After an awesome late lunch at Kura Sushi, we headed towards the Taipei Main Station to check out the underground mall, where I spent ages shopping for skincare and beauty products, lol! Supposed to make our way to Ningxia Night Market but we were ‘hijacked’ by L’Herboflore sales promoters.
Before coming to Taiwan, I had already prepared my shopping list and L’Herboflore products were on my to-buy list. These sales people were so passionately aggressive that they didn’t just give us samples (with really cute looking packaging btw!) but also applied all their best-selling masks and lotions on us. Felt as though we went into the shop for a facial, lol. By the time we were done, we were already feeling peckish. So…off to Ningxia Night Market!
Ningxia Night Market — A Must-Visit Market In Taipei
From Taipei Main Station, it took us about 10-12 minutes to walk to Ningxia Night Market. Quite a straightforward route.
How to get to Ningxia Night Market by MRT?
If you’re taking the MRT, you can alight at either Zhongshan Station (R11) or Shuanglian Station (R12) and then take a 8-10 minute walk to Ningxia Night Market.
From Zhongshan Station, go out Exit 1 and walk along Nanjing W. Road towards Chengde Road until you reach Ningxia Road.
From Shuanglian Station, go out Exit 1 and walk along Minsheng W. Road towards Chengde Road until you reach Ningxia Road.
What’s in Ningxia Night Market?
Unlike other night markets where there would often be a mix of food and non-food stalls, Ningxia Night Market is predominantly a foodie paradise that specialises in local Taiwanese snacks and food.
Entire length of the night market is approximately 150 metres which stretches along Ningxia Road. Food stalls are lined up on both sides of the road, leaving just a narrow walkway in between. It doesn’t take long to walk from one end to the other but when the area starts to fill up with people, it can be quite a challenge to move around.
Some of the stalls have seating areas behind them so instead of getting takeaways, you can also dine there (so long you order something from the respective stalls). If you plan to do that, then perhaps go early like 5.30pm+ before the crowd comes in.
These were some of the local eats we tried:
Salad Boat Sandwich 沙拉船
Deep fried bread filled with cucumber, tomato, ham and braised egg. I thought this would be really oily but to my surprise, it wasn’t. The outside of the bread was a little crispy and the refreshing vegetables gave a nice textural crunch, which also reduced the greasiness of the whole thing. Not bad!
Mountain Pig Sausage 山猪肉香肠
Very meaty and juicy. No gamey taste at all. Taiwanese sausages are indeed the best!
Small Intestine in Large Intestine 大肠包小肠
This is basically a grilled meat sausage encased in a glutinous rice sausage. It’s like a Taiwanese version of the hot dog except that you use rice instead of bread to wrap the sausage. The glutinous rice was nicely flavoured. Very soft and tasty on its own. Could taste ginger sauce in it. The sausage was really juicy. There were cucumber and pickled vegetable in the filling too.
Kao Hei Lun 烤黑轮
This was like a firm and chewy flat fish cake. The marinade sauce was not bad. Sweet and savoury.
Peanut Ice Cream Roll 花生卷冰淇淋
A weird combination of shaved peanut brittle, ice cream and coriander wrapped in popiah (fresh spring roll) skin. I’m really not sure whether to categorise this as a savoury or sweet item because it’s really the best of both worlds. At first bite, I felt confused but as I slowly savoured the roll, I thought the flavours worked really well together and overall, it was a rather refreshing treat because the ice cream (couldn’t make out the flavours, possibly coconut) wasn’t overly sweet, the peanut gave a lovely nutty fragrance and the coriander added freshness. Must try!
Grilled Boneless Chicken Leg 无骨鸡腿排
Picked sea salt seasoning to go with my skewer. Meat was moist with a nice smoky flavour. Loved the charred bits on the meat surface, haha. Delicious!
Fried Taro Balls
We got both the original and salted egg yolk taro balls. They were fresh out of the frying oil and were super steaming hot. Outside of the balls was really crispy and the inside was soft and fluffy. Between the two flavours, I would prefer the original one better as the taro flavour stood out more. The salted egg yolk one had sweet meat floss in it which really overpowered the natural flavour of the taro. Original’s the best!
Of course the above weren’t just all. There were still lots of other food that we didn’t get to try. Such as grilled seafood, fried chicken, grilled king oyster mushroom, pepper shrimps, sweet potato balls, scallion pancakes and more.
Need a drink after all that munching? I recommend the watermelon juice (super refreshing) and papaya milk (fragrantly milky).
Final thoughts
Prices were generally affordable at Ningxia Night Market. All depending on what you’re getting. Of course premium seafood items like grilled lobsters and scallops would be more expensive. What we really liked about this night market was the variety of local food available. Very Taiwanese, nothing overly fusion or pretentious. If you like street food without the chaos, this would be a very pleasant night market to check out. 🙂