Seafood Dinner at Taipei Hwashi Tourist Night Market

I have 3 cousins who live in Taipei and all are fluent in speaking, reading and writing in Chinese. How I envy them. For dinner we met with my cousin, Angie the oldest of 3 siblings. She took us to Taipei Hwashi Tourist Night Market for dinner.

This night market was different from Raohe St. night market since it’s under a roof and stalls were permanent. There were stores selling all kinds of stuff.

There were also lots of foot massage places along the whole strip. This one did brisk business.

This one looked really nice and classy but had only a few clients.

My parents went to this one the day before but they liked the one I brought them to better.

This is my cousin Angie and her adorable son Daniel who wasn’t in the mood that night.

The restaurant Angie chose was called 福州海洋平價海鮮餐廳. Sorry there’s no English name.

My dad selected the seafood and decided how it will be cooked.

Turtles anyone? My dad loves turtle stew and I’m glad he didn’t order any. I don’t eat turtle.

I wish he ordered lobster.

I don’t know what kind of clam this was but it was huge! Jin said it’s geoduck. Thanks Jin!

Look at all the live and fresh seafood to choose from.

The dining area was right across the fish tanks and it was really barebones and filled with locals so it must be good.

Out of all the fresh seafood these are some of what my dad selected. These are some of the normal ones.

Angie brought her friend who ate all the weird stuff my dad ordered. Poor Daniel probably had a premonition of the food my dad ordered thus the sad face.

My dad selected these drinks from the chiller behind us. The one on the left was unsweeted tea and the one on the right was a sweetened plum drink I think.

The steamed fish was really good and fresh.

steamed fish

This was for my mom who loves fresh bamboo shoots.

bamboo shoot

This was my third fried oyster dish in 2 days and I loved it. The one at Tamsui was still my favorite though.

fried oysters

clam soup

The clams were so plump and meaty and the soup was so flavorful. I stopped eating after the soup.

Normally my dad does a good job of ordering food like the meal we had in Tamsui but that night he decided to be adventurous and order food even my mom was shocked to see.

Sure Chinese people liked to eat kidney but what are those oval objects that had veins?

kidney and testicles

Yikes! They’re testicles!!! From what animal? I don’t know. What’s your guess? They seem to small to belong to a cow right? Angie’s friend happily ate these.

I was told this was tripe. It looked scary and unappetizing to me. I’m used to white tripe that’s swimming in tomato sauce.

tripe

This dish looked normal so I tried a piece. It was hard and stringy and I didn’t like it.

It turned out to be some kind of snail. I eat escargot and ‘kuhol’ but these weren’t as good or appetizing.

On the other table they had the same snails which were cooked simply with open flame in the middle.

I would have probably enjoyed our meal if my dad ordered more familiar seafood like shrimp, crab or lobster instead of testicles, tripe and snails. Well it was an experience I’m not going to forget soon.

福州海洋平價海鮮餐廳
Taipei Hwashi Tourist Night Market