What do you do when you’re in Taipei and craving fresh fish? Eat sushi! That’s right. Taiwan is a former colony of Japan, and it’s got a bit of a complicated love affair going on with its former colonizer: Japanese influence abounds throughout the island and local sushi, ramen, and onigiri are ubiquitous (and of excellent quality).
But first, a quick note about breakfast. We stayed at the Les Suites Hotel, a centrally located boutique hotel just a few steps away from the Nanjing Fuxing MRT station. The service was warm and the highlight was the daily breakfast: a cornucopia of congee, preserved eggs, dumplings, fresh vegetables, and all manner of pickled things. Now that’s my kind of breakfast.
But back to the sushi. Addiction Aquatic Development is a modern seafood market meets sushi bar meets seafood restaurant meets hot pot meets…well, you get the picture. There are fruits and flowers and all kinds of other pretty things on sale, but the main attraction is the sushi. We started with an appetizer of uni with Japanese yam before moving on to kampyo, otoro, cured roe, tuna, steak, and salmon roe sushi.
All that sushi called for a plum tea with basil seeds at Comebuy. Hey, basil seeds are good for digestion so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring MAJI Square, a design-centric marketplace housing local artisans, creative vendors, and an array fo food stalls. We snacked on a pleasantly sweet and super QQ snack of cold tofu with taro and grass jelly at TOFU Meets Tea before taking the MRT to Ximending for an evening stroll in the rain. We capped off our evening with a warming meal of spicy Mongolian hot pot.
From sushi to hot pot and everything in between, Taipei has it all.