Shilin has three main areas. there's a
street with lots of street food stalls, a bunch of winding Alleyways
with more formal businesses, and then a large underground food court which is
actually where we're going to start now, let's go! so we've had the opportunity to try almost
every single one of these restaurants at least twice and the best one, in my opinion,
is a place with a pink tables that we're going to go to. and they have the best food at all
these places. and I love watching their chefs cook. it is like magic. yeah this particular
lady right here is like amazing. she's like a human cooking robot. she's so fast.
No wasted motions. nothin. all right we gotta go hunt for a table. yeah it's just kind of like
a free-for-all, find where you can sit type of deal they do this cool thing, it's very convenient where you
mark your table numbers and then you just Mark what you want you want. give
it to them, and they bring it to you yeah. you don't need to speak Chinese
as long as you got Google Translate a really famous dish in Taiwan is Braised pork rice. they take pork, fry it up in a pan, with lots of onions and assorted spices. soy sauce, cook until it's
all browned up and they boil it down to basically nothing until it's just fall
apart pork goo. and they put it on rice and uh you know I've had this a few times
and I'm just like salivating it looking at it it looks so good, Jesus that's even more
delicious than it normally is it's like Porky's soy Saucy fried onion lots of five spice. it's amazing, that's all I can say it's absolutely
amazing I gotta learn how to cook this for myself right it's so good but these are my favorite
dish in Taiwan these little dumplings are called Xiaolongbao if you have seen our other videos you probably know
that I've been on a hunt for a good xialongbao these ones have been my favorite so far nothing has beat it. so
what it is is a soup dumpling and it's prized for its very thin covering which some restaurants make thinner or thicker, around if this one might be on the thicker side but, a thin covering. and then
it's filled with pork and the pork turns into soup as they cook it so at the bottom you get this
nice soupy goodness so what you're supposed to do is break them open I like just biting off the
top because I uh I don't know it just seems kind of messy to like dig your chopsticks in and
open it up so I just and then you can dip it in soy sauce or you can just go straight for
it and you suck out all the soup before you eat it and the soup inside is so good it's like it's almost like a gravy it's so thick
and fatty and it's just like lucious. I love it let's go to the next spot yeah so something I've been wanting to try here that
we haven't yet is called fried milk and I don't really know how they make it. they chop these little cubes, and then I think they just puff up into these balls after they fry them. I don't
know it's supposed to be pretty popular here I like that a lot. it tastes
like custard inside look at that I wish we had gotten these sooner. you
want to try it? sure. smell like donuts it's really good right? holy crap no yeah that's unexpectedly delicious. it's like
a custard donut absolutely wow in many Asian countries they make these
wonderful steamed buns that are some sort of a... I think wheat or rice flour stuffed
with things, and then they steam them up to cook everything inside. so this one's
filled with spicy pork. it is so hot I can barely touch it. so I'm probably gonna burn the
heck out of myself. this is just take it slow that's really nice. it's almost like a
marinara sauce. it's a spicy tomato base sort of marinating a pork meatball I love steamed buns. there's something
about the texture it's so like it's spongey and light and fluffy.
it's like a little stuffed cloud okay I didn't really get any filling on that but oh wow. that's really good. A little on the bottom too. like all the pork fats rendered out. you see that?
cool you want to try something else? yeah oh okay gotta document everything you eat! hey
that looks good. you gotta get it under the light we have seen these all over Asia and I've never
tried one, but it was calling tonight these are strawberries if you couldn't tell. I'm not sure
what it's coated. sugar. I guess it is candy. they dip it in boiling sugar to make it hard coated. I thought
it might have like a gelatin in it too, but yeah you're right I think it's just sugar, not with
the front teeth, do it with your molars at least you know I don't really like chewing on hard candy so
I don't love that about it, the flavor of it is so good it like brings out every little
bit of sweetness from the strawberry and I think the strawberry because it gets dipped in
the hot candy gets cooked just a little bit so it's really soft and I don't normally like cooked
fruit but in this really good it pairs well with the crunchy shell, do you want to try it? yeah
I'm sure I'm making some dentists somewhere you know get the dollar signs in their eyes.
as they think about buying their next Porsche. yeah you don't like it oh it's delicious um that's really good. it's like an extra sweet
strawberry because it's dipped in sugar right and Brandi is right. it's cooked and soft but
it's also reminiscent of like biting into a light bulb, like I would imagine that's what
the sensations like it. it's Hollow and pops and to shards and kind of cuts you up a little.
bit is that why you made that face? yeah I don't I don't really like it. like it tastes good
but the sensation of eating it is horrible I'm glad we're on the same page
with this. They also had tomatoes covered in Sugar. I don't
know how that would be. I can't think of any like sweet tomato dish except for like mildly
sweet soup... I don't know, I don't know what now? I don't know let's uh wander around until we
find something that catches our imagination are you really ready for this? I guess. everybody
says you know it's so delicious you gotta try it! we finally got it! this is stinky tofu.
yeah they take tofu and ferment it in a brine of like shrimp and God knows what else um
and it smells terrible. it's like the worst thing ever you smelled. walking down the street and it's
like [swings head back] like you're literally like punched in the face with scent. to me... I've described it before as it
kind of smells like you took a towel dipped it in vinegar, let it sit and mildew for a few days, and
then let like a boys locker room use it... yeah and for me it's more like a livestock pen. it smells
terrible. I don't think it smells like animals but you know different sniffers. either way it's
just it's so bad. anyways this one, they cube it, they deep fry it, they fry it some more they
fry it again, and then they put barbecue sauce garlic sauce some fermented cabbage yeah and
spicy sauce and and then you uh you eat it so yeah... and if you're wondering why we're trying
it, everyone says it smells terrible, tastes amazing. you have to try it. it's super popular in
Taiwan. it's one of their their national foods so so no trip would be complete without it. all
right. why don't you uh do me a favor and just open up the bag stick your nose right in it? just
do it. just do it. just a little torture first? well no we want to see we want to see your natural
reaction. I've been like holding my nose I know but stick just stick your face in the bag I want
to see it kind of like collapse a little pretend you're like one of those kids breathing into a
paper bag, but like with tofu... is it not as bad as when they're cooking it I feel like the steam
that comes off the fryer is like way worse but just it's really strong it
almost like Burns To Breathe It oh it's.... upon poking it it's a lot harder than
I thought it was going to be. wow here it is let's uh let's get a close-up of that. all right Randy. I'm nervous.... should I just do the whole thing? whole thing [inaudible] you think it's going to get better and it doesn't. it's just kind
of like taking you through it man [laughs] oh I don't like this
I don't think stinky tofu is for me every time you bite... you know how fried food gets kind of
like holy every time you bite, it releases like stinky tofu scented liquid into your
mouth and it just it's so bad. [laughs] I hope this isn't like I don't know where it's gonna
like stick on your stay on y our breath while I'll still kiss you later. it tastes like an
animal pen.... I'm getting an animal pen now you said you'd kiss me later right? yeah we'll
put a brick between our mouths and we'll do it like "lady and the tramp" style oh that'd be cute you know like is this just an
elaborate joke everybody here is committed to? I don't know. I see
locals eating it every night like there's lines out the door. I know. and
I've seen see people at restaurants oh okay okay if you actually need
to like vomit and not finish it there's a drain... I'm gonna do it im gonna do it and the fryer oil is old too it's so old oh my God. I'm gonna do do another one
though. because uh you know maybe it's like one of those things where you
just have to like get get used to it something tells me we're not gonna finish
this. oh God, it was better the second time what you think third time's a charm?
yeah the time's a charm you know okay I think I think we have had
enough stinky tofu for one lifetime I I got this thing it was too hot to eat
before um yeah that was like literally a few seconds yeah a few minutes ago so you may
have seen one of these in our other videos it's a favorite snack of mine it's a roll that is
stuffed with minced pork and chives and usually heavily peppered and then cooked inside of a Clay
Oven this one has a generous smattering of sesame seeds on top and it's from a Bib Gourmand
recommended stall, Michelin Bib Gourmand . Holy.... are you okay? that's so hot. a couple more
bites really rub it around your tongue oh yeah it was just like so puke inducing like
I don't know whatever that flavor is but this is delicious okay yeah out of all the like organ Meats intestine
is okay. I don't love it I don't hate it by comparison to the stinky tofu this
is for sure like way better I don't know if I've had anything like kind of
like durian fruit I really don't like that gave me like kind of what Alan had to
like vomit inducing... that wretching like the stinky tofu didn't do that to
me, but it tastes so bad! I don't know we went back to try more of the stinky tofu so
that we would have a thumbnail picture you want a set of photos? and we discovered that if you want
like the most amazing photo set of your life just do pictures of yourself while eating stinky tofu
if you don't like it, it was so funny we were dying it's like literally throwing up cool hey i look like Mitch McConnell I got another Taiwanese specialty here that they
do they take a sausage casing and they stuff a full of rice that's been cooked with pork lard
and mushrooms to make this rice hot dog bun and then they have a regular sausage that's of course
Chinese flavor so it's got like five spice and stuff in it so it kind of tastes like star anise
and on this one what I wasn't expecting she put some random chunks on it uh and a mystery brown
sauce and then what looks like pickled mustard greens which is like a pretty classic uh you know
sort of acid to cut fats here in this cuisine oh really getting in there that's really good
actually um you know the hot dog itself doesn't have much flavor to it but they the rice is really
delicious it's like risotto with a sausage on top the sausage almost tastes like it's a little sweet
but it has like kind of a fermented flavor like a little Beer-y, just a little bit. I'll take it
any day over stinky tofu. Would you recommend it?. I would say out of everything I've tried it's not
my favorite but I don't really love sausage so I don't think it's the sausage it's just I
don't I don't like meat that's a meat problem then why are you married to me? I cannot put that in my video so at a lot of the night markets we've
noticed they have tons of games they like dart games, these little pinball machines,
there's all sorts of stuff... prizes for kids they're really popular with kids usually,
but adults play them too depending on the game and Alan thinks I should play one... I'm gonna
play darts I guess are you gonna do it yeah hey thank you I collect magnets everywhere we go
and since it's near the end of our stay here in Taipei, I need to get a Taipei
magnet and look there's tourist shops here this one's pretty cute I don't have one like
this. I broke my normal scheme I usually try to get at least the city name on it and if not, the the city and the country but this one was too good so the Shilin Night Market has a lot more to
it than just the main street with the food a few of those little branches that shoot
off there are tons of alleys with shops and this one has all these cute lights
and photo spots so definitely make sure you explore it because it's like a whole
section of neighborhood it's pretty cool we were going to show you some really delicious
My Neighbor Totoro pancakes but the place is already closed because it's like 11 already but
there was a place making rolled pancakes and it looks pretty good chocolate marshmallow she even
blowtorched the marshmallow to make it sort of S'more-like. yeah I wasn't expecting that! no. and they
had a cute cat back there which was pretty neat what's wrong? I ate a whole marshmallow
oh man! was it good at least? yeah it's pretty good it's like a regular
breakfast Pancake with chocolate frosting and a marshmallow oh there's a
little marshmallow goo left in there I'll understand if the chocolate is frosting
and I don't really like frosting so we'll see we'll see smells really good it's kind of
like a frosting mousse hybrid I like it that's really good I actually like this
a lot everything is closing up and it is time for us to go home and if you
liked our video, click on another one do it right now! do it! watch it all the way
through! it really helps us! yes thank you do it because Alan ate the stinky tofu not once
but three times. four times! four times! four times!
