When visiting Taiwan, their night markets will surely come to mind. I’ve been to various cities in Taiwan, including Taipei, Taichung, and now Yilan, and without fail, there is a night market on my itinerary at least every other night.

Of the four nights we spent in Yilan this trip, two of our dinners were spent at the Luodong night market, which is the biggest and supposedly the best night market on Yilan.

來台灣旅遊，一定要到夜市玩。無論是台北、台中或宜蘭，我總不會錯過當地夜市裡的美食。這趟宜蘭之旅，我們連續兩晚都在羅東夜市漫步，感受夜市的熱鬧氛圍，品味各種美食。

One word of caution – night markets in Taiwan, especially the popular ones, tend to be very crowded, so you’ll find yourself weaving through the crowd to get from stall to stall. The vast majority of the stalls don’t come with seating, so you’ll find yourself eating as you walk, and that’s perfectly acceptable in Taiwan. There are some stalls which offer tables and chairs for dining at their stall, but these are limited and I rarely come across a vacant table.

Pro-tip: Bringing little children here can be a challenge because of the crowd, but there is the option of packing the food back to your hotel to eat. We have done this several times – while the food definitely tastes better piping hot and freshly-made, it does save us some stress and the back-breaking pain of baby carrying a toddler through two hours of walking, standing, and eating.

One of our favourite night market food is definitely their grilled corn. We were immediately attracted by the 沙茶烤玉米 (shacha sauce grilled corn) and got one stick each for the children.

I have never encountered the shacha flavour outside of Taiwan . I did some background reading and apparently it is the origin of “satay” although they now taste quite different. It’s savoury, and just a tad spicy, and the children love it.

One popular item (and something I’ve seen sprouting up in various places in recent years) is the cheese corn cup. I am used to corn cups with some butter and I’m okay with some cheese, but this one is sweet and appears to be drizzled in condensed milk.

I couldn’t quite get past the first taste, but I supposed my children are more adventurous and accepting than me because they totally embraced this new taste combination of sweet and salty, and went back for another cup the second night.

While night market eating mostly comprises of eating bite-sized snacks while walking, there are also stalls with seating – these stalls serve mostly soupy bowl dishes such as soups and noodles. We didn’t opt for these as we preferred the variety offered by the many snack stalls, and wanted to try as many different snacks as we could.

One thing I noticed about Taiwanese night markets is that there are some food fads that come and go every few years. I first started visiting Taiwan frequently some time in 2007, and at that time, grilled salt and pepper prawn skewers with their crispy shells on were quite commonly found in many of the night markets. A few years later, the fad was flame grilled steak cubes, which could be found every few metres along the night market stalls. You still see them from time to time now but you’ll maybe only find 2-3 stalls selling it in a large night market.

One fad I particularly liked was the peanut ice cream polish, so I was delighted to find it off one small lane of the Luodong Night Market. Of course I had to have it two nights in a row.

It was mesmerising to watch the large block of glazed peanut being shaved into crumbly little pieces and then sprinkled generously onto the popiah skin, before being topped with yam flavoured ice cream. This was so good and so worth searching for.

This is my dad being very pleased with his grilled quail eggs. The children love quail eggs so we must have gotten sticks and sticks of this. I find it so cute that they call it 鳥蛋, or literally, bird egg.

They grill the eggs on the spot upon order, 5-6 on a stick, after which you’re free to sprinkle your choice of seasoning from the selection of spices and powders they have at the front of the stall. Our favourites were salt and pepper (椒鹽) and seaweed (海苔).

This area seems to be famous for their chives so you’ll find multiple stalls selling skewered bacon-wrapped chives. We tried from three different stalls and I forgot to take pictures of the stall names but there was a significant difference between the ones from a popular stall and the ones from a less popular one. I’ve learnt in Taiwan to always join the long queues, and that it’s almost always worth it.

I didn’t manage to get a picture of this snack but it’s called 大腸包小腸, or literally, “big sausage wrap small sausage”. The small sausage inside is a regular Taiwanese pork sausage, while the outside is glutinous rice, which wraps around it like a sausage bun would. I only found stall selling this, although about 10 years ago I saw it quite frequently in night markets. It’s nostalgic for me because I ate it together with my husband while we were dating and we were exploring Taiwanese markets and discovering new and interesting foods like these.

The 炸蛋蔥油餅, or fried egg chives pastry was pretty good, although rather filling. I would recommend getting only one to be split among a few persons so you can try more other dishes at the night market!

One of the longest queues you will see at the Luodong Night Market would be at this stall, 華記龍鳳腿, or literally “Hua Ji Dragon Phoenix Leg”. I had absolutely no idea what it was when I joined the queue, and I was standing in it for more than half an hour before I got a chance to place an order.

It turns out that it’s actually a fish and vegetable paste wrapped in a thin net of pork fats, rolled into the shape of a sausage and deep fried. This is one of the very few things in Taiwan for which I was disappointed after reaching the end of the queue. The taste was meh, and greasy, and I suppose this was why most people in the queue were young folks who are less averse to grease.

I think what attracts people to this stall is probably the back story – the inspiration for this dish came from a time of poverty, and a time when meat like chicken drumsticks were a luxury that could be afforded only during special events like the Chinese New Year. The creator of this dish used a mix of fish and vegetable paste wrapped in a net of pork fats to mimic the taste of a drumstick, and this dish was born.

The taste of the dish itself was really not very noteworthy.

You can find the biggest night market in Yilan here:

Luodong Night Market
265, Taiwan, Yilan County, Luodong Township, Xingdong Rd, 與民權路口