After spending the day exploring Dadaocheng and Dihua Street, we boarded the MRT and travelled to Shilin Night Market in Taipei’s Shilin District. Shilin Night Market is one of Taiwan’s biggest and most well-known night markets. Anyone visiting Taipei should not miss this ‘attraction’. 🙂
Shilin Night Market 士林夜市
Shilin Night Market is known for its extensive selection of street food, shopping, and entertainment options. The night market is divided into several different sections, each with its own unique offerings. Expect to see a large range of shops and sellers offering clothing, accessories, and various trinkets, as well as gaming stalls, activity booths, claw machines, and other things, in addition to a wide choice of delectable and reasonably priced street cuisine.
How to get to Shilin Night Market
Jiantan station, not Shilin station, is the MRT station closest to Shilin Night Market.
Go to Jiantan Station on the MRT’s red line (R15). From Exit 1, proceed straight ahead to the crosswalk. Cross the road to the left in diagonal motion. To reach the Shilin Market building, you can either continue walking down Jihe Road on the left, or you can turn right onto Wenlin Road and then turn left onto Dadong Road, where there are even more shops to explore. You only need to turn left into the lane that goes to the Shilin Market building from Dadong Road.
Exploring the surrounding area
A whole roasted suckling pig in all its glory! Definitely have to come back next time to try this.
Stumbled upon 老張炭烤燒餅 & 基河豆漿店 on 181 Jihe Road. 基河豆漿店 operates in the morning from 5.30am to 11.00am, selling breakfast items like soy bean milk, you tiao, radish cake and the like. On the other hand, 老張炭烤燒餅 operates in the evening from 3.00pm to 10.30pm and sells pepper cakes, breads and pastries. Saw on their menu that they had this Sourdough Salty Bread so I got one to try. Not bad!
We are always drinking bubble tea in the Land of Bubble Tea, haha! After trying so many different brands, I still think Xing Fu Tang is the best! 😉 Can never have enough of the Brown Sugar Boba Milk.
Story about Shilin Market
On the ground level of the Shilin Market, you can find fresh produce like meat, vegetables & fruits, dried goods, souvenirs, clothing, accessories, tech gadgets, and game/activity stalls. There’s a food court on level B1 with various vendors selling different local cuisines. B2 and B3 are carparks.
The lively Shilin Night Market encompasses the area around this market building, including the street food vendors, eateries, retail shops and entertainment outlets.
Have fun and enjoy yourself
There are several game stalls at the Shilin Night Market where visitors can participate in carnival games like shooting galleries, ring tosses, bottle ups, balloon pops, etc.
Children can have a great time here too
Naturally, this place is great for families as well because there are loads of kid-friendly activities.
There are many claw machines in the area, including this ‘shit’ one, haha! Gross!
Shop till you drop
As there are many stores selling a wide variety of goods, including t-shirts, children’s apparel, fashion handbags, shoes, figurines & collectibles, souvenirs, local snacks/food gifts, etc., Shilin Night Market is also a shopping paradise. You can test your bargaining skills here!
Truly a street food wonderland
The food area is the busiest and offers a wide selection of local specialties, including traditional Taiwanese dishes and snacks like oyster omelettes, Taiwanese sausages, scallion pancakes, and stinky tofu. Even international cuisines like sushi and Thai food are available.
Sweet potato balls
Grilled beef cubes
Fried quail eggs on sticks and tanghulu
We checked out the basement food court and had oyster omelette and stinky tofu at 忠誠號蚵仔煎. Also got a Honey Bittergourd Juice from a drinks stall nearby. So refreshing and good!
Our final course of the evening was a hearty bag of meat, vegetables, tofu and mushrooms tossed with various seasonings from 阿姨鹽水雞. After you choose the items you want, they will chop, season and pack everything into a plastic bag for you.
Final thoughts
Shilin Night Market had a tonne to see and buy, as well as a tonne to eat, making it easy to spend hours there. This night market was unquestionably much busier than the other night markets we had visited, especially between the hours of 7-8 pm. It would be easier to get a table at the food court and faster to purchase food at the street food stalls if you came on a weekday evening rather than a weekend to avoid the crowds. Although there was a nice variety of food, nothing stood out as particularly noteworthy. Ningxia Night Market might be a better place to locate tastier street food. 🙂