Throughout my 10 days in Taiwan and many more days in my past few trips to this country, I have never been short of the beautiful natural scenery that Taiwan is able to offer. Jiufen street provides an alternative to the mountainous areas that Taiwan is able to offer with ease.


With its rustic environment and panoramic seaside and skyline views, it is hard to ignore exploring Jiufen when you plan an itinery for Taiwan. What comes really well with a scenery to admire is good food and Jiufen has a host of options that it is able to provide.


So here's my top 6 list of good foods to try in Jiufen.

How to get there

Take the HSR from Taipei -> Ruifang Station(costs around NT78) -> At the station, you can choose to take the shuttle bus outside the station or choose to take a cab at NT180 to go to Jiufen


To return to Ruifang, you can take the buses 825 and 827.(costs NT15)

Doroyaki Ice Cream


Japanese Doroyaki anyone?

Doraemon's favourite pancake dish is truly made a reality right within Jiufen street. The only difference is that this Doroyaki is filled with ice cream instead of red bean paste. The taro ice cream that I chose matches seamlessly with the pancakes not just on appearance, but on its taste as well. It didn't really matter that it was the cold season in Taiwan, this doroyaki, albeit cold, is still able to work up a truly worthy sensation in your mouth - sweetness of pancakes along with the oozing ice cream filling.


The wide variety of ice cream flavours include red bean, matcha and taro just to name a few.

One Doroyaki ice cream costs NT40.

Fishball soup

Yeap. Your eyes aren't playing tricks with you. This simple fishball soup is probably the best tasting dish within Jiufen street. There are around 3 shops that sell fishball soups but one of them stands out amongst the rest. This famous stall not only serves deliciously bouncy quality fishballs, they are also sold at a cheaper cost as compared to other outlets in the vicinity.


NT50 can get you a bowl of 5 different flavoured fishballs including the spicy otah flavour as compared to the more expensive NT60 just to get the same dish in the other outlets.


The soup base has a rich spring onion taste that is refreshing and delightful.


Taro Ball


Within Jiufen, I tried 2 of the most famous taro ball shops to satiate this big fat appetite that I can't seem to contain. These 2 shops are namely the 阿柑姨 and 赖阿婆 brand and I decided to try the warmer version of the taro balls because of the cold weather during my time there. So based on comparison, I believe that 阿柑姨 brand trumped the other.


The taro ball bowl provided has got bigger peanuts and more taro balls to accompany the usual sweet potato and taro balls in a soup base of green beans, red beans and boiled peanuts. Furthermore, the resting area has got a panoramic view to savour unlike in the other outlet that it is competing for business with.


One taro ball bowl costs NT40.



Tea tasting


Tea tasting is an interesting activity to try in rustic Jiufen and there are plentiful of tea-tasting places within Jiufen itself. I did not manage to dine in because of the cost(at least NT160 must be spent to dine in)but I still managed to try certain flavors in this particular outlet that is portrayed in the picture above. It would definitely be extremely endearing and comfortable to sit in this café-like place while admiring the beauty of Jiufen. Just imagine yourself tasting some hot tea in the cold weather while having a panoramic view to take in. Truly fantastic.


The flavours were plentiful including the usual chrysanthemums and green teas as well as the unique mandarin orange flavored tea.


One fully filled teapot costs around NT100 and could even exceed NT200 depending on the flavour you choose. The shop does sell some typical Taiwanese food as well to accompany the aromatic teas it is able to offer.

Ice cream wrap


Another delightful dessert place in Jiufen. This stall that sells Ice cream wraps have decent thin and soft popiah like wrapping skin plus sweet sticky peanuts that goes with the ice cream flavour that is of your choice.


There is only one such stall in Jiufen street and the shop assistant was really receptive towards me taking pictures of them. The flavours on offer are close to the range provided in the Doroyaki shop and it also matches the quality of the ice cream it offers. Once again, the taro flavour is a must try from this place.


One Ice cream wrap costs NT40.

Escargots


Passing by the streets of Jiufen can be an amusing experience. This shop provides one of those amusing experiences. It is not often where you can actually witness the preparation of an Escargot, let alone in the streets or night markets. Watching the shop owners digging and ripping out the flesh of the escargot was an experience, one that is so appetizing that you would simply want to try it straightaway.


The portion of the Escargot is huge and there were differing softness and texture for different portions of the meat. The middle portion melts in one's mouth while the inner and outer portions were more chewy and certainly had strong traces of seafood scent and taste. The sour and spicy sauce was the gem in this dish.

One set of 3 escargots comes at NT100, while buying one costs NT40.


In that particular day in Taiwan, I planned a trip to not just Jiufen, but to Shifen as well. I will probably give more details of my time in Shifen in one of my upcoming posts but that would be a post devoid or rather, lacking in food as most of the food stalls were closed as my friend and I got carried away with the lanterns and fireworks there. Lack of food? No worries. Shifen has plenty more to offer apart from food.

Doing a food post in the middle of the night has always been torture since it usually never fails to make me hungry. I think I should probably logout and take a rest.


So with that, Peanut has left a marker on another food post.

Stay tuned for more adventures!

Signing off,
KY