Taipei night market tour review: trying new foods with Tour Me Away
An honest review of my experience with Tour Me Away Taipei at the Jingmei Night Market
I was interested in visiting a night market with a guide to get some tips on what foods to try and learn more about the history and culture of night markets, which are an essential experience on any visit to Taiwan.
I booked this ‘Hunger Game’ night market tour in November 2019 on my phone using the Klook App. I also paid for the tour myself, so this is a completely independent review.
You can read a detailed summary of all the experiences I had with Tour Me Away in Taipei or jump straight to my final recommendation at the end.
Go to final recommendation
Keep reading to find out what we did on the Hunger Game Night Market Tour !
Quick Overview of the Hunger Game Night Market Tour
Destinations: On this Taipei night market food sampling tour, we walked around the Jingmei night market and sampled around 10-12 dishes and drinks.
How long was the tour: The ‘Hunger Game’ night market tour lasted about 2.5 hours.
Who was on the tour: There were about 10 people on this English speaking tour. Myself and two other people were solo backpackers, there was a backpacker couple, and a family from Singapore. Many people had already done the Chill Out Taipei walking tour earlier in the day, so there were some familiar faces.
Who was the guide: This Taipei night market tour had one guide, I believe the guide was a student, she was easy to understand and was very energetic and engaging as she led us through the Jingmei night market.
How did we travel: We walked around the night market on foot, both the meeting point and end destination were at major subway stations, which made the tour convenient to join.
Hunger Game Night Market Food Tour
The tour guide was waiting for us at the Jingmei metro station, and wearing a bright orange lanyard badge, so she was easy to locate. Our group had some of the same people from a walking tour with the same company earlier in the day, and the tour began on time.
Read More: Taipei Walking Tour Review - An afternoon with Tour Me Away Taipei
There are several night markets in Taipei, and some are more famous and ‘touristy’ but the Jingmei market is meant to be a fairly typical, local experience. The night markets are either open streets, or sometimes covered complexes lined with vendors, both with market stalls and little shops or restaurants, often in their own sections of the market.
The first stop started with a winter melon tea and sweet potato dumplings. I was concerned about being able to participate in this tour as a vegetarian, but I had some fried tofu and cucumber salad while the rest of the group tried different chicken parts (not sure what to call them because I don’t know much about meat !).
Group picture courtesy of Tour Me Away
Trying Stinky Tofu
We then moved on to one thing I had been concerned about trying, ‘stinky tofu’ ! That is the real, correct name for the dish, and it smells quite strong because it is produced by fermentation. It is served golden fried with some sweet chili or hoisin style dipping sauce and eaten with chopsticks, and we had a version that was not the strongest level of spiciness.
I didn’t mind it, the smell is really hard to describe, kind of strong and unpleasant, but it tasted alright, you will have to visit Taipei and try some for yourself !
We walked past an outdoor theatre area and the guide explained some of the history behind night markets, then there was another stop for sampling more fried meat on a stick.
Dessert at the night market
Next, we went as a group into a café style place with seating and shared several shaved ice desserts ! I had seen a few variations on these at different places in Asia, but hadn’t actually had the chance to try one.
They come with lots of different toppings, tapioca balls, mango, red beans, grass jellies, condensed milk, sweet syrups, taro, sweet potato, etc. not always toppings you would think of for a dessert !
The texture of some of the toppings can be a bit different if you aren’t used to things that are ‘squishy’ but its sweet, and I enjoyed that. I actually listened to a Rick Steves podcast when I got home, which explained that North American food can seem quite ‘hard and crunchy’ to other cultures, and in turn we are not always used to softer textures, always good to try something new !
Jingmei Night Market
Once the tour finished, I spoke to some other backpackers and arranged to meet up the next day and walk up the ‘elephant mountain’ (really just a large hill) to get a good view of the Taipei 101 building and the city skyline. That was another nice aspect of doing activities with Tour Me Away, having an opportunity to meet other travellers and make plans to see more of Taipei.
Read More: 8 Unique ways to meet people when you travel alone
Finally, on my way back to the subway, as many of the stalls were shutting down for the night and remaining food was reduced in price, I stopped to try what I thought was a glazed berry dessert. As you can see in the picture of me holding the bright red circles on a stick, it looks like berries, but turned out to be sweet glazed mini tomatoes, not what I was expecting at all !
Overall, this Hunger Game night market tour with Tour Me Away was a great way to learn about foods I was unfamiliar with and I felt much more confident visiting night markets by myself for the rest of my trip.
Bonus Mini Review:
Tour Me Away Pub Crawl
I arrived in Taipei on a Saturday afternoon and wanted to experience the nightlife on the weekend, so I also booked the Saturday night Pub Crawl tour with Tour Me Away. I had such a good time meeting other travellers and listening to the guide that I actually didn’t take any pictures, besides one picture of some pizza right at the end, so unfortunately this part of the review is illustrated with stock photos.
For the first part of the tour, the guide explained some history of the area as we walked to the first stop. There were around 30 people in the group and the guide was friendly and easy to understand. At each stop there was some kind of welcome drink, or special pricing on particular drinks. The first few places we went were more like bars, it wasn’t so loud that you couldn’t talk to other travellers. I spoke with some people from Spain and America, lots of people on big South-East Asia backpacking trips, several people in university and someone going to teach English in Korea.
The last stop of the evening was at a large nightclub and you had to be wearing closed toe footwear for some reason and I wasn’t, I was also extremely tired at that point so I just took a taxi back to the hostel. Even though I didn’t stay for the last stop, I enjoyed the places we went to and the social atmosphere, if you do book this Taipei Pub Crawl with Tour Me Away, just make sure you follow any provided instructions about footwear!
Final Recommendation for the Taipei Night Market Tour
What I really enjoyed about this tour was being able to sample so many different dishes, when it would be harder to order so much just for yourself and finish it all.
As a vegetarian, I was able to take part in this tour and feel included, there were a few meat based things I couldn’t have, but the guide got me the cucumber salad and helped make sure the things I was trying were suitable.
I thought this night market tour was good value for the price and the description on the Tour Me Away website accurately reflected the activity we did. Email communication before the tour clearly explained where to meet the group and the guide was friendly, helpful and easy to understand.
This night market tour makes a nice addition to solo travelling, as I found it was an easy way to meet other travellers and it was so helpful to have a local guide from Taipei.
Overall, I think the Hunger Game night market food tour was my favourite of the three tour experiences I had with Tour Me Away, and it helped me experience Taipei in a way that I would have missed just being on my own for the four days I was there.
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