Nanmen traditional market is where my family always shopped at since I was a baby and I dare say that it is the best traditional market. After the renovation, it's also clean, comfortable, and has lot's of parking space.
It is currently at a temporary location while the original location gets renovated. But all of the stores are the same and will have the same name/signs that can be easily recognized even when they move back. After all, they have been the same for the past 2 decades that I was alive.
Below are our favorite places that we always shop at that I think you definitely should not miss out on. This is a super emotional post with sincere recommendations. We have been such regular customers to these stores it got to a point that we know most of the owners or staff.
TOP 5 stalls at Nanmen Market: King Long Jerky-Founding Store
I have been eating their jerky for as long as I can remember. We have to be snacking on pork or beef jerky from King Long every time we sit in front of a TV. And my dad loves their pork floss (rousong). The founder of King Long Jerky started being an apprentice at the age of 14. Then he founded King Long Jerky with his wife in 1976 when he was 19. Ever since it was founded, King Long has been operating from Nanmen Market. Soon, the founder's brothers joined in as well. It was called "King Long Cured Meats" at the time. Later on, it was split up and another store called "King Long Food" showed up (or "King Long Jerky-Namen Store" in Chinese.) It's also in Nanmen Market but it is not the original founding store. The taste and quality of its jerky is different, too. So make sure that you visit the right store by identifying the black signs of King Long Jerky founding store, as opposed to the pink sign of King Long Food.
When I was a kid, I'd come to Nanmen Market with my mom and I loved watching the owner's wife grill the pork jerky. I was about as tall as the grill back then. Every time she tried to put the jerky into the bag, I'd hijack it half way. By the time we got home, we'd have half a pack of jerky left. Since they grill their jerky on the spot, a lot of customers are attracted by the amazing smell. This is something that you do not see at other jerky stores. Now, the founders daughters are managing the store. They have done some rebranding to make it more modern and they now have an official website and official LINE account, things that traditional market stalls did not have. But you can still often see the founder's wife sitting in front of the grill heating up jerky, the same sight that I grew familiar with in the past 20 years.
Our favorite things to buy here are the original beef jerky and pork jerky. We never get tired of the classic flavor and are super addicted to them. There are 4 other pork jerky flavors: garlic, Thai sour and spicy, black pepper, and red wine. The red wine pork jerky is sweeter than the original and a surge of aroma from the wine is released from your throat at the end. There's also charcoal grilled pork jerky. Those were my favorite as a kid. Aside from the smokey taste, they are also particularly tender because of the fattier meat.
I love ripping the beef jerky along the grains (the lines you see in meat that are muscle fiber). And if you suck on the beef jerky from King Long Jerky founding store, there would actually be so much juice. The original flavor beef jerky uses local "warm-body" beef, which means freshly slaughtered meat in Taiwan. The cattle is slaughtered at 1A.M. then they will start roasting it. Completely retaining the delicious smell and savoriness from the beef. King Long Jerky's pork floss is also made from "warm-body" pork which is why they taste so good. There are also spicy and mala (numbing spicy from sichuan peppercorns) beef jerky. They use beef from Australia for these two flavors. Which is a great country to get beef from cause they mostly grass-feed their cattle. These are perfect for people like me who love spicy food.
King Long Jerky also has thin pork jerky which we call "pork paper" in Chinese. Because they are thin as paper and very crispy. I personally like the texture of thick jerky better but thin pork jerky is easier to preserve and is a popular gift choice. Their biggest competition would be KuaiChe Jerky that's on the other side of Nanmen Market. KuaiChe tastes okay, but I think King Long Jerky tastes far better. But KuaiChe is better with their marketing and fancy packaging. The staff there is also really good at flattering customers and making them feel really good about themselves. I personally think being delicious is more important when it comes to food.
I am not the only person who is in love with King Long Jerky, they have also received a lot of awards. They were voted Best Present online during the Traditional Market Festival, which proves that they are certified by other foodies in Taipei as well. They were also chosen as Best Present for New Taipei City, they literally snatched an award cross city. King Long Jerky founding store was also rated as a 5-star stall by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Great minds think alike.
King Long Jerky-founding store phone: (02)2396-9037
King Long Jerky-founding store stall location: B23, B24
King Long Jerky-founding store official website: https://www.kinglongjerky1976.com/
TOP 5 stalls at Nanmen Market: Yi Chang Yu Fang (YCYF)
YCYF is definitely a famous store and almost anyone from Taipei would have heard of it. I would casually mention it to my friends and everyone would say something like "my grandma loves that place!" It received the award of "No. 1 Stall in The World" so many times that they've placed it on their store sign. Many dishes from YCYF are staples in my family.
The first thing that you have to get at Yi Chang Yu Fang is the egg dumplings. My sister refuses to eat any other egg dumplings except for the ones from YCYF. The first time she ate hot pot with her in-laws, my mom packed egg dumplings from YCYF for her to make sure that she has food.
Then, it's one of my mom's signature dishes, lion's head meatballs. Don't worry, no lions were harmed in the making of these. It's the name of a braised meatball dish, and the meatballs are huge, hence, lion's head. Anyone who has stolen my lunch box at school and all of our friends or family who has been over for dinner loves the lion's head meatballs my mom makes. Everyone would ask my mom to make them for Chinese New Years when we used to spend it with our extended family. And if the lion's head meatballs on the dining table on New Years' Eve is made by anyone else, there would be a lot of leftovers. And the meatballs that my mom uses for her signature dish are from Yi Chang Yu Fang.
Some of my favorite things from Yi Chang Yu Fang ever since I was a kid are the spicy pork intestines soup and mala stinky tofu soup. My mom would buy one of each, add them together and put in some meat, vegetables, enoki mushroom, and wide bean noodles. And that's a delicious mala stinky tofu hot pot that you can make without any cooking skills.
They have the most wide choices of cold dishes and ready-to-eat dishes at Yi Chang Yu Fang. One of my favorites is YCYF's stuffed chili. Huge green chili peppers are hollowed out and filled with pork that has been marinaded to perfection. You can eat them alone or with porridge. My mom's favorite is YuNan "3 Strip" Stir-fry. The "3 strips" are bean curd strips, black fungus strips, and shredded pork. The smooth, crunchy, and soft textures layer together and are topped with green onions. You simply cannot resist having a few extra bites.
By the way, Yi Chang Yu Fang is extremely famous for their candied lotus roots. Sadly, I don't eat sugar and my dad doesn't eat lotus roots, so though my mom loves them, she rarely gets them. When we went to Nanmen Market together that day and she saw the candied lotus roots I could literally see her eyes glow with excitement.
Yi Chang Yu Fang (YCYF) phone: (02)2393-0383
Yi Chang Yu Fang (YCYF) stall location: B13
Yi Chang Yu Fang (YCYF) official website: http://www.ycyf.com.tw/
OP 5 stalls at Nanmen Market: YongShun Vegetables
Walking into any traditional market, you would find a bunch of vegetable stores, but this is the only one I recommend. When I was born, my mom was already buying vegetables from this store. For the past 20 years, we are such regulars that my mom has become LINE friends with the owner and we would LINE her to order vegetables. The vegetables at YongShun Vegetables are always fresh and delicious and they can help us find any vegetable you can think of.
I love making dishes from all around the world. And I would use all sorts of ingredients to replace starchy roots in order to make low-carb dishes. I'd often come up with a name after researching online without ever seeing this vegetable in person. All we have to do is call the owner and give her a name or photo, and she'd recognize it. She'd even explain how they are commonly used in recipes, the texture, and flavor. Then she could materialize it. Some might not be available right away, but as long as they are in season, she'd be able to get it in a few days. She's literally my fairy god mother in the kitchen. If what I am looking for is not in season, she'd also let us know when we would be able to get it easily.
Sometimes we'd have a rough idea of a menu without coming up with a detailed plan of what ingredients we would need. If we tell the owner this rough draft, she'd be able to suggest the right vegetables to use. She'd also follow it up with recommendations of what kind and cut of meat we should pair it with. Their ample knowledge in food and high-quality products make me feel like I am shopping at a luxury goods store even though I am in a traditional market.
We've been shopping here for so long but we did not know until recent years that they also sold dumplings. We've always loved the cabbage that they sell and we are avid dumplings lovers. Ever since the ShanDong dumpling store near our place closed down because the owners retired, we have been troubled by the lack of dumplings in our lives. Now, our freezer is always stocked with several packs of dumplings from YongShun Vegetables. Their dumplings are so full and plump. There's no weird stink from the pork and they are super juicy.
YongShun Vegetables phone: 02)2395-2269
YongShun Vegetables stall location: A42, A43, A44
TOP 5 stalls at Nanmen Market: NanYuan HuZhou Rice Dumplings
Every dragon boat festival, eating rice dumplings is a must. But it's actually really hard to get rice dumplings that actually taste good. I never join the South VS North rice dumpling war that other people in Taiwan love to argue about, because what I love are HuZhou rice dumplings. Even when I make my own keto rice dumplings, I make them HuZhou style. The contents of HuZhou rice dumplings are particularly simple. But because there aren't many ingredients, it's actually more difficult to get it right. HuZhou rice dumplings only has pork in it and nothing else. So the fat to lean ratio of the pork, the marination of the pork, and the seasoning of the sticky rice are specifically important.
We've always only bought the HuZhou rice dumplings from NanYuan. Once, when we spent dragon boat festival with someone else, they Brough rice dumplings from Ding Tai Feng. Yes, their soup dumplings are great, but the rice dumplings cannot compare with what you can get at NanYaun. Just the sticky rice itself gets my sister and I fighting over it. NanYuan uses Xiluo round sticky rice for it. The meat is just right once you steam the rice dumplings, you don't taste the fat but it's tender and does not dry out. There isn't any stink to the pork but you don't taste the mirin that is used to remove the stink either. NanYuan uses Taiwanese Iberico ham for it.
We also get NanYuan's red bean paste rice dumplings every year, they are one of my sister's favorite desserts. I came to NanMen Market in September and you could still see them wrapping rice dumplings behind the glass. You just know how delicious they are when people are still voluntarily buying them not around dragon boat festival.
NanYuan's FuZhou fish balls are full and juicy and my dad loves them. My mom mentioned that the jiuniang (sweet rice wine) from NanYuan is very good as well, and she'd sometimes get them to make jiuniang tangyuan (glutinous sweet dumplings). The tangyuans that we get during Lantern festival are almost always from NanYuan. The filling is so rich and thick, as soon as you bite into it, it oozes out with a strong aroma and makes you want to have more. They aren't just something you are forced to eat for a holiday.
NanYuan HuZhou Rice Dumplings phone: (02)2396-3852, (02)2356-4980
NanYuan HuZhou Rice Dumplings stall location: A12, A13, A14, A15, B10
NanYuan HuZhou Rice Dumplings official website: http://www.nanyuan1968.com.tw/
TOP 5 stalls at Nanmen Market: LuJi Seafood Market
I read the Google reviews of LuJi and it seems that a lot of people have complaints about the staff's attitude. I personally did not have a problem with it though. My mom said that the seafood at LuJi is more expensive for sure, but it's totally worth the price. You can taste the freshness and quality. So whenever she is making seafood, she would get it here. Luckily, I was allergic to seafood until I got healthier and discovered it a few months ago, and I still don't love seafood, so I'm really saving a lot of money.
As soon as you approach LuJi Seafood Market you can see the huge tanks of flowing water with live seafood moving around in them. You can see the shrimp still swimming and the clams spitting out bubbles.
uJi Seafood Market was founded in 1972 and used to be named PengHu Seafood back in NanMen Market's old location. At the time, they mainly sold fresh seafood from PengHu. After they moved to their current location, they renamed it LuJi Seafood Market.
They used to only have one small stall. But with all their returning customers and everyone's affirmation, their business kept expanding. Now they rented out 3 stalls which they turned into 1 big store. They also rented the stall next to them and turned it into LuJi Fish Balls. Now, they sell all types of seafood that is freshly caught from all around Taiwan, and not just PengHu. They also fly in seafood from other parts of the world and sell seafood from Japan, Maldives, Norway, and Canada that have been examined and certified (pratique) by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. They also offer recipe consultation and would process and package your seafood according to what you are planning on cooking.
LuJi Seafood Market phone: ((02)2396-3982
LuJi Seafood Market stall location: A36, A37, A38 (A34 next to them is LuJi Fish Balls, which is part of the same store)
TOP 5 stalls at Nanmen Market: Secret Pop-up Store
NanMen Market has this pop-up store that only shows up once a year right before Chinese New Years. And it doesn't even have a name. They just sell all kinds of meatballs. The celery meatballs are my mom and sister's favorite. My favorite is their kimchi meatballs. Every Chinese New Year, I could stuff myself full with dozens of kimchi meatballs from the hot pot. Below, I've included the owner's phone number. But if you call any other time of the year, you won't be able to get any meatballs. They only make them and show up once a year.
If you want kimchi meatballs and celery meatballs other times of the year, my mom would get them at the aforementioned LuJi Fish Balls. Yes, they have meatballs, too. And they taste pretty good as well.
Ms. Xie: 0952-702-023
TOP 5 stalls at Nanmen Market: Store Info
Address(temporary location): No. 55, HangZhou South Road Section 2, DaAn District, Taipei City
Opening hours: Tues–Sun 7:00-19:00
Official website: https://www.tpnanmen.org.tw/
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