This is a guest post by Jun Hoe, one of the cofounders of Snowflakes, located in Selayang Mall and The Sphere, Bangsar South. What is Snowflakes? Find out more here – http://www.meluvsnowflakes.com/

A while back, me and some buddies journeyed to Taipei, Taiwan to experience for ourselves first hand, what the big fuss was about with Taiwanese streetfood. We stayed at a location that was about a 10 min walk away from Taiwan’s Central Station. The moment we arrived, we dropped our bags in the hotel room and rushed downstairs to start our 5 day long food tasting adventure. Right there to greet us, directly next to our hotel..guess what? A bubble tea shop! Our adventure had begun!

Since none of us could read Chinese (well except for one of us, though not that well), we thanked god for pictures and I pointed at the most normal looking one which turned out to be Milk Tea with Pearls. Boring, yes, but it was the best bubble tea I’ve ever tasted in my life. The milk was fresh and so were the pearls. Really soft and chewy even to the core unlike the ones we have in Malaysia. As we progressed on our journey we found it peculiar that every single bubble tea shop used exactly the same brand of milk. Anyway the cup came with a cute little sling and an individually wrapped straw.

Chinese Pancakes

Our next stop wasn’t far away. Actually it was just right next to the bubble tea shop. It was a donut shop that didn’t sell donuts. Instead it looked like they were selling Chinese pancakes. It was basically fried flour with egg, lettuce and a choice of filling, folded up and cut into squares. We got tuna and pork. Both delicious.

Next we headed for the nearest underground train station. Unlike in Malaysia where retail possibilities at a train station would normally consist of 1 stall selling corn in a cup and some packets of cold nasi lemak, Taipei’s central train station was a whole shopping arcade with a myriad of shops and restaurants spanning hundreds of meters of underground tunnels. Kind of like Sungei Wang meets KL Sentral but with everything underground.

Another thing about Taipei that I noticed was that there were people EVERYWHERE. Everywhere you go at anytime of the day, its jam packed with people. You cant go anywhere without 500 people walking in front of you. From dusk till dawn they’re in malls, night markets, on the streets, even in a deserted alley you will find a group of teenagers break dancing or something. Which by the way, is a good thing because it made finding good food easier. We just looked for the shop with the longest queue.

Ice Cream Popiah

There are six major night markets in Taipei. The first one we visited was called the Snake Alley (Longshan) night market. Apparently there were places there where you could order snake blood and meat however, we did not come across any such stall. Which was good because we weren’t planning to be a food taster on Bizzare Foods (there’s probably a reason why that guy has no hair). Instead we found something even more interesting: Ice cream and peanut popiah! The lady starts off by shaving a huge block of peanut brittle, then sprinkles it on top of pineapple, yam and peanut ice cream, adds some cilantro (yes. Cilantro) and wraps the whole thing in a popiah-like wrap. It sounds weird but it didn’t taste all that bad. Its ice cream but the rest of the ingredients gives you something to chew on at the same time.

Ice Juice

The next thing we came across, we knew we had to try because there was a super long line outside the shop.

The signage said ice juice but on closer inspection, they were selling ice kacang. But this aint your ordinary ice kacang shop. One serving looked like it could be shared among a whole basketball team.

They shaved the ice on to a huge plate then shaped it until it looked like a cake. Next they pile on to the ice whatever you chose from their selection of probably more that 30 toppings. And guess what, they piled it on good. There were all kinds of stuff you could put on, like varieties of beans, yam, different flavored sago, pearls, jellies, custards, fruits, nuts, etc. It all looked so appetizing and a little overwhelming to me.

In the end we settled for just plain mango because it was crowded and everyone was in a rush and it was the easiest to order. The mangoes were super fresh because I saw them cut it right before they piled it on (fastest I’ve ever seen anyone cut a mango by the way). Super sweet too. Mind you I like sweet stuff but this was really sweet. I guess they were really generous with the condensed milk too.

Anyway four of us shared one dish and could barely finish it. Meanwhile at the table next to ours, everyone had their own plate.

A lot of stuff we found in the night markets was more or less the same stuff you can find at the night markets here in KL. For example the fried chicken, fried fish/meatballs, dumplings and sausages. However, the one thing that I assure you you will not find in KL is this: Individually, I have no clue what the heck it is but on the whole I’d say that’s a whole cart-load of pig! I know for a fact that William dreams about a cart-loads of pig every night and really I’m proud to be the one to inform him that his dream has become reality.

Anyways, another interesting thing we found was this super high soft-serve ice-cream! Check out the kid trying to eat it. He literally has to hold the cone down to his zipper to reach the tip of the ice cream.

Besides the usual vanilla and chocolate flavours you could also choose a variety of fruity ones. There was this guy who ordered a long chocolate one and was enjoying it a little too much until it just looked obscene. This shop’s location is in Ximenting. Which is basically the shopping district where all the cool kids hang out. Kinda like the Shibuya of Taiwan.

Part 2 of this post will be published next week, so stay tuned for more…