I need food! The cold weather accompanied by beautiful cherry blossoms makes me go hungry even faster. Right after walking around the park nearby Uncle Jason’s house, we headed directly to Danshui.
Danshui which means “fresh water”, is a small sea-side town in the New Taipei City in northern Taiwan. Danshui is famous among visitors as it is a popular location to view sunsets as there are several riverside parks.
We of course took the chance to visit the Danshui Old Street. Danshui Old Street is an open air market specializing in traditional handicrafts and street stall snacks. It is located on the north side of the Danshui MRT Station. The first thing we do is sink our teeth to the local Taiwanese Sausages. Ooo… I tried the original flavours and the fatty pork sausage tasted real sweet and juicy!
While walking along the street looking around, we also bought some Salt and Pepper Deep Fried Squid. The squids were lightly battered and deep fried to perfection. My saliva is almost dripping just by thinking about it!
While at the Danshui Old Street, how can I not try out the famous Danshui A-Gei. A-Gei is pretty similar to our local Yong Tau Fu. A-Gei is actually tofu stuffed with flavoured glass noodle and sealed with fish paste (surimi) . The stuffed tofu is later deep fried and served with some mild sweet and spicy sauce. Mmm… if you ask me, I really didn’t enjoy A-Gei that much. The stuffed tofu itself tasted rather bland hence the sauce is quite the key which determines the success of the dish. And to be honest, I find that the sauce is a little too sweet for my liking.
How can we not order the Danshui Fish Balls while street eating in Danshui! It is one of Danshui’s specialty food as Danshui is located near to the sea, hence it is a good place to try the fish balls made from fresh fishes. Danshui Fish Balls are balls of fish paste stuffed with meat and garlic cooked in light broth. There are few variety of fish balls in a bowl and they all tasted really awesome. And trust me, there isn’t any fishy taste to the fish balls!
As for drinks that quenches my thirst, Uncle Jason introduced me to the famous Sour Plum Tea Drink in Danshui. It is a little sweet and sourish drink made from salted pickled plums that have been cooked in syrup. I seriously find the drink rather interesting as I have not tasted anything of similar back in Malaysia. I really enjoyed it, but Deon doesn’t really like it… mainly because he doesn’t really like sourish drinks 🙂
It’s kinda set that I didn’t get to try the Iron Eggs… but seriously, my stomach doesn’t have any empty spot left for me to place the Iron Eggs. Well, I believe there’s always next time… as I strongly believe I be back visiting Taipei real soon.
After a street eating at Danshui Old Street, we drop by near a large fruit stall by the street and do some fruit shopping. The fruit stalls here are really huge and they really do have lots of different types of fresh fruits. Did I mention that all the fruits here looks so giagantic! I think most of the fruits seen here are almost twice the size of what was sold in Malaysia. Woo… looks like I’m gonna have sufficient vitamin C this whole trip 🙂