At the north end of ShiDa night market is a small, popular stand that’s made a living for many years selling only one thing: Sheng Jian Bao‘s. They make only one thing, but they make it very, very well. When you stand there, you’ll be amazed at how a handful of people are able to stuff and fry these pork buns fast enough to feed the hordes of hungry nightcrawlers that come upon ShiDa every night.
Find the crowd gathering around this food stand at night. You’ll have to pull a number and wait for it to be called. When your number is called, just let them know how many you want and they’ll bring it right out. 1 for 7 NT, 5 for 30 NT (about $1). If you buy a dozen, they’ll give you a box. I would highly recommend going that route if you can, because the buns have a tendency to stick to the bags once they start cooling.
Spent too long trying to find a spot to eat and take a picture that they ended up cooling down and sticking to the inside of the bag. They’re not as juicy as xiao long baos, but you still don’t want to rip them open or let them cool down. If I wasn’t in such a need to budget my bites at each stand, I so would have gone back and ordered more of these little guys. At around $2 for a dozen buns freshly made from scratch, they’re truly a steal for any hungry foreigner.
The main difference between the sheng jian bao and xiao long bao, as I understand it, is that SJBs are slightly larger and are fried as opposed to steamed. It’s like clockwork at this food stand. Only two fryers but not a second is ever wasted. As soon as the last bun is gone from one, it’s quickly used to heat up a completely new batch. Simultaneously, the other fryer’s load will be completely done and ready to be served up as well. You’ll notice that they only need one lid to get the job done.
No bottlenecks anywhere. As far as I could tell, the only thing that slowed them down was collecting money from the amount of traffic they were getting (a dreamy dilemma for any businessman). It’s an amazing and delicious process. You gotta see and taste for yourself.
ShiDa Night Market
Taipower Building (Tai Dian Da Lou) MRT Station
Exit #3 and follow ShiDa Road to the North
Night Market is in alleyways on right hand side once you see a park to the left
man, i forgot how cheap food was in taiwan. there are some good ones in NY but i doubt even half as good as these
this looks really good. can you find these in l.a.?
I have no idea… I need to be more Chinese in LA. I really do.
My mom makes the best baos and dumplings from scratch though (her family’s from a region close to Shanghai known for those).. outside of that, I don’t think I’ve ever really eaten these anywhere in Cali. They would probably be twice as expensive and half as good as what’s available in Taipei though.
ok, i trade you my mom’s pho for your mom’s baos and dumplings. heck, methinks it must be cheaper to find it somewhere here than flying to taiwan.