Wanderlust Taiwan: Enter the Open Air Market 傳統市場 at Your Own Risk… Fresh and Delicious

This could have been a deal breaker. We were stopping by a different open air market (the traditional Taiwanese food market) to pick up a few items before heading home for lunch. Soon after we entered while walking by a butcher stand, we were sprayed by ground meat! The butcher was pushing the meat through the grinder and lost control. My daughter and I both had ground pork flying into our hair. Do you know that wet ground pork is adhesive to hair in humidity? Or was that chicken we had? The butcher was so apologetic and kept on bowing at us. It was impossible to get mad!

On the other hand, this is what I had for lunch, bought from the same market:

Snails with garlic and chili sauce. Tasty. Tasty. Tasty.

Dried and Marinated Tofu. Umami. Umami. Umami.

Grilled squid. My daughter does not love seafood and is often reluctant to have squid. She told me she could taste the freshness of the squid. She is right- although it may not have been the most delicious squid in my life, I could tell it was caught earlier in the day just by how succulent it was. The vendor was discounting it so heavily because he didn’t want to take any inventory home. He grills them and he sells them the same morning.

This had been an interesting day already and it was only a little after noon.  To read about my uneventful open air market experience from yesterday, click here. Yes, we showered immediately after.

This experience took place at

臺北市大安區成功市場
地址: 臺北市大安區四維路192巷