10 Best Local Foods in Taipei

Beef Noodle Soup (or New Rou Mian) is so popular in Taipei that it has a festival in its honour every year. As a result, the range of places selling this tasty dish is very broad, with each claiming to be the best.

The meal itself is very simple – thick-cut wheat or flour noodles with tender cuts of beef in a tick beef broth. In the original version, there are no herbs or spices added – just a few bits of cabbage for a extra taste and texture – which makes it practically unique among Chinese food. Many of the street stalls selling this hearty dish add a dollop of chilli butter to spice things up.

The signature dish of the renowned Din Tai Fung restaurant chain, these bite-sized dumplings have paper-thin wrappings around tender pork meatballs in a rich, hot broth. Despite its simplicity, it is extremely popular with locals and tourists alike for its great flavour and has carried the Taipei-based restaurant to international acclaim.

You can’t really say you’ve visited Taiwan without having tried one – just be careful not to eat them too quickly. Give the soup some time to cool or you might get a scalding surprise!

An excellent souvenir to take home to your friends and family (assuming that you can resist the temptation to eat them all before you get there), these sweet, fruity delights are made from the fresh pineapples of the Bagua Mountains in Taiwan. They’re turned into a rich jam filling, which is presented in a slightly buttery pastry to create these moreish little cuboid cakes. The best of these are the gourmet offerings of Sunny Hills and are appropriately named “Sunny Delights”.

Stinky Tofu is a very divisive Taiwanese snack: you either love it or hate it, and the strength of your sense of smell will probably have a lot to do with which. It consists of a deep-fried cube of bean curd which has fermented in a vegetable, shellfish, milk or meat brine. It is served coated in a sweet and spicy sauce and offers a tasty mix of textures, from the crispy casing to the soft filling. Popular with tourists as a dare and with locals as a snack, stinky tofu can be very easily found in most of the Taipei night markets – just follow your nose!

Chicken’s Feet is not a fanciful description – it is exactly what it sounds like. Remarkably, this slightly gelatinous and fatty treat is so popular and common in Taipei that it is even sold in the cinemas as an alternative to popcorn! They can be a little fiddly to eat and there is not much meat on each foot, but they are available in a choice of preparations (just like popcorn is) and make an interesting, novel and tasty snack, as well as a fun addition to your Instagram feed.

A perfect treat for those hot and sticky summer days in Taipei, Chinese shaved ice is an adaptation of the Philippines’ halo-halo. Baobing, as it is known locally, uses fruit (mango is a favourite, but strawberry and melon are common, too) mixed with ice and condensed milk to create a popular thirst-quenching dessert. Baobing is sometimes also called a shaved ice mountain due to the huge servings which, with milk, fruit juices and melting ice streaming down the sides, makes it look like an erupting volcano.

A very gooey, chewy snack which is commonly found in Taipei’s night markets, the oyster omelette is particularly popular among tourists visiting the city. The primary ingredient is the small oysters found around Taiwan’s coastline. They are folded into an omelette made with a dose of sweet potato starch added, making it thicker and chewier than normal. It is usually served with a savoury sauce, sometimes with an added kick of chilli to spice up the snack.

A Taiwanese variant of the European ‘blood pudding’, this is exactly what it sounds like. To be precise, it is a glutinous mix of pig’s blood and sticky rice, which is steamed and then coated in a layer of peanut powder. It is served like a lollipop and is a favourite snack for those walking around Taipei’s night markets. If you are not too squeamish to try it, you’ll find it to be a chewy treat with a salty, spicy and sweet flavour.

Gua Bao is sometimes described as Taiwan’s answer to the American hamburger. This popular market snack looks very similar, but the sesame seed-covered bap is swapped for a steamed bun and the beef patty is replaced with braised pork belly, pickled Chinese cabbage and powdered peanuts. The flavour is a lot more diverse, as a result, including salty, sour and sweet notes. You still get the satisfying sensation of grease running down your chin, though. Just like a hamburger, Gua Bao is a real diet-breaker!

Lurou Fan is a very popular dish in Taipei and, like many such dishes, it’s both remarkably simple and extremely tasty. It consists of finely-chopped pork belly that’s been slow-cooked in soy sauce and Chinese 5 spice. This is spooned on top of rice, which soaks up all the fat and the flavourful sauce. It makes a really mouth-watering comfort food, with a slightly sweet and salty flavour. As simple as this may seem, the debate about whether it originated from Shandong Province in mainland China or from Taipei is one which even the city authorities are involved in.