactly fresh and there is a bad taste in the meat. This is not exactly pork ribs they use, its all meat only and there isn't much seasoning used. A small portion here costs NT55.

Store front of fried pork ribs stall

I was already very full by the time we brought the pork ribs and we are nearing the end of the night market. We saw something here that looks like Korean street food that we had previously. Extra large hot dog.

We brought 1 to share but didn't managed to finished since it is most flour that coated the hot dog.

Extra large hot dog

Lastly we brought a oyster ball (蛤喋） that we previously had in Lukang but the outlook didn't look anything like the version we had there.

True enough, the taste is no where near the 1 we had in Lukang and Mr Love was disappointed with the tasting. The thing we learnt about the eating culture here is although the name might be the same but the taste and the preparation method varies when you travel from city to city. You might like 1 version but dislike the other.

Oyster ball

Time check is 21:15 now and we have need to catch the 21:46 train back to Hsinchu. Mr Love isn't too happy with the planning since we are rushing through the walk here. I decided to try hail a cab here back to the station hoping that we will not get rejected just like the way we did while coming here.

We got lucky with the 1st cab I asked though he doesn't seems too thrill at the destination. But he can go to the station and try picking up other passengers going to longer distance. But I think we are ripped off as he charges us NT220 for the trip which is around SGD10 and the distance isn't that long when all it took was 5min to reach the station.

We did not have much choice either as we need to catch the train back and transit to another 1 back to Liujia.

It's pretty disappointing to rush through this trip but we are glad that we came but we were also lucky since the rain has stopped and we can walk thru the night market with ease.

Perhaps I will allocate more time to travel here the next time we are here. But certainly I know we will be back to explore more of the food offered here.

Map from Zhongli Station to the night market