The fun of夜yè市shì is that the food is not expensive, there is no formality, you meet fun local people, and get to test your threshold on the innovative/experimental food. Well, to us Chinese, the food is about putting edible material together and creates new sensation or an entire new food group. For me, it's just about eat and walking at the same time without causing the "shi" and "boo". And it's like breakfast - full of infinite possibilities.
So here is my own person top 10, and the average selling price in its local currency.
My all time favorite is 猪zhū血xiě糕gāo (NT$25/piece)－the pig (猪zhū) blood (血xiě) cake (糕gāo). Yes, it sounds gross and I sound like one of those HBO True Blood biters, but I grew up with this and I missed it whenever I could not have it for a long time. The gross part is that, I am really sorry to say this, the blood part is true. This snack originally is made mixed with chicken blood, but the use of blood depends on which type of animal blood is easier to acquire. It is more common now by using pig's blood. It's not kosher, but I am not a Jew (ok, I know this is just a lame excuse).
This rectangular piece of thick black block is normally served on a stick. The seller takes it out of the bamboo steamer, soak it in soy sauce which is normally house blended to give special flavor, and then soak in hot sauce if spicy taste is preferred. After that, the cake will be blanketed with peanut powder, and dabbed with coriander. The taste, well, personally I prefer a firmer texture as I like to chew on things (no erotic implication here). The cake is made of sticky rice, so the taste and texture mainly come from the rice. It also has gentle sweetness from the peanut power, which is mixed with the scent of the coriander. Except for the name, the blood part is really undetectable at all. Over the 4 decades of my life, I have tasted good and bad and the really good and bad ones but I've never tasted blood in this food. To a point I think the blood part is a nickname for the black appearance. Again, I am very sorry to say this, it IS indeed from the blood. I think I can skip the part on how to eat this, as it is no more than an open wide and bite. Oh dear, did I just say that?
香xiāng肠cháng (NT$35/pc, 3 for NT$100) would be my next choice, although this one sometimes rises to the top. 香xiāng (scented, smell good) 肠cháng (intestine) is, fortunately, not made of any scented intestine of any animal . This name is purely a description of the appearance and the flavor. It is the official name for sausage. yes, sausage. The make and the look is no more than the regular sausage, so why is it so special and a must try? As I said, food to Chinese is about putting edible material together and creates a new sensation, so the special part is how they prepare the sausage and what you can have inside the opened up sausage. The sausage stand roasts the sausage on an open fire and is also served on a stick. My personal favorite is the original, pure sausage with no extra. There is a particular stand that I go to (and go to only, caused I tried others), their blend of sausage tastes juicy and rich, with the firmness that I like. But for the variety that makes this sausage different, there are fillings that can be chose from: black pepper, lemon juice, chopped garlic, chopped coriander, chocolate, red onion, etc. And if the sausage is not big enough a portion, the stand also has can wrap the sausage in another larger sticky rice sausage, which is called 大dà (big) 肠cháng (intestine) 包bāo (to wrap) 小shǎo (small) 肠 cháng (intestine), in which the larger sticky rice sausage is the "big intestine" and the regular size sausage the "small intestine". This one normally is at NT$45 a piece.
盐yán酥sū鸡jï (NT$30 per serving, around 100g) is more than just crispy fried small pieces of chicken with salty flavor as the name suggests. 盐yán means salt, 酥sū is one of the descriptions for crispy and crunchy, and 鸡jï is the chicken here. This name originally is for chicken only, but as the category expends (we are fun loving people, remember?), this name of the 'cousin' now stands for a lot more than chicken. The key is to deep-fry everything and sprinkle with a lot of those salty mixed pepper. The things you can choose from are all displayed before the boiling pot of oil. There are pig blood cakes, long string beans, green pepper, types of mushroom, chicken steak, hot dog, fish, different types of tofu, hash brown (the potato 'cake'), taro sandwich (two slices of Ritz cookies with mashed taro in the middle), chicken's 'tusshies' (tukers', behinds; basically the parts where the chickens sit on - among other functions) on the stick, grounded fish cake, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I think the stand itself already defines "the infinite and beyond". I normally spend over NT$100 on the stand, and the portion pretty much gets me stuffed for the whole night. If you bring the food home, besides the usual Coca Cola (ok, and Pepsi if you must), the best drink to wash the food down would be beer. Button's up!!
You may also want to read the introduction of Chinese night market culture
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