Old Tainan became my favorite Taiwanese city in less than 24 hours with its fascinating heritage architecture, vibrant folk traditions and mouth-watering cheap eats evolved though centuries of exchange with the Chinese Mainland. This was the third stop on our self-guided round-island tour by train.
Once again chatting up taxi drivers proved to be the best way to gain unadulterated, straight-up knowledge of a new city.
We took four short taxi trips in Tainan. One introduced me to Minnanese swear words that I barely understood, one demonstrated the locals' deep distrust of Mainland China and support for pro-independence movements, and one even gave excellent recommendations for the local favorites of Deep-Fried Shrimp Rolls and Noodles with Stir-Fried Eels.
Proudly proclaiming as the birthplace of Taiwan, Tainan is chaotic and unapologetically blunt in a blue collar manner, in assertive contrast with the world class sophistication of Taipei or the casual swagger of Kaohsiung. Upon arrival on our express train we immediately checked into Tiedao Hotel right across from Tainan Station, which would also serve as our luggage deposit for the next day.
Aside from a police squad knocking on our door at midnight searching for prostitutes and signs of human trafficking, our strategy of booking a hotel next to the train station worked out quite well. Sarcasm aside I would still book Tiedao Hotel for its unbeatable location (1 minute from Tainan Station) and price (below TWD 1000), astoundingly cheap even by Taiwanese standards.
Contemporary lanterns dimly illuminated Shennong Street, a 300-year-old residential alley reincarnated as an artist colony of craftsman workshops and independent traders for everything from Qing Dynasty antiques to fashion accessories to the excellent small batches of dried pineapples and mangoes that we purchased. But my main goal wasn't Shennong Street itself, but one of Tainan's best authentic eateries located just two minutes away.
A-JIANG STIR-FRIED EELS (Tainan)
Location Map
This filthy-looking, hole-in-the-wall eatery is the most wonderful recommendation I received from the locals, which I now pass onto any adventurous reader planning a trip to Tainan.
A 40-year-old institution specializing on one just menu item, A-Jiang is conveniently located one block north of Shennong Street and an eight minute walk from the historic Chihkan Tower, two of Tainan's most popular tourist draws. I cannot explain its baffling near-anonymity aside from its ghetto display of bloody-looking eels in the open kitchen, in full view from the plastic chairs and folding tables often left shiny from the sheen of unwiped oil and soup from the previous client.
That's the psychological barrier you must overcome if you want this most authentic and satisfying dining experience. To make you feel better, the bloody red on the eels aren't blood at all, but a locally-popular marinade of red wine yeast for enhancing the depth of flavor and removing any residual "muddy" taste from the freshwater eels. Apparently we weren't the only foreigners on this evening, as we shared our wobbly table with a local Tainan girl who brought a Japanese friend to sample her hometown's version of Anago-no-Itame.
This was our truly excellent dish of Stir-Fried Eels with Yimian Noodles, marinated in soy, wine and vinegar, seasoned with a heavy dose of powdered white pepper and stir-fried to a firm, crisp perfection achievable only with the absolute freshest eels. Our Japanese neighbour also exclaimed in delight over her the noodles-in-soup option served in a thick broth. The price tag of TWD 120, or 440 yen, had to be most surprising -- what portion of an Anago Shiroyaki or Itame could you possible get for 440 yen in Tokyo?
Bill for Two Persons
| Stir-Fried Eels with Yimian Noodles | TWD 120 |
| TOTAL | TWD 120 (CAD$5.2) |
That was just appetizer of course. After sharing the noodles we walked over to the legendary Chihkan Tower, established as Fort Provintia by Dutch settlers, conquered by the enigmatic Koxinga and later served as the seat of power for Qing Dynasty's appointed governor to Taiwan. While open-air concerts seem to be the main draw in the evening, in the daytime the tower's Wenchang Temple is especially popular to local high school students pleading for academic success.
Our main courses for the evening would be served at one of Tainan's famous night markets. Here in Tainan, night markets have become such an integral part of daily life that the local have invented a mnemonic for remembering which night market opens on which night of the week, known as ...
Da Da Wu Hua Da Wu Hua. Dadong Night Market on Mondays and Tuesdays, Wusheng Night Market on Wednesdays, Huayuan Night Market on Thursdays and so on. Our visit was on Friday, so Dadong Night Market it was.
DADONG NIGHT MARKET (Tainan)
Location Map
We usually don't eat main courses while navigating through enormous crowds, but that's the fun of visiting a genuine Tainan night market on a weekend. Apparently the most popular stalls was Shan-Pin Deep-Fried Spareribs, a permanent fixture at both Dadong and Huayuan Night Markets. While the queue was at least 20 customers long, the quick turnover brought us to the front of the line within 15 minutes.
This had to be among the best dry ribs I have ever tasted in terms of its initial garlicky crunch, juiciness as well as that unmistakable Tainan inclination for a lightly sweetened batter. Bone-in or boneless, you can't really go wrong with either.
A few stalls to the side, the soy-marinated (Lushui) meat specialist of Ershixiong attracted its own religious following for its diverse selection of offal cuts -- chicken heart and liver, duck gizzards, webs and tongues, and of course chicken butt if you're entirely unconcerned about cholesterol.
Chicken feet anyone? We could not resist trying some duck tongues at TWD 15 a piece, marinated for hours if not days in their signature sweet-and-spicy soy mixture. Sadly they were nowhere as miraculously flavorful as the duck tongues we bought at the famous Laotianlu on our previous trip to Taipei.
Craving for a meatier dish to wrap up our dinner, we decided to try the local recipe for Brined Chicken, or Yanshuiji. As the bone-in chicken and duck wings were a little tricky to chew on at the night market, we opted to take it back to our hotel.
TWD 150 (CAD$6.5) was enough to take home a chicken leg, some duck wings, duck gizzards, as well as a side order of white bitter melons, enough to serve as dinner for two.
Between the spareribs, duck tongues, brined chicken, duck wings, gizzards and bitter melons, plus large cups of papaya milk and coconut milk, our dinner at Dadong Night Market totaled at TWD 405 (CAD$17.6) for two. As usual the taxi fare -- another TWD 330 for three taxi trips combined for the night -- cost about as much as the food, but as mentioned above chatting with taxi drivers was great entertainment in itself and an invaluable source of insider knowledge on the city.
Bill for Two Persons
| Shan-Pin Spareribs (Medium, Half Boneless Half Bone-In) | TWD 100 |
| Marinated Duck Tongues x 4 | TWD 60 |
| Brined Chicken Leg, Duck Wings, Duck Gizzards, Bitter Melons | TWD 150 |
| Cup of Papaya Juice with Milk (Large) | TWD 55 |
| Coconut Milk (Large) | TWD 40 |
| TOTAL | TWD 405 (CAD$17.6) |
The next morning we checked out of Tiedao Hotel and left our luggage with the front desk, memories of the midnight police raid all behind us. We took our final taxi trip in Tainan, this time to another legendary culinary establishment.
A-TANG SAVORY CONGEE (Tainan)
Location Map
Another recommendation from the locals, the legends of A-Tang transcend its reputation as one of Tainan's best breakfast joints. The latest episode had the local government clamping down on this unassuming streetside congee stall for tax evasion, apparently alerted by its immense popularity and wanting a cut of its revenue. The pragmatic A-Tang threatened to raise prices, though that had not yet materialized at the time of our visit.
That didn't stop the regulars from queuing down the sidewalk in droves this morning, patiently awaiting a vacant spot at the wobbly makeshift tables. The menu was in Chinese only -- Milkfish, Mackerel or Assorted Fish Congee for TWD 120, the premium Milkfish Skin or Milkfish Belly Congee for TWD 160, a fillet of Pan-Fried Milkfish Belly for TWD 100. Or we could have simply pointed to our neighbouring tables' food as everyone was ordering the same range of dishes anyway.
Nothing represents Tainan better at the breakfast table than the humble milkfish, cheaply available, scrumptiously fatty and hailed locally as Koxinga's Fish after the national hero. The gadzillion small bones that blight your typical milkfish had been painstakingly removed from this boneless belly, dripping with omega-3-rich fish oil and superb in freshness.
Over 11 days we sampled three different seafood congee stalls in Southern Taiwan, and A-Tang's signature dish of Assorted Fish Congee was the absolute best with generous chunks of milkfish, mackerel, milkfish skin and my favorite of all, savory baby oysters. Adding a Chinese Fried Crueller (Youtiao) to soak up the Umami sweetness of the broth, this authentically Tainan breakfast for two would fuel us till lunchtime for our highly anticipated side-trip.
Bill for Two Persons
| Assorted Fish Congee | TWD 120 |
| Pan-Fried Milkfish Belly | TWD 100 |
| Chinese Fried Crueller (Youtiao) | TWD 15 |
| TOTAL | TWD 235 (CAD$10.2) |
Conveniently located 5 minutes from A-Tang is the bus stop for Line 88, connecting Tainan with the 400-year-old town of Anping where the recorded history of Taiwan began.
This was where the word Taiwan or Tayouan first appeared on the world map, claimed by Dutch colonists who erected the bastion of Fort Zeelandia with kiln-fired bricks shipped from Dutch Java and mortared with a rudimentary cement of glutinous rice and oyster shells. These ramparts didn't stop Koxinga from taking the stronghold, which later fell to the Qing Dynasty and survived another three centuries to become one of Southern Taiwan's most recognizable images today.
Said to be established by Koxinga himself back in mid 17th century, Anping's Mazu Shrine was the first shrine on the Taiwanese main island devoted to the popular Minnanese folk worship of the Celestial Mother. Defiled by bloodshed and demolished during the Japanese colonial era, this mother-of-all-Taiwanese-Mazu-Shrines was only rebuilt in the 1960s.
Architectural details were magnificent as demonstrated by the profusely ornate sculptures of this Caisson ceiling, often referred by local artisans as spider's web for its beauty and geometrical intricacy. Despite the relative young age of the new shrine, one of the overhanging wooden plaques feature calligraphy from Emperor Guangxu of late Qing Dynasty.
Perhaps the most popular -- and photogenic -- attraction is the so-called Anping Tree House, a 19th century English warehouse built from recycled bricks from the old Dutch citadel and used for storing shipments of Taiwanese camphor. For nearly a century the warehouse laid vacant next to the historic salt flats and mangrove swamps of the Taijiang lagoon, leaving mother nature enough time for an complete transformation of landscape.
Anping Tree House's uniqueness is not the house, but the invasive banyan trees that have completely overwhelmed the brick structures with their insidious branches and aerial roots. It all makes for some eerily apocalyptic scenery where impermanent human marks on the planet become completely reclaimed by nature.
To me Anping's greatest allure isn't its collection of Qing Dynasty architecture, but a humble local delicacy that has since gained national fame and become one of Southern Taiwan's signature dishes. While two prominent makers of this specialty, the Chen's and the Chou's, compete head-to-head along the busy thoroughfare of Anping Road, we only had stomach room for one ...
... and remembering that one of our taxi drivers the previous night highly recommended Chou's Shrimp Rolls, that made our choice easy.
CHOU'S SHRIMP ROLLS (Anping District, Tainan City)
Location Map
Now a household name in Southern Taiwan with a dozen restaurants and outlets, Chou's Shrimp Rolls originated in Anping more than a half century back and has built its reputation mainly on the popularity of one item. Their archrival Chen's has also received wide acclaim for the oyster version of an otherwise identical dish, but that's a story for another day.
This dish was my favorite reason to visit Anping.
To the uninitiated, these little deep-fried sticks of shrimp and minced pork may look like any run-of-the-mill spring roll served at any Cantonese restaurant anywhere in the world. But "run-of-the-mill" is exactly where the similarity ends -- the shrimp meat was crisp, the filling rich and the battered wrapping incredibly rich with a layer of pork caul fat. Dip it in a half-half mixture of Taiwanese thick soy sauce and wasabi like the locals do, and you'll see what I mean.
We complemented our lunch another time-honoured Tainan favorite, the Qing Dynasty invention of Ta-a Noodles made from the same range of peasant ingredients -- flour, a small shrimp and a thick gravy of minced pork. Along with a bowl of conventional meatballs and a cup of sour prune juice, our quick lunch for two came to less than TWD 200 (CAD$9).
Bill for Two Persons
| Chou's Shrimp Roll | TWD 60 |
| Ta-a Noodles | TWD 50 |
| Assorted Meatballs in Clear Broth | TWD 50 |
| Sour Prune Juice | TWD 30 |
| TOTAL | TWD 190 (CAD$8.3) |
One block north of Chou's is Anping's centuries-old open-air market where dozens of souvenir vendors compete for tourist dollar with their sugary ginger tea and freshly popped shrimp chips. My advice would be to skip everything else and head straight for the longest queue, which should invariably lead to this small antiquated shack.
Ignore the dilapidated appearance of the shack -- you're looking at one of the oldest continually-operated shops in Taiwan, a traditional family-run confiturier dating from the Qing Dynasty. Chycutayshing (or simply Lin Yong Tai Xing in standard Mandarin) is tough to pronounce but easy to savour, once you get past the 30-customer-long queue.
Twenty minutes later we picked up two bags of fruit confit -- pitted prunes and candied guava -- at TWD 50 (CAD$2.2) each. Ch-what-tayshing again? Trust me, it's unspeakably good.
IF YOU GO
Tainan is 1 hour 45 minutes from Taipei by High Speed Rail which stops at the city's southeastern suburb (and requiring a 25 minute transfer to reach city centre) or 3.5 hours by conventional trains which stop directly at Tainan Station.
The historic town of Anping is a 45 minutes bus ride via Bus 88 or 99 from Tainan Station. If you're on a round-island trip like us, large suitcases can be stored at the station's coin lockers or the attended luggage room.
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