10 Best Places to Find Real Local Food in New Taipei

Among many Hakka delicacies available in New Taipei, Hakka fried shredded pork with cuttlefish is one of the most popular dishes. The main ingredients are dried tofu, squid and pork. It's seasoned with soy sauce, scallion, celery and garlic. Fried at high heat, it has a powerful aroma.

Different chefs make different kinds of Hakka fried shredded pork with cuttlefish. Some of them will add chilli and sugar, which gives a spicy taste. Others will only add salt and soy sauce, making it light and refreshing. Try out different restaurants around New Taipei and see which version suits you.

Visitors to New Taipei can try the special one rice dumpling, which is distinct from the many different flavors of rice dumpling around Taiwan. One rice dumpling originated in Shiding District, and its name comes from the hope that customers will be satisfied by having only one of them.

The glutinous rice for one rice dumpling has been carefully selected, and the entire process is completed manually, from washing, soaking and steaming the rice to stuffing it with the filling. Being extremely popular, especially during holidays, you might have to wait in long lines to get a one rice dumpling at regular mealtimes.

Salted chicken is exactly as simple as it sounds, but remains one of the most popular dishes in Taiwan. The chefs around New Taipei just put a whole chicken into saltwater and cook it well. After taking it out from the pot, they cool it in cold water quickly. During the process of cooling, the chicken will contract rapidly and the salty taste will completely penetrate into the meat of the chicken.

With a moderate salty taste, it makes a good meal with rice or a snack with wine. The preparation method means that it's not too greasy. There are many popular salted chicken stalls in New Taipei.

Plum juice, also known as plum soup, is a drink with black plum as the main ingredient. It tastes both sour and sweet and is great for refreshing you after a heavy, greasy meal. There are many popular sellers for plum soup in New Taipei and each of them cooks it differently. Some sellers add osmanthus to enhance its fragrance, while others add tangerine peel, black dates or hawthorn.

A cup of iced plum juice helps to drive away the summer heat in New Taipei. The taste of plum juice seems to spread to every corner of your body to cool you down, just like jumping into the swimming pool in an instant.

Unroasted chicken is a chicken dish cooked in an ancient way. You grill the whole local chicken in an urn until it turns a nice dark brown. The chicken is fresh and tender enough to be peeled apart by hand, but has a crisp skin. It makes a great shared dish for groups.

There are several old brands of unroasted chicken in New Taipei that emphasise "one urn for one chicken". The sellers never grill a large number of chickens but provide only a limited number of unroasted chickens per day to keep the traditional good taste of the signature dish.

Makers of the famous boneless goose in New Taipei are very picky about which goose gets cooked to insure that the meat is tender delicious. After careful cooking, the goose is deboned and cut into slices and put on the table. Drizzled over with sauce, the dish is suitable for serving separately and also perfect to go with rice and vegetables. Boneless goose can also go with soup noodles, bean noodles and yellow noodles.

There are many well-known stalls for cold noodle in New Taipei and, despite barely advertizing, they always generate long queues. They are very refreshing on a hot summer day. As simple as they sound, cold noodles are made by putting sesame sauce and cucumber shreds on cold noodles.

Different sellers have their own exclusive recipes and ways of cooking, and some of them will add shredded carrot, mashed garlic, black sesame, white sesame, bean sprouts, egg floss, and more to enrich the taste. Some people think the dish is a little too dry to have them alone, so they pair it with a bowl of miso soup or laver soup.

Thick rice noodles are a tasty snack available from many traditional markets and street food vendors in New Taipei. The dish is a bowl of clear soup stock with ground pork and pure white thick rice noodles, sprinkled with chopped scallion. With a salty flavor, it's a great afternoon snack to keep you going until dinner. Both the soup stock and the noodles have the simple texture of Hakka peasant food.

Hakka salted pork has a heavy, salty taste that goes well with rice or noodles. It's made with streaky pork, ideally with even fat distribution. The chef pours rice wine on it, then seasons it with Sichuan pepper and garlic, and refrigerates and marinates it for several days until the streaky pork completely absorbs the various flavors. Finally, it's fried and served.

There are several restaurants famous for Hakka salted pork in New Taipei. The chefs of these restaurants carefully and skilfully marinate the pork and patiently wait for it to become tasty. Only then can the salted pork served without being oily and greasy. A piece of this salted pork with a mouthful of fragrant rice is the most authentic Hakka taste.

If you are visiting Jinshan Old Street, be sure to taste the local specialty of peanut rice crispy. Oval and long, peanut rice crispy is crisp (obviously), with a sharp aroma of peanut powder. It's a must-eat dessert for many families during the Spring Festival.

There are many flavors of peanut rice crispy in Jinshan. In addition to the traditional flavor of sesame and peanut, there are many new flavors to choose from, such as sweet potato, nori, coconut milk and almond. The boxed peanut rice crispy is a very popular souvenir, so don't forget to buy a few extras to take home.