Longshan Temple Station Taipei
Posted By Jennifer Ho Aug 07 2011 · 0 comments · Snacks & Street Food
A warning to potential visitors to Longshan Temple – it is a weird and freaky place. It was my second time there and the feeling of walking around in a post-apocalyptic circus world lingered still from my original impression. While I may be exaggerating a little bit, my description isn’t too far off from reality.
Just behind the MRT station is Taipei’s red light district, much less kept than the majority of Taipei city. The police are known to patrol the Longshan Temple night market area but forgo the red light district – not too sure why. The place is famous for selling reptilian meat – that is snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodiles and others. We went with some locals who are seasoned eaters of the Longshan Temple – they brought us to the best and most famous stores around the area and ate a small plate of their best, sort of like a walking food tour.
First, we tried the squid – it was boiled and given to us with a small bowl of homemade soya sauce with a dollop of wasabi to match. At the same stand we ordered a plate of freshly cut bamboo stalks with mayo. Moving on to the next stand, we had marinated oh-so-tender pig feet in noodle soup along with soya sauce and chili to dip the pig feet in.
3 Shots: Snake Blood With Powdered Snake Penis Pills, Snake Venom With Some Alcohol, Snake Gut Juice
A plate of bone marrow was ordered (probably about 20-25 pieces – these are the Taiwanese equivalent to osso bucco and a hundred times cheaper…), fried snake with noodles, snake soup (very bony, hard to eat the snake meat) and three snake shots – one of snake blood with a pill filled with powdered snake penis, snake poison mixed with alcohol and a last shot of snake gut juice.
Finally, for dessert we had the legendary 8 Treasures (red beans, white beans, pistachios, moji etc.) shaved ice from the Ice Juice Shop just outside the reptilian area. Definitely an interesting area to check out but not recommended to go alone.
